I hate hills but think I'm doing them wrong?

bongofish

Hey all!

I'm fairly new to road biking but been MTB riding a few years. I would say I'm in reasonable fitness. 6 foot 2 and 75kg. I got into road biking while realising full sus mountain biking means I have to drive 40 mins to actual use it properly. And road biking is straight on door step.

So I've got myself a carbon framed road bike. Nothing expensive but seems to work.

My issue is I would like to class myself as fairly fit. Not super fit but not unfit but eveeytime I hate any hill I'm pushing and start to Bob up and down or do the chicken move with my head. I'm always waiting for the top to come and all the way up thinking....why am I doing this to myself haha. And then I get to the top and the flats and i love it again. My bike weighs 9.5kg which I know isn't super light but for £600 it seems good for a carbon frame. I think my issue is that I'm attacking hills with the want to not drop any speed so keep pushing as hard as I can and dropping gears and trying to get to the top as quick as I can. From watching some videos I think I should just be dropping it in a low gear and pacing myself and just deal with the fact I feel like a snail? It's like eveeytime I hit a hill I also hit the wall.

Any recommendations as I'm literally planning rides to try and miss as many hills as I can and just not doing them if it means lots of climbing hills.

Thanks guys

pilot_pete

1. Pace yourself. Drop to a lower gear early, don’t attack the bottom of a hill trying to sustain the same speed as you were doing on the flat, that’s not going to work on anything longer than a couple of hundred feet. Going hard on a hill is not sustaining the speed you were doing on the flat, it’s going at a pace you can sustain. If I’m going hard up a hill I’ll sit at my threshold (power or HR). If I go above that I will have to back off after not very long.

2. Do more hills. The best way to get better at them is to do more of them. We all started off dying on the smallest pimples but stuck at it to eventually be able to climb for a few hours constant. Hill repeats can improve your climbing once you have a ‘hill base’, by which I mean you can ride a hill comfortably.

PP

Tyresome

If you remain seated for as long as possible, you’ll be more efficient, as the more points of contact you maintain with the bike, the better, as far as efficiency goes. Stand in any corners, or if the front starts to skip around if the gradient suddenly shoots up, then get back in the saddle as soon as possible. It’s not necessarily the fastest way, but if the hill is of any significant length, you’ll probably be suffering less, if you’re doing it more efficiently. Then do lots of hill reps, hills are the best way of getting better at hills

webboo

Try riding a hill you find tough in different ways. Seated, standing,twiddling a small gear or grinding it out in a big one. You will find out which style suits you.
I know people who grind along in big gear on the flat then twiddle on the hills and folk who do opposite. You just need to practice.

simon_e

Yes, pacing is key. It sounds like you are trying to ride at an unsustainable level of effort.

As well as fitness improving your technique is always going to help. I found riding uphill easier when I stopped getting my upper body to 'muscle' the gear over. My friend once said that I looked like I was grappling with my bike while the fast guys sailed past like swans - calm on top, smooth but effective movement below. I tell myself to "Think swan" and focus on working like a piston, pushing from the hips (glutes), relaxing my top half and barely holding the bars/hoods or just resting my hands on them.

Practise on less steep gradients and try using a lower gear at a slightly faster cadence than normal. When it gets hard remind yourself to breathe rhythmically and deeply, consciously exhaling instead of snatching another breath before you've emptied your lungs.

Bike weight makes negligible difference.

A long article by someone who knows a lot more about it than me:
https://cyclinguphill.com/cycle-uphill-techniques/

N0bodyOfTheGoat

If you simply want to get up a hill and not worry about how long it took you compared to your PB, choose a gear that you can comfortably spin at approx 80+ rpm, which will almost certainly involve using the small chainring on a double ring chainset.

If you are trying to improve your time up a hill, it will help to know your current Lactate Threshold Heart Rate and be able to see your heart rate in real time. Mine is currently ~175bpm, so if I stay under that figure, my cardio vascular system should not hinder my effort.

A power meter can help you gauge your gearing for a climb, when you have a feel for a hill's statistics and the sort of Watts you can sustain for a given amount of time.

Try to ensure your gearing range is suitable for the hills you encounter and your current ability... Turning up at say Draycott Steep with 52/36 chainrings and an 11-25 cassette is asking for trouble!

cougie

Don't attack the hill in too big a gear because then you'll have to drop it down the gears and stall. Keep the cadence up in a lower gear.

imposter2.0

Your ability to climb will improve in line with improvements in your aerobic fitness and sustainable power. Various techniques being suggested here might help a bit, but they are not going to compensate for a threshold which can't sustain the effort you want to make. Just keep riding - up, down, flat, wherever. There's no secret to it and there's no magic technique either...

sniper68

Spinners are Winners.

