mikemets5

I found the key to climbing hills is PATIENCE.

I did a "hill climbing" century this past Sunday that had over 10,000 ft. of climbing. I found that on the long hills that if I got into the slow grind early and took my time I was OK.

RiPHRaPH

mental approach: don't look at the end. look at the immediate pavement before you. ride in the moment...not the future (even if its 10 seconds ahead)

physical approach: use different gearing to get up and over. stay in your regular flatlander cadence as long as you can. then either decide to gear up and stand or lower the gear and increase cadence. don't spin out. it will tire youquicker. keep your heart rate steady.

first get up and over. even if it means lowing down to a rediculous speed. then improve on that. leave a little in reserve for the tippy top of the hill.

better hill climbing happens off the bike in the off season. leg presses and squats for power.

deliriou5

Thanks for all the great replies everyone... I have already integrated alot of your advice into my training, and I already feel like a better climber (it's probably more mental than anything - but as was stated, the mental stuff is important).

Hills have always been like medicine or vegetables to me... you know it's good for you, but you just don't like doing it.

Yesterday I did some hill repeats doing both the high geared muscle tension intervals and high cadence spins. I think I prefer spinning up hills, but both get my heart rate near max by the top of the hill...

I dunno I just can't get myself to slow down for hills... it's just disturbing to see the speedo drop that much.

trappermark

Slightly OT...

what is "mashing"? Hear the term used a lot here, but no idear what it means.

mark
t

firebolt

From: https://www.kevinlippert.com/workouts...&CAmenuOpen=on

Mashing Efforts (ME)

Workout goal:

Mashing Efforts will increase your leg strength while you are in the saddle. Mashing Efforts should be performed on a flat section of road with a slight tailwind or no wind at all. Your gearing will be 53 X 15 to 53 X 11, depending on your level of physical development. This Effort should begin somewhere around 15 to 20 mph. To start, stay seated in the saddle and begin