I'm moving from a hilly place to a flat place. 2 questions

mattyfatty1
mattyfatty1 Posts: 14
edited August 2014 in Training, fitness and health
I'm primarily a climber and spend most of my time going up an down hills, however, I am moving to The Netherlands for a year which is flat as a pancake. I have a couple of questions-
How will this affect my riding? What changes do you think will have happened to my riding by the end of the year? And also, how would I be able to retain my climbing proficiency during the year with absolutely no hills?
Cheers!

Comments

  • kingstonian
    kingstonian Posts: 2,847
    mattyfatty1 wrote:
    I'm primarily a climber and spend most of my time going up an down hills, however, I am moving to The Netherlands for a year which is flat as a pancake. I have a couple of questions-
    How will this affect my riding? What changes do you think will have happened to my riding by the end of the year? And also, how would I be able to retain my climbing proficiency during the year with absolutely no hills?
    Cheers!


    Where in the Netherlands are you moving to?

    Get used to riding into the wind. It seems virtually impossible to go in any direction there without facing a headwind.
  • wongataa
    wongataa Posts: 1,001
    There are some hills in the Netherlands towards the German border. Arnhem is by a hill.
  • imposter2.0
    imposter2.0 Posts: 12,028
    Depends on the level you ride at, the intensity you ride at, the duration you ride for and how often you ride at those intensities/durations. There's no particular reason why your climbing ability (whatever that means) should suffer, as long as you control your weight and maintain frequency and equivalent intensity. So, lots of variables there..
  • cyco2
    cyco2 Posts: 593
    There's a lot more race cyclists over there so if you join a training group you can forget about the hills. You will probably find it tough going for a 'hilly'. Just join in and learn a new style of racing.
    ...................................................................................................

    If you want to be a strong rider you have to do strong things.
    However if you train like a cart horse you'll race like one.
  • markwb79
    markwb79 Posts: 937
    Just depends how disciplined and focused you are I think.

    If you just go riding and ride fast up hills as your training then riding in Holland is super tough. You really need to have a certain plan to do certain blocks and then train at them.

    I find it very difficult to do 5min efforts without a hill for example.

    If you can focus enough to do them, then Holland is a great country to train in. Find a canal, head into the wind for 5mins and repeat....
    Scott Addict 2011
    Giant TCR 2012

Categories