OnTheRopes

It depends on the hill, people telling you to remain seated I guess haven't ridden many 1 in 4's
Just ride, find your own technique, sit, stand whatever you are comfortable with, ride lots get stronger, push yourself a bit when you feel like it, don't stress about it just ride.

Tyresome

Remember that your body will tend to fuel differently depending on which method you choose as well. High power spinning (relatively low torque, high cadence biased power which up hill will be ) will see the body mostly fat fuelling, where as high power grinding ( relatively low cadence, high torque biased power ) will see the body fuelling more on stored Glycogen. So if your route is a decent length, with hills at various intervals, it should feel easier / more comfortable to grind more early on, whilst you still have decent Glycogen levels, and spin later on when the glycogen has depleted.

mrfpb

Next time you choose a hilly route, adjust the front mech screws so that you can only use the small ring. You'll have no choice but to spin at high cadence, and you might find it works for you.

(Some may say I only know this due to my own incompetence at maintaining my bike. I couldn't possibly comment)

imposter2.0

Tyresome wrote:

Remember that your body will tend to fuel differently depending on which method you choose as well. High power spinning (relatively low torque, high cadence biased power which up hill will be ) will see the body mostly fat fuelling, where as high power grinding ( relatively low cadence, high torque biased power ) will see the body fuelling more on stored Glycogen. So if your route is a decent length, with hills at various intervals, it should feel easier / more comfortable to grind more early on, whilst you still have decent Glycogen levels, and spin later on when the glycogen has depleted.

Just utter nonsense...

cooldad

Milemuncher etc?

imposter2.0

'fraid so...

trek_dan

Coming from a MTB background your probably used to mashing a big gear for short periods of time and going easy the rest. Its how MTB climbs work as generally not a long steady gradient for miles after mile. Its just practice/better fitness and managing to find a sustainable effort for you.

paulbnix

I live close to the Peak district so cycle a lot of hills.

My favoured technique is to accelerate as I approach the hill and try and keep that speed for a while by just spinning the legs and not increasing the effort much. Then as soon as the legs start slowing down drop right down the gears and settle in for the hill.

Wayne Plunger

Go at what you are comfortable with, you will get to the top eventually is my motto.

It may be right, it may be wrong to the purists but it gets me up 'em.

chippyk

I’m not overweight anywhere else but have calves and thighs like a track sprinter (ok maybe not that big) and whilst I am perfectly happy on long drags, Teide is a favourite of mine, once it gets past 10% I’m working a bit. Pacing is everything for me, on harder climbs I take it slowly, feeling well within myself at the bottom, if I can saving a gear or two to go down to if I need. I also chose the right gearing, whisky others may be fine, I wouldn’t do say a 2km 10% average hill on a 36/25 bottom gear half way around a 100 mile loop, I’d take my bike with a 34/32 bottom gear.

On a summer evening, or winter in the turbo, I do intervals either on a hill or at above threshold HR/power to try to get better which helps.

If I’m in a group I also go at my own pace, sort of, I hit the hill at the front of the pack sliding back through the group and don’t try to keep up with the better riders. I also accept at some point it’s going to be hard work and my son will be laughing at me.

Works for me but each to their own.

DeVlaeminck

Tyresome wrote:

Remember that your body will tend to fuel differently depending on which method you choose as well. High power spinning (relatively low torque, high cadence biased power which up hill will be ) will see the body mostly fat fuelling, where as high power grinding ( relatively low cadence, high torque biased power ) will see the body fuelling more on stored Glycogen. So if your route is a decent length, with hills at various intervals, it should feel easier / more comfortable to grind more early on, whilst you still have decent Glycogen levels, and spin later on when the glycogen has depleted.

I think it's more how hard you attack the hill rather than whether you are seated or standing or your what your gear is which determines that.

edit - just realised I've fallen for some trolling there.

keef66

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Tyresome wrote:

Remember that your body will tend to fuel differently depending on which method you choose as well. High power spinning (relatively low torque, high cadence biased power which up hill will be ) will see the body mostly fat fuelling, where as high power grinding ( relatively low cadence, high torque biased power ) will see the body fuelling more on stored Glycogen. So if your route is a decent length, with hills at various intervals, it should feel easier / more comfortable to grind more early on, whilst you still have decent Glycogen levels, and spin later on when the glycogen has depleted.

I think it's more how hard you attack the hill rather than whether you are seated or standing or your what your gear is which determines that.

edit - just realised I've fallen for some trolling there.

Yep, he's back

keef66

@ the O.P. when I came back to road cycling at the age of 50 I thought I was fairly fit because I still played 5-a-side and did a bit of MTB riding. It came as a massive shock to find that I just didn't have the endurance or the aerobic fitness to ride a road bike at a decent speed, or for any distance, and definitely not both.

