Very steep climbs ! Kill me

speedjunkie

Im in a extremly good fitness, but still lots of room to improve, i love climbs around 1-6%, or even short steep climbs 500m - , 10% + .

Thing is Long (1km to 3, 4 kms) 7 - 10% climbs completly blow me away. Im 1.87m , 81.5K i will drop the weight to 75k. What else i can do do to sustain a solid rythim in the steep climbs ?

What i have to incorporate on my training plan , to attack this weakness.

drlodge

Going up hill is all about power to weight. And on long climbs its about sustainable power.

Practice is the answer, just keep at it and you'll lose some weight and improve your power output. If your are really struggling (blowing up) then take it a bit easier to you can get to the top without killing yourself. It might mean you need a lower gear which will allow you to increase your cadence.

speedjunkie

drlodge wrote:

Going up hill is all about power to weight. And on long climbs its about sustainable power.

Practice is the answer, just keep at it and you'll lose some weight and improve your power output. If your are really struggling (blowing up) then take it a bit easier to you can get to the top without killing yourself. It might mean you need a lower gear which will allow you to increase your cadence.

At my best im climbing 5kms climbs 6%+ at 1000 vam , but im really struggling and giving my all, and i need to save myself prior the climb plus suffer alot to sustain that climbing rate.

Short steep climbs 1 - 1.2km at 6% i can power them up, and go anaerobic for a bit and can go 1400 vam.

Thing is near my home best i can find is a 7% 1.2km climb and a 6% 1.2km , Doing hill repeats on this climb is it reproducable on 5kms long climbs ?

My Focus and passion is really long climbs, thing is if im suffering like a dog on a 6% for 5kms, i want to manage to do the biggest climb on my country next year 28.4km at 5% avg .

Yeah i could ease the rythim and go slow, but that´s not a option, i like to embrace the suffer and go full throtle.

speedjunkie

Also when training for steep climbs, the best way to train is go near 100% effort, or a tad below like 90% or a confortable but fast pace 70-80% ?

drlodge

If your VAM really is around 1000 then you're already very fit and putting out a lot of power, the answer to your problem is that you are training very hard and hard work hurts.

How hard you want to push yourself depends on your objectives. To get up that hill once as quickly as possible you need to be training at or near 100% as its quite a short effort. But to get up a much longer hill you need to be doing hill reps at a rate that you can sustain, at least for say 5 reps. Its like training for the 1500 meters compared to the sprint.

kajjal

There is a balance between pushing on up a hill and just making yourself blow up. Best to try various gears, differing cadence and standing / sitting to see what suits you best. A hill near us goes over 25% and I found for me on the steepest section going one gear harder and standing to pedal knocked 10 seconds off my time.

The most brutal climbs I have found are long rocky, loose , steep climbs off road on my moutain bike. Having to not just go up a steep hill but pull the bike over trail obstacles and keep traction is very hard work.

speedjunkie

drlodge wrote:

If your VAM really is around 1000 then you're already very fit and putting out a lot of power, the answer to your problem is that you are training very hard and hard work hurts.

How hard you want to push yourself depends on your objectives. To get up that hill once as quickly as possible you need to be training at or near 100% as its quite a short effort. But to get up a much longer hill you need to be doing hill reps at a rate that you can sustain, at least for say 5 reps. Its like training for the 1500 meters compared to the sprint.

The problem is that 5km 6% hill its 45 km away from home, for daily training its not sustainable go there.

I would love to go there regulary and try to climb it at various paces, and test myself in different conditions.

Maybe ill go there more regulary something like twice per week. The 1.2km hills dont really translate well in the 5km hill , i got very good in 3-6m efforts because of the 1.2km 7% hill repeats i probably climbed it almost 100 times this last 5 months. I think it helped gaining quite a bit of power, but the endurance for a 5km hill is all another level. Starting to think best way to train for it is actually go there and do it.

speedjunkie

Kajjal wrote:

There is a balance between pushing on up a hill and just making yourself blow up. Best to try various gears, differing cadence and standing / sitting to see what suits you best. A hill near us goes over 25% and I found for me on the steepest section going one gear harder and standing to pedal knocked 10 seconds off my time.

