What is an ideal bike setup for trail climbing?
ggraysonkrammer
Posts: 1
I like to ride on trails (currently I use a gravel bike, not a mountain bike). Many of the trails around here have tons of inclines, some of which are quite steep as they are not required to have some nice grades like the paved roads. I enjoy them, but there are some times where the grade is so steep (probably around 35%+), that even in my lowest gear, I come to a stop and have to hop off the saddle and walk it for a while. The thing is, I really enjoy climbing, but last time I "overdid" it and had some serious glute and back pain after grinding up against a hill and having to hop off 4-5 times, even in lowest gear. The hill Im referring to was actually so steep that I had to lean over the front of the bars in order to prevent the front wheel from popping up on me.
I've never even remotely come close to this occurring during ANY road biking - never had to hop off on a road hill nor have I had this type of pain.
This occurred on a Giant Revolt Advanced that has 32/48, 11x34 and 700x44C WTB Raddlers on it for tires. Amazingly, the tires didn't slip, but my legs did lol.
This got me wondering, would it be possible to set the bike up, or get a bike that is more specific to the task of climbing on dirt trails like this? I imagine first step would be to get even lower gear ratio. Climbing on trails is actually my favorite part of biking... I don't know if I'm a masochist or what but that's a big reason I don't do MTB - I like going up better than down.
I've never even remotely come close to this occurring during ANY road biking - never had to hop off on a road hill nor have I had this type of pain.
This occurred on a Giant Revolt Advanced that has 32/48, 11x34 and 700x44C WTB Raddlers on it for tires. Amazingly, the tires didn't slip, but my legs did lol.
This got me wondering, would it be possible to set the bike up, or get a bike that is more specific to the task of climbing on dirt trails like this? I imagine first step would be to get even lower gear ratio. Climbing on trails is actually my favorite part of biking... I don't know if I'm a masochist or what but that's a big reason I don't do MTB - I like going up better than down.
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Comments
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I'm not an expert, but happy to give my view and I'm sure there will some experts along soon.
Lighter weight bikes are a lot easier when you are going uphill, so you certainly seem to have a good starting point in using a gravel bike instead of a MTB. However, mountain bikes have gears that go a lot lower than most gravel bikes - and I would agree that you probably need to lower your gearing if you want to get up these hills.
Your current lowest gear is 32 / 34 and if you look at the gearing in Giant's XTC SLR which is a hardtail 29" MTB then the lowest gear is 32 / 51 which is 33% lower. The issue you will hit is the limit of your rear mech, but that can be changed.
Is your bike 10 speed or 11 speed?0 -
Take a look at your tyres (wider) and your tyre pressures (lower). Go tubeless to avoid pinch flats.0