Build up gradually. Ignore distances and speeds to start with and just concentrate on spending more time on the bike. If you find hills hard, try thinking of them as a training aid. Find a gear / cadence that you think you can sustain to the top then recover on the flat or on the way down. Experiment with the gears to see what suits you the best. I'm naturally a spinner, but sometimes I'll try a hill in a harder gear / lower cadence, or deliberately climb it standing all the way.

To start with I hated hills too. They'd slow me to a crawl and only seemed to reinforce how little cycling fitness I had.
But now I've learned to love them, indeed many rides I plan to take in as as many hills as I can. I climb them at my own pace, and although I'm frequently passed by other cyclists who can clearly sustain a lot more power than me, I'm at peace with my mediocre climbing ability. And at 61 take comfort from the knowledge that I'm still fitter than a lot of my sofa-bound contemporaries

keef66

Tyresome wrote:

Remember that your body will tend to fuel differently depending on which method you choose as well. High power spinning (relatively low torque, high cadence biased power which up hill will be ) will see the body mostly fat fuelling, where as high power grinding ( relatively low cadence, high torque biased power ) will see the body fuelling more on stored Glycogen. So if your route is a decent length, with hills at various intervals, it should feel easier / more comfortable to grind more early on, whilst you still have decent Glycogen levels, and spin later on when the glycogen has depleted.

Why trot out such nonsense to somebody who admits they are new to road cycling?

hairy_boy

A few thoughts,

I definately find spinning uphill easier (and ultimately quicker) than grinding, the slowest climber in our club is a grinder !

I go mostly seated uphill but have to stand if things get really steep.

Check you have your seat height set correctly, loads of tutorials online, if you have your seat set a little low that can make everything hard work, particularly climbing.

Can you do routes which involve one decent climb for now? This allows you to enjoy most of the ride and push on that one big hill. You should find if you do it regularly that in a fairly short space of time that hill gets easier, or you get up it quicker - strava's not for everyone but seeing your PR on a hill get quicker can be very satisfying and motivational.

keef66

Hairy Boy wrote:

Check you have your seat height set correctly, loads of tutorials online, if you have your seat set a little low that can make everything hard work, particularly climbing.

That is a very good point. I occasionally see people with comically low saddles, and think it must be quite hard work. Once setting off from home with my son who's 30 years my junior I found I was making better progress up the hill than he was. Turned out he'd lowered his saddle when his girlfriend borrowed his bike. Once we'd adjusted it properly normal service was resumed and he left me for dead...

So optimising your saddle height is quite important

imposter2.0

Hairy Boy wrote:

the slowest climber in our club is a grinder !

Slowest, most likely, because he has the least amount of climbing fitness/ability compared to the rest of you. It doesn't automatically follow that 'grinding' is somehow less preferable than spinning. There is no single 'most appropriate' style for climbing.

philbar72

weapons grade trolling.

spin a gear at 75-85 rpm that you can for the entirety of the climb if its an even pitch. stay seated unless you run out of gears or its too steep. if you are on a long climb, occasionally get out of the saddle and gear up a couple of gears whilst doing this. that's what worked for me (a non climber) in the alps. 20km climbs at 7% are a bit different to the local hill though. each to their own.

First.Aspect

OP, how do you get on climbing on a mountain bike? Technical stuff aside, its much easier to climb on a road bike (at least for me, because I am not good on a mtb).

OnTheRopes

A lot of the advice that suggests you should spin when climbing as it is more efficient have probably based that on Alpine climbs of many kilometres (although watch TdF in the eighties and there was plenty of grinding)
Now transfer that to UK climbs and most of the time it wont matter, short sharp hills are sometimes better out of the saddle, other climbs maybe seated with short periods out of the saddle to stretch. Whatever suits you best works over a short period of time, if you are new to cycling then you will have to find what suits you best.

stueys

I'd check a couple of things out -
1) take a look at your gearing, whilst you're building cycling fitness you want some nice, low gearing that you can spin out. Pushing a big gear for a long period of time tires the muscles a lot faster than spinning a lower gear (85+ cadence). You'll see the pro's spinning up climbs at 95-100 and that's partly why
(2) if you're new to road biking then check your saddle height, lots of new roadies tend to have the saddle lower than is ideal and that can cause your quads to burn earlier. Google setting saddle height, there are 2 or 3 methods that will get you in roughly the right spot

stueys

Stueys wrote:

I'd check a couple of things out -
1) take a look at your gearing, whilst you're building cycling fitness you want some nice, low gearing that you can spin out. Pushing a big gear for a long period of time tires the muscles a lot faster than spinning a lower gear (85+ cadence). You'll see the pro's spinning up climbs at 95-100 and that's partly why
(2) if you're new to road biking then check your saddle height, lots of new roadies tend to have the saddle lower than is ideal and that can cause your quads to burn earlier. Google setting saddle height, there are 2 or 3 methods that will get you in roughly the right spot

And I've just realised I've repeated what everyone has already said :oops:

Sorry, should have read the thread first...