Upgrading bike to pedal up hills easier?

someoneeee

Hello, I'm currently new to biking and I was wondering what type of upgrades should I make to my "Schwinn Katana" in order to pedal easier uphills. It takes me a lot of effort to go up really tall hills even on the smallest gear so I have to walk. Thank you!

Also, I live in the East Coast.

drlodge

Sounds like you'd benefit from lower gearing, What chainset do you have e.g. 50/39 or 50/34 and what range casssette e.g. 12-25, 11-27 etc.

MountainMonster

The bike will not make too much of a difference. If you are new to cycling it will take a while to develop the muscles needed fr cycling and it can take a hell of a long time to get comfortable on hills. I suggest hitting them harder for longer and eventually you will make it.

It does no good to upgrade the bike if the legs can not handle it!

someoneeee

drlodge wrote:

Sounds like you'd benefit from lower gearing, What chainset do you have e.g. 50/39 or 50/34 and what range casssette e.g. 12-25, 11-27 etc.

Yeah, I think lower gearing would be great. Here's what I found:
53-34t crankset
28-14t casset

someoneeee

MountainMonster wrote:

The bike will not make too much of a difference. If you are new to cycling it will take a while to develop the muscles needed fr cycling and it can take a hell of a long time to get comfortable on hills. I suggest hitting them harder for longer and eventually you will make it.

It does no good to upgrade the bike if the legs can not handle it!

I mean, I'm not entirely new to cycling and I have strong legs, but the hills are freaking steep and tall to the extent that my bike can't handle the rigor that I put it through. :P

smidsy

While I agree with MM above that there are no short cuts to getting good up hills it is not true that making bike changes can not help.

As stated by droldge, gearing is the most useful item here.

You can also fit lighter wheels/tyre/tubes to assist.

Fitness is ultimately the real answer, but you need to have the gearing to at least get up the hill, walking up is not going to build hill climbing ability.

drlodge

someoneeee wrote:

drlodge wrote:

Sounds like you'd benefit from lower gearing, What chainset do you have e.g. 50/39 or 50/34 and what range casssette e.g. 12-25, 11-27 etc.

Yeah, I think lower gearing would be great. Here's what I found:
53-34t crankset
28-14t casset

Crankset will either be 53/39 or 50/34...If you have a 34 inner chainring you'll have 50/34 (Compact).

In that case you already have the lowest esaily obtainable gearing i.e. 34 chainring and 28 rear sprocket. To get lower gearing you'll need to:
- Move to a triple chainset with a smaller (30) chainring on the inside; and/or
- Change the cassette to something like 12-32 or 12-34

Both would probably require a longer cage rear derailleur. What's the bike?

someoneeee

drlodge wrote:

someoneeee wrote:

drlodge wrote:

Sounds like you'd benefit from lower gearing, What chainset do you have e.g. 50/39 or 50/34 and what range casssette e.g. 12-25, 11-27 etc.

Yeah, I think lower gearing would be great. Here's what I found:
53-34t crankset
28-14t casset

Crankset will either be 53/39 or 50/34...If you have a 34 inner chainring you'll have 50/34 (Compact).

In that case you already have the lowest esaily obtainable gearing i.e. 34 chainring and 28 rear sprocket. To get lower gearing you'll need to:
- Move to a triple chainset with a smaller (30) chainring on the inside; and/or
- Change the cassette to something like 12-32 or 12-34

Both would probably require a longer cage rear derailleur. What's the bike?

It's a Schwinn Katana.

johnmcsorley

To be brutally honest, it's not usually the bike that is the problem getting up hills, it's usually the 'pedaller'.

Before going full carbon or spending a fortune on upgrades, jump on the scales, check your BMI and see how far off the magic number that Pro's use with weight to power ratio; 1kg of body weight per 2.5cm's of height. This is to be taken very loosely though.

someoneeee

johnmcsorley wrote:

To be brutally honest, it's not usually the bike that is the problem getting up hills, it's usually the 'pedaller'.

