Originally Posted by
Steamer
I sorta agree, sorta not. If one has a decent fitness and relatively low weight, and/or has sufficiently low gears, you can often climb in Z3 (if not even Z2), even on pretty steep climbs (I'd personally call 'pretty steep' up to about 10-12%). Ludicrously steep (say, 15%+) climbs will put most mortals into Z4, or at least high Z3, though. Everyone, and every region, and everyone's gearing, is different. My basic point is, though, that I can do a multi-hour ride with climbing rates up to 100 ft/mile and never leave low Z3 - IF I don't choose to. I am average fitness, relatively lean, but have very low gearing.
I had the opposite problem of hills for intervals.. I have been trying to be more consistent about staying in Z2 on longer rides but was in the habit of naturally turning hills (of which we have many) into Z5 intervals. But I have been working on getting the effort down and I noticed yesterday that I did a long steep climb that even got up to 20% for a bit and I stayed in Z2. Yes my 1:1 gearing helped but also I have been learning how to do very slow very even pedal strokes. I still will usually make a hill into an interval but its nice to have the option not to..