Where Are My Climbing Legs?

CakeLovinBeast · February 2012

I've never particularly enjoyed climbing, but I've never particularly hidden away from it either. At the end of the day, I live in Devon and there's not much opportunity for hiding from the hills. Typically, my rides seem to average out at about 15mph average and probably ~1000ft per hour. Here is yesterday's ride as an example.

When I'm climbing, my issue always seems to be that my legs have no real power to them. First 100 metres is fine. Second 100 metres and it starts to get difficult; 300 metres in and I'm changing rapidly down through my cassette and I'm almost immediately into the granny gear and I'm stuck there for the rest of the climb. I can't help but feel there must be a better way of doing things. I deliberately take hills on during my rides as an attempt to get better and I know I'm making small gains, but I feel like there must be a better way to improve this feeling of having no power I get when I climb.

So what can I do? I attempt hill repeats, though admittedly not regularly enough. I also do high resistance, low(er) tempo work on the turbo to try and simulate climbs. Is there anything else I can try? Or is it simply a case of keep plugging away, building the muscles and losing the weight?

pbt150 · February 2012

Sounds like you could be starting the climb too fast if you're OK for ~100 m, then it starts hurting and you switch down the cassette. Maybe try the climb a gear or two easier, and see if you can maintain a more consistent speed all the way up.

danlikesbikes · February 2012

I've always struggled to train for hills on a turbo no matter how hard I try. There a lots of different ways you can build hills into your training (I live in Buckingham so know what you mean about lack of real hills).

Hill repeats are good but you could also try them in 1 gear only to get you used to consistent power output climbing which will have the advantage that as you are starting in a lower gear than you would normally you will not be going to quick and burn yourself out, should also help you concentrate on a nice climbing technique and stead inputs through the pedals. Or simply build in a short hill route with 2 or 3 climbs and then instead of spending a hour or 2 on a normal route just do the hill route several times, sounds boring but if you can do the route 4 or 5 times you will notice the difference. Plus would never forget a quick session in the gym for a core & lower legs workout just don't go near the meat heads bashing the weights around!

CakeLovinBeast · February 2012

pbt150 wrote:

Sounds like you could be starting the climb too fast if you're OK for ~100 m, then it starts hurting and you switch down the cassette. Maybe try the climb a gear or two easier, and see if you can maintain a more consistent speed all the way up.

I tend to try and pace myself using my heartrate... I know roughly what I can sustain and then adjust my pace to suit. It doesn't seem (to me) like a pacing issue - it's more that I feel like I should be able to spin a larger gear on the more gentle gradients if that makes sense? Maybe I'm just a bit too impatient, and the power will come with time...

Slack · February 2012

You probably just need to do more aerobic work, to improve your hearts pump efficiency and lung fitness (I'm sure there are probably more technical terms for those). With those organs working more efficiently, you will up your whole cycling capacity - i.e. climbs hills faster.

It's not in the legs, it comes from your core engine and no amount of hill intervals will generate the hill endurance that one needs for the Dartmoor region. Patience, I'm afraid. It's taken me two years of cycling to get my hill climbing to a decent level in comparison to my club peers.

Mettan · February 2012

You're being too hard on yourself Cake - on that route, after a quick warmup, you're climbing 6 - 8 % gradients interspersed with some gentler stuff - unless you're climbing out of the saddle, what gear do you expect to be in going up a 7 % gradient?? Of course, go back up the cassette for a bit when it levels out here and there, but on 7 % gradients one after the other (for a decent bit) it's perfectly normal to be in the easiest gear. It takes time to improve your body's aerobic fitness - i.e. 2 or 3 years worth of regularly doing that 1000 ft er and you'll be eating it up (and most other lumpy bits in Britain).

pipipi · February 2012

How about doing the whole hill in granny gear?

Then next time, which could be in the same ride, or could be the next ride, try in the next one up (great aunt gear) for the whole hill?

