Cant stand it

Nijinsky

cesco wrote:

Zingzang wrote:

cesco wrote:

[And take any advice regarding "having" to sit down vs standing up with a grain of salt and just listen to your body. Sometimes standing up and raking works for me, other days spinning feels better.

Not everyone can climb out of the saddle; upper body handicaps can see to that. In 28 years of cycling with an upper limb handicap I've never climbed out of the saddle yet on steep gradients. In my youth I more than once climbed Winnat's Pass sitting in the saddle using a 42 chainring and 24 sprocket.

I'm sorry to hear this, but in the end we agree.

Nijinsky, have you tried zig-zagging by the way (if there's room for it?).

Went for it again yesterday and got a little higher but not by much. I gave up too easily last night I think, but there was a couple walking I was about to overtake a couple and the thought of collapsing in front of them in plain view made me stop i think. However I've been working on standing up other hill and building those muscles. Having a rest day today but tomorrow that hill is the start of a 55 mile ride to the inlaws and I'm going for it.

Jules Winnfield

markhewitt1978 wrote:

Personally I've always sat and spun but recently I've been trying to stand more like standing doing 8 pedal strokes then sitting and repeating as and when needed.

I've started doing this too, I've heard that pedalling standing up after a spell pedalling sitting down uses a different set of muscles in your legs which helps with fatigue but it also helps with the removal of lactic acid build up.

But to the OP, it never gets easier going uphill..... You just go faster

Peddle Up!

SecretSam wrote:

Nijinsky wrote:

Thanks guys. I think im hammering it too much lower down. Im also making the psychological mistake of staring at the very top.

Dunno if it still holds, but the old advice was "look just ahead of your front wheel"

This works for me. "Six more feet, then I'll get off". And so on...

Mad_Malx

Kajjal wrote:

Near me there is a climb that's goes through a 25% section and I stand up for this part. I find it easier to get the power down and maintain my speed better. I am stood up pedalling in a steady , controlled way and not attacking it like a mad man. For the rest of the climb I am sat down as normal. If climbing stood up it is best to do it in a smooth , well balanced , controlled way as too much effort will really hurt.

Problem for my local 25% is that, unless it's been dry for weeks, the back wheel will spin unless I stay seated.

I'm firmly in the 'get the biggest cassette you can' camp. Once you get strong enough you can stop using the big cog and buy a new cassette, but you won't get stronger walking up the hill.

Re pros on triples: think this did happen pre-compacts, and they will use compacts or 32 cassettes when needed, and are several gears stronger than most (all?) of us.


Edit: should be 'cassette you need' not 'can'

vs4b

SRAM wifi. 34 32 gets me up everything I've tried and I'm a terrible and overweight rider ;-)

rolf_f

Jules Winnfield wrote:

But to the OP, it never gets easier going uphill..... You just go faster

This is a bit of an urban myth. I used to find hills really hard. On my way home from work I'd stop at the bottom of the one climb I did on that route and then again a third of the way up to get myself across a steep roundabout. And I'd suffer all the way to the top counting pedal strokes. And it wasn't much of a climb. In a way, I suffered less on Hardknott on C2C in a day this year than I used to do on that little climb when I hadn't got my cycle fitness developed.

One day, on an Evans sportive, I suddenly realised I'd enjoyed a particularly climb (Dacre Bank not far from the famous Cote de Blubberhouses) - after that my attitude changed and I came to the conclusion that climbing was something I could do.

The thing is, not only is climbing really, really hard until you develop the basic fitness, when you do develop that fitness, climbing faster itself makes climbing easier because you are spending less time doing it. If you can get up a climb in ten minutes when someone else takes 15, then you are having an easier time of it.

markhewitt1978

Peddle Up! wrote:

SecretSam wrote:

Nijinsky wrote:

Thanks guys. I think im hammering it too much lower down. Im also making the psychological mistake of staring at the very top.

Dunno if it still holds, but the old advice was "look just ahead of your front wheel"

This works for me. "Six more feet, then I'll get off". And so on...

I've found that recently too, you are of course supposed to look where you're going, but sometimes on a long grinding climb it really helps to just look at the bit of tarmac right in front of you, and tackle that, looking at the top can be defeating.