BobbyG

I used to mash in my 30s, now at 57 I spin (my knees just mouthed a "thank-you").

tmxkn1

If you workout in Gym, try practising on those spinning machines. They allow you to adjust force you use to pedal.

DrIsotope

Spinning up hills is all but impossible for brand new riders, they lack the aerobic fitness to maintain higher climbing cadences for more than a minute, if even that. Oft times the only way up the hill is to drop to a very low cadence and get up non-aerobically.

Korina

Been there, done that. Buttermilk Lane is a challenging climb, especially when you're still building your legs. What I would do is find a landmark 50 yards ahead and huff and puff my way there, and if I had anything left I'd keep going to another landmark; stop catch up with my breathing, lather, rinse, repeat. The day I rode up Buttermilk without stopping was one of the prouder days of my life.

When it's really steep, I'm not too proud to get off and walk, which is itself exercise.

bruce19

My experience is that some people power up hills well and some spin up well. I pick my spots. Depending on the length and pitch of the climb, I will spin or power. I am not a great climber. Let me amend that....I am mediocre at best. But, spinning up every climb or powering up every climb can be a disaster for me.

livedarklions

I vary my approach as well, depends on how tired I am, headwinds, if there's a treat at the top of the hill....

Paul Barnard

I go to Colorado almost every summer. I see cyclists quit on climbs while they still have easier to spin gears at their disposal.

livedarklions

If the road allows it, creating your own switchback pattern back and forth sometimes works. I certainly will do that on a steep gravel path.

The problem I had with stopping on a hill when I first came back to riding was just how hard it was to start going again without momentum.

livedarklions

I think if the altitude has gotten to you, it's probably not going to work to spin at any gearing.

Korina

Yep. Buttermilk Lane has too much traffic, sadly.

livedarklions

Admit it, at some point you had to be hearing "I think I can, I think I can" in your head, right? At least I do if the hill gets long enough.

Way to stick with it!

Korina

In my head, yes. Didn't have enough breath to say it out loud.

caloso

Yep. I found this out on Haleakala.

*Scuba 

The altitude is no joke, I flew into Aspen one year for the food and wine festival from sea level, so no time to adjust. Just jogging 50 feet to catch a hotel shuttle made me feel like I just ran an all out 400 meter dash on that first day. But, after two days I was fine.

Snowmass and Aspen are beautiful, I will go back one of these days. Hopefully do a little bit of cycling next time.

Joe Bikerider

At least have the courtesy to give attribution for the quote. I’m pretty sure it was from Greg LeMond. Thanks.

terrymorse 

Not the ones who are good at climbing. They spin.

livedarklions

And NBA players dunk. Doesn't mean it works for everyone. Besides, great climbers mix it up a bit.

bruce19

As I recall Greg LeMond was a masher not a spinner on climbs and he did fairly well.

zarbog

I started riding last July at 68 years old. Gentle hills killed me and it was granny gear and 6 kilometers per hour. Had to stop and catch my breath at the top of hills. Maybe 3% grade and a quarter mile long. 1900 kilometers later, I climb those hills at 22 kilometer per hour without dropping speed. It's still hard, but it's amazing how much faster you become after a while, and how far you can go in a single ride.

Zuzus pedals

Jan Ullrich and Thomas Voeckler mashed bigger gears than most of their rivals. I remember Ullrich using his TT bike and staying in aero position in a tall gear with a slow cadence on a lot of the TT up Alpe d'Huez in the 2004 TdF. It looked like he was going slow, but he posted the fastest time until Lance beat it by 1:01. Voeckler would get out of the saddle for fairly long periods, jumping up and down on the pedals with a slow cadence (definitely not what you'd call "dancing") and violently rocking the bike.

sheddle

I usually try to specifically think about anything other than the hill, haha

livedarklions

This is my favorite post of the day!

terrymorse 

Ullrich used about an 80 cadence in the Alps d'Huez 2004 TT. 80 is a higher than average climbing cadence for a Euro pro in a stage race, which is about 70.

His 80 cadence only looked slow when compared to Armstrong, who used a 100 cadence.

cyccommute 

I’m going to disagree with you and others about fitness. Most of this discussion is of the HTFU kind of advice (Look it up, bygeorge). I, too, do loaded touring and I have for decades. There is nothing wrong...and everything right...with having gearing that is low. It’s not a sign of weakness to have low gears nor to use them. This bike


IMG_3144 by Stuart Black, on Flickr

now has a 44/34/20 crank with an 11-36 cassette. It’s not “fitness” but “smartness” when it comes to gearing that matters. That gearing came in handy here


Untitled by Stuart Black, on Flickr

My touring bike and my dual suspension mountain bike both have similar gearing and it comes in handy a lot of the time.

bygeorge: Go ahead and get lower gearing. From the information you’ve given, I suspect you cranks have 104/64mm bolt circle diameters. You should be able to put a 22 tooth gear on both cranks. You can work on fitness and have smart gearing at the same time.

terrymorse 

Everybody mashed the climbs back when Lemond was racing. They had to—the gearing was huge.