The most brutal climbs I have found are long rocky, loose , steep climbs off road on my moutain bike. Having to not just go up a steep hill but pull the bike over trail obstacles and keep traction is very hard work.

When im going 100% effort on the saddle, i dont have the energy to stand up, or i risk blowing away , cause having the hr near anaerobic limit, standing up puts it on anaerobic lvl.

drlodge

You don't need a hill to train actually, just stick it in a slightly higher gear than normal (to lower your cadence) and go at TT pace for however long you need to.

speedjunkie

I analized some rides, its evident i cant keep the same power on a 8% 9% 10% climb sections
on 5, 6 even 7% i can ride at 300W at least for a long time. at 8% 9% 10% steep sections i even struggle making the 300w for a couple of minutes, what the heck is going on.

Maybe psychological ?

Barbarossa

Is your cadence dropping too low? Do you need lower gears?

g00se

For long steady climbs, it'll be best to go up at our just below your 'threshold' power /heart rate. That way, you know you can keep the effort up for a good while.

The best way to train at threshold if you don't have those sort of climbs, is on the flat. Google Lactate Threshold Heart Rate and you'll find loads on the subject of assessing what yours is and how to train for it.

desweller

Suggest you post in training rather than road beginners.

jibberjim

speedjunkie wrote:

I analized some rides, its evident i cant keep the same power on a 8% 9% 10% climb sections
on 5, 6 even 7% i can ride at 300W at least for a long time. at 8% 9% 10% steep sections i even struggle making the 300w for a couple of minutes, what the heck is going on.

Maybe psychological ?

No, physical, pedalling on such climbs is different to the flat - due to the speed and the amount of de-acceleration through each pedal stroke, you have to apply force at a different point in the pedal stroke. Lower gears can help offset that if you're cadence drops too low, as low cadence increases the impact of it.

Standing can of course help, as that changes the pedalling action too.

Keeping the cadence and speed high will help limit the problem.

thegreatdivide

DesWeller wrote:

Suggest you post in training rather than road beginners.

Indeed. We've been here before with the OP. Please refrain for di*k waving in 'Road Beginers' (the clue's in the tile) and put these subjects in the Training forum.

Tjgoodhew

Forget the need to train on the same hill profile to get good at it. Where i live there are 2/3 hills about 1km long and average about 6%.

In December i climbed Mt Teide 40km at 6%. I found the best training i could do was to ride for longish periods of time into a head wind to replicate the effort required. I then did a few hill repeat sessions to practice my technique and work out the best gears to use for the gradient.

Climbing long hills is about pacing and mindset. Get comfortable and accept the fact that you are going to be riding without let up for a long time. I didnt set any records going up Teide but in reality i only started to feel tired towards the end in the last 5/6km - possibly due to the altitude

ai_1

Tjgoodhew wrote:

Forget the need to train on the same hill profile to get good at it. Where i live there are 2/3 hills about 1km long and average about 6%.

In December i climbed Mt Teide 40km at 6%. I found the best training i could do was to ride for longish periods of time into a head wind to replicate the effort required. I then did a few hill repeat sessions to practice my technique and work out the best gears to use for the gradient.

Climbing long hills is about pacing and mindset. Get comfortable and accept the fact that you are going to be riding without let up for a long time. I didnt set any records going up Teide but in reality i only started to feel tired towards the end in the last 5/6km - possibly due to the altitude

Likewise, I did this climb (35km and about 6.5% so probably a different approach) having never climbed anything more than 3km/10% or 6.5km/6% beforehand and those only occasionally. I got on fine. It's just a case of pacing yourself appropriately.
If however the OP is having problems achieving a specific performance level and looking to equate power levels on the flat versus the hill, then, as another poster said - go to the correct forum.