There may well be bits that you want to go faster on, but I think you'd be better off saving yourself for later on in the hill. But some of those hills in Dartmoor? I'd be in granny gear every time, just dreaming of the other side!

cyco2 · February 2012

Compared to where I ride ( South Oxfordshire) your ride is mega lumpy and getting used to it would be a problem for many. It may be too much for training to climb because you have to conserve energy to complete it. Do you have a small loop to go round where you can go balls out on some of the hills. Just climbing at a set pace that gets you to the top is a way to improve but over a long period of time. You really need to attack the hill, getting out of the saddle, gasping for breath, sitting down again to recover and then standing up again. Do this as often as you can. Watch some videos on the tour riders when they attack and you'll see what I mean. An interesting thing to do is climb all the way up out of the saddle at a sustainable pace. Changing gears as you go. If you are able to do it in time then your climbing ability would be greatly enhanced. On very short climbs, sprint like hell and blow up! This not a time to be using a HRM.
I see that your data does not contain an average speed or wind conditions. The one I worked out is about 15mph which for the climbing your doing seems not to bad. So, if you do start to train on hills for a few weeks, 4 would be better, try your circuit again and get back here.

I take it you don't have a weight problem yourself and the bike

cyco2 · February 2012

cyco2 wrote:

Compared to where I ride ( South Oxfordshire) your ride is mega lumpy and getting used to it would be a problem for many. It may be too much for training to climb because you have to conserve energy to complete it. Do you have a small loop to go round where you can go balls out on some of the hills. Just climbing at a set pace that gets you to the top is a way to improve but over a long period of time. You really need to attack the hill, getting out of the saddle, gasping for breath, sitting down again to recover and then standing up again. Do this as often as you can. Watch some videos on the tour riders when they attack and you'll see what I mean. An interesting thing to do is climb all the way up out of the saddle at a sustainable pace. Changing gears as you go. If you are able to do it in time then your climbing ability would be greatly enhanced. On very short climbs, sprint like hell and blow up! This not a time to be using a HRM.
I see that your data does not contain an average speed or wind conditions. The one I worked out is about 15mph which for the climbing your doing seems not to bad. So, if you do start to train on hills for a few weeks, 4 would be better, try your circuit again and get back here.

CakeLovinBeast · February 2012

cyco2 wrote:

I see that your data does not contain an average speed or wind conditions. The one I worked out is about 15mph which for the climbing your doing seems not to bad. So, if you do start to train on hills for a few weeks, 4 would be better, try your circuit again and get back here.

I take it you don't have a weight problem yourself and the bike

I've got a shorter circuit that I use when I'm *just* doing hill training - a 4-ish mile loop round the house that is pretty much 2 miles up and then 2 miles back down again. I do three or four laps of that, but it gets fairly tedious. I try and mix that up with "normal" rides that just happen to take in some decent hills.

*My* weight is not optimal, but not terrible. I'm 91Kg now, down from 95 at Christmas time and the trend is to lose a pound or two every week. I can lose more, but I am working on that.

moley123 · February 2012

At 91kg and riding that average over the moor I take my hat off to you. Dartmoor can be a brute of a place.

CakeLovinBeast · February 2012

Worth pointing out that I'm also 6'2", so I'm not *THAT* overweight!

moley123 · February 2012

No disrespect intended. thing with climbing really is you must get used to being outside the comfort zone.
As they say got to learn to suffer, it will all come good in the end. Could try hooking up with the Mid Devon CC
boys youll come on in leaps and bounds.

CakeLovinBeast · February 2012

I'm already with MDCC!

jocksyboy · February 2012

the best way to improve climbing is to climb more. If you increase your threshold power you'll do better on the hills. also lose some more weight. Most of the decent climbers in the UK will be 65-70 kilos so you are at a disadvantage (like me!!) but you'll go downhill faster

Where Are My Climbing Legs?

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