Before going full carbon or spending a fortune on upgrades, jump on the scales, check your BMI and see how far off the magic number that Pro's use with weight to power ratio; 1kg of body weight per 2.5cm's of height. This is to be taken very loosely though.

I have about a 26-27 BMI and I weigh approximately 173 lbs.

drlodge

http://www.amazon.com/Schwinn-Katana-Ro ... ql_qh_dp_t says the chainset is 53/39 in which case you'd could get a compact chainset (50/34) to lower the gearing. Or just try and miss the steep hills until you're stronger.

someoneeee

drlodge wrote:

http://www.amazon.com/Schwinn-Katana-Road-Bike-Frame/dp/B000FVC9NU/ref=cm_cd_ql_qh_dp_t says the chainset is 53/39 in which case you'd could get a compact chainset (50/34) to lower the gearing. Or just try and miss the steep hills until you're stronger.

I think I'll be getting a compact chainset. Just curious though, would I need to replace my bottom bracket, rear derailleur, chain and shifters?

drlodge

It depends with the BB, without knowing what kind of chainset fitting yours currently is and what you want to change it to, I can't tell. Shifters will be fine, probably need new chain (cheap anyway), may get away with rear derailleur depending on capacity.

imposter2.0

Upgrade yourself - get fitter. Improved threshold and better aerobic fitness will get you up hills far more efficiently than any mechanical upgrade. Someone has to say it...

elderone

I went from a 53-39 to compact on the front and then from a 26-11 to a 30-12.This was with shimano 2300 and all worked great.No changes of any kind needed.
To be honest made me no quicker up hills but had lower heart rate which was what i wanted..Further down the line I do same hills and hardly ever use the 30 now.So yes it will help but also getting fitter and stronger helps more.
Would I do same again knowing what I know now? Yes.

team47b

Get your BMI down to about 20, then worry about the bike if you need to.

dynamicbrick

An extra tooth or two on the back won't magically turn you into a freshly steaked-up Contador. It'll just mean you're pedalling slightly faster before you need to get off and push.

Aside from the obvious bit about weight and strength, the key to successful hills for us mortals is technique; specifically cadence, and breathing.

Get into the bottom of the slope as fast as you can and then get a comfortable cadence and breathing going, using the gears to maintain them, forget about road speed. Just concentrate on keeping that cadence and output at a constant rate - whatever's comfortable for you. At the point when the cadence starts to suffer, then come up a cog. Don't stand up until you're in 1st gear.

You'll find hills are immeasurably easier, your aerobic fitness will improve, and before long you'll find you're not needing to use all the gears you were previously on hills. Yes, it's not heroic or badass, but it gets me up the hills on the South Downs efficiently, and usually quicker than the guys dancing about like aforementioned Spaniard as they puff out 3/4s of the way up.

dennisn

drlodge wrote:

someoneeee wrote:

drlodge wrote:

Sounds like you'd benefit from lower gearing, What chainset do you have e.g. 50/39 or 50/34 and what range casssette e.g. 12-25, 11-27 etc.

Yeah, I think lower gearing would be great. Here's what I found:
53-34t crankset
28-14t casset

Crankset will either be 53/39 or 50/34...If you have a 34 inner chainring you'll have 50/34 (Compact).

In that case you already have the lowest esaily obtainable gearing i.e. 34 chainring and 28 rear sprocket. To get lower gearing you'll need to:
- Move to a triple chainset with a smaller (30) chainring on the inside; and/or
- Change the cassette to something like 12-32 or 12-34

Both would probably require a longer cage rear derailleur. What's the bike?

TA Specialties makes a 33 tooth inner compact chainring. Granted it's only a tooth but just as every second counts so does every tooth(when you really need it). Even though most front mech's say they will only handle up to a 16 tooth difference my DA front never failed with a 50-33 crankset and that's 17 teeth.

jotko

someoneeee wrote:

I have about a 26-27 BMI and I weigh approximately 173 lbs.

team47b wrote:

Get your BMI down to about 20, then worry about the bike if you need to.

