Originally Posted by
Psychopasta
I’m a 65 year old rider getting back to cycling. I stopped when Covid hit and didn’t restart until now.
I’ve been reading a lot about zone 2 training and it makes a lot of sense to an old geezer who needs to lose weight and get fitness back. My problem is that I live in a very hilly area, and I can’t see me climbing some long steep hill, keeping to zone 2 and going fast enough to not fall off. What do other zone 2 peeps do when the road points steeply up?
bump it up to zone 3 but try not to red line things. go at your pace. look to work on your bike handling at low speeds in hard to turn gears on paths near or on grass (think mission bay) if you're worried about falling over at 3-4 mph.
if it's a shortish hill (50 yards-.25 miles) of less than 6% gradient, you should be good. it's when things get obscenely steep/punchy or long
(torrey pines grade outside is 1.6 miles at 6%). stay seated as long as you can but that's difficult once the road gets above 16%. stand if you like on the short, steep affairs like those around balboa park and some of the upper ramparts of mount soledad along with climbing up from mission bay to mission hills via jackson, presidio, bachman, washington, juan, bandini, california...
if it's a longer climb of a half mile or more, look to stand every few (2-3 mins) for 25 pedal strokes or so to mix it up and reset things. if you're doing longer climbs (5-12 miles) like honey springs, lyons valley, japatul, kitchen creek, palomar (either), montezuma grade, banner grade, sunrise hwy, etc, would look to stand closer every 5 mins for 25-35 pedal strokes. if a tailwind (a guy can dream), then maybe an extra 10-20 strokes.
worst case scenario...you can always stop to catch your breath/recalibrate or turn around and try a different way or another day.
what area of san diego do you reside?