Originally Posted by
Celticgirl
Thanks for your suggestion. My problem is that the town I live in is nothing but hills, think soup bowl. Everywhere I would want to go is uphill.
We border a city but then you have to deal with high traffic and parked cars. Northeast U.S Hopefully someday I can move to a better location that is more bike friendly.
That’s a good thing, not a problem! Hills are an opportunity to improve fitness, you need to train and build up, hills are a great way to do this. There are lots of different approaches to training, intervals, etc. that you can read about. You just need to find something that will work for you. Something you will actually do, and hopefully will let you recognize your progress. I have a 1.2 mile hill nearby that I go out and climb 6-7 times on Wednesday evenings. I will do a couple of climbs pushing hard and steady all the way, and do intervals up it a couple other times, and also do a lower gear/higher cadence ascent.
And like others said, check with the doc to make sure there aren’t any underlying cardiovascular issues.