Just need to lose ~20kg, or 25% of your body weight then

pilot_pete

A compact chainset really should be fitted, especially on an entry level bike...

This will help considerably and may go some way to preventing you having to get off and walk. There should be very few hills in the UK that you can't get up on a compact with a 28 tooth sprocket on the back...if so then it really is down to you!

To get better, follow the advice above about getting in a low gear and tapping out a rythymn rather than standing straight up and hammering it. As you get stronger you will find that you can stay seated up anything but the steepest climbs. Find a hill close to you that has a pretty constant gradient and is about a mile long. Ride up it really steadily concentrating on tapping out that rythymn on the pedals til you get to the top. If it is not too steep and you manage it realtively easily, ride back down and do it again. Do as many repeats as you can handle then ride home. Do this once a week as part of your training and you will improve on the hills. Once this gets easy, change it about a bit; ride the first half at a steady tempo, then up the effort for the next 1/4 and then go flat out for the last 1/4. Once this gets doable, pick a steeper hill or ride even harder. Within a few months you will see a significant improvement and that hill that was beating you? Well, you probably won't even blink going up it.

This really works and it the method I used for getting better on the hills on my doorstep (the Peak District), which are pretty short and quite often bloody steep! It works really well for when you want to start attempting bigger climbs too - I climbed the Tourmalet flat out last summer, only standing for the steepest bit near the top - that's 18km of going up, all seated at my lactate threshold, on a 34-25 lowest gear (I'm no spring chicken!!!) and that was after several days of riding most of the other great Cols to get there...

PP

simon_masterson

dynamicbrick wrote:

An extra tooth or two on the back won't magically turn you into a freshly steaked-up Contador. It'll just mean you're pedalling slightly faster before you need to get off and push.

Aside from the obvious bit about weight and strength, the key to successful hills for us mortals is technique; specifically cadence, and breathing.

Get into the bottom of the slope as fast as you can and then get a comfortable cadence and breathing going, using the gears to maintain them, forget about road speed. Just concentrate on keeping that cadence and output at a constant rate - whatever's comfortable for you. At the point when the cadence starts to suffer, then come up a cog. Don't stand up until you're in 1st gear.

You'll find hills are immeasurably easier, your aerobic fitness will improve, and before long you'll find you're not needing to use all the gears you were previously on hills. Yes, it's not heroic or badass, but it gets me up the hills on the South Downs efficiently, and usually quicker than the guys dancing about like aforementioned Spaniard as they puff out 3/4s of the way up.

This is good advice.

Upgrading the bike is not the answer. In the nicest possible way, you have a long way to go before that is the case. If you have a 34t chainring and a cassette that goes lower than 21, you should be able to get up practically anything this country has to offer...

Sprool

...however, if you have a 30t ring and a cassette going up to 28 t then the whole hill climb thing can be a lot more manageable and enjoyable for us middle aged mortals. If its more do-able then you'll have more incentive to get out and try to improve on your time. With this comes better fitness and better technique then before you know it the hills you once dreaded become a manageable challenge you actually enjoy.

simon_masterson

Sprool wrote:

...however, if you have a 30t ring and a cassette going up to 28 t then the whole hill climb thing can be a lot more manageable and enjoyable for us middle aged mortals. If its more do-able then you'll have more incentive to get out and try to improve on your time. With this comes better fitness and better technique then before you know it the hills you once dreaded become a manageable challenge you actually enjoy.

Indeed I quite agree; for much this reason I'm more than happy to condone the use of triples.

smoggysteve

The day you FAIL to get up a climb is the day you look at different ratios. If you can make it up a hill with what you currently have, all you need to do is get fitter. Same as people asking about 11 or 12 teeth on their cassettes, its not going to make a damn bit if difference if you do not have the legs or lungs to keep that crank going round. If you struggle to the top and feel you are suffering, hey, guess what? You still made it. Get in the flat and you can actually recover while riding ready for the next climb. When you get up a hill faster than before, you will feel 100 times better knowing it was you that improved and not the bike making it simpler.

Remember, It's not the gearbox that makes you go faster, it's the engine!!!

someoneeee

jotko wrote:

someoneeee wrote:

I have about a 26-27 BMI and I weigh approximately 173 lbs.

team47b wrote:

Get your BMI down to about 20, then worry about the bike if you need to.

Just need to lose ~20kg, or 25% of your body weight then

Actually, I might've miscalculated the BMI. I am about a 23-24.

pride4ever

someoneeee wrote:

Hello, I'm currently new to biking and I was wondering what type of upgrades should I make to my "Schwinn Katana" in order to pedal easier uphills. It takes me a lot of effort to go up really tall hills even on the smallest gear so I have to walk. Thank you!

Also, I live in the East Coast.

Forget upgrading the bike until youve hit your fighting weight.

cattytown

One question I didn't see asked - what sort of gradients are you looking at? there are high hills, steep hills and high, steep hills. If it really is particularly high, steep or both struggling may well be the norm.

Paul.

volociroldster

[

cattytown wrote:

One question I didn't see asked - what sort of gradients are you looking at? there are high hills, steep hills and high, steep hills. If it really is particularly high, steep or both struggling may well be the norm.

Paul.

quote][/quote]

Looking through the thread i couldn't but wonder at what point we were going to ask this. BMI, gearing bike weight etc whilst all valid will do nothing to improve strength, stamina and resilience on climbs. I swam and played rugby for years and thought i had really strong lungs and legs until i got into regular cycling about 3 yrs back and a couple of local hills were killing me. i had no perspective on what was a hard climb until i started looking around on the 'net' and started seeing advice on 'proper' climbing. Made my 'hills' look a tad feeble. Ensure the 'hills' concerned are on every ride out and be sure you are optimising the gearing on the bike. Having the discipline to not hit the base of the climb hard and to stick to a steady rhythm may also be useful. All of that said, you may just be going too extreme too soon.

dennisn

From a more Scientific viewpoint it takes a certain amount of wattage(power) to move a given weight(you and your bike) up a specific hill. It doesn't matter what kind of shape you're in or not in, it still takes the same wattage to move you and your bike up that hill. i.e. same wattage will be required whether it's my grandmother pedaling or Lance. As long as it's the same hill and they (and their bikes) weight the same. Nothing you can do will cause you to use less wattage in getting up that hill, EXCEPT, losing weight from yourself and or the bike. Less weight to get to the top =
less power(wattage) required. It doesn't even matter how steep the hill is as long as it's the same height. This doesn't include things like wind, rolling resistance, and the like, they are considered constants in this case. Once again all the matters is how high the hill is and how much load(you and bike) must be moved up said height.

imposter2.0

dennisn wrote:

From a more Scientific viewpoint

hilarious and ironic in equal measure

briantrumpet

Imposter wrote:

dennisn wrote:

From a more Scientific viewpoint

hilarious and ironic in equal measure

I like to think about watts more as a metaphor, less an exact measure, as I only get an inferiority complex if I think about them in scientific terms.

To the OP - I've falied on three hills: a couple of 25%ers in the Lake District (including Wrynose from the west), and one near Awliscombe in Devon, despite being one of the better climbers in my club. All times it's been because I'd sapped reserves earlier in the rides, so don't despair. Lose weight, get fitter, possibly change to a compact. I wouldn't want to be riding a standard chainset in Devon, as I prefer to keep a highish cadence. But equally, there are some great climbers in the club who ride standard chainsets - they show it is possible if you've got the engine to push whatever weight you are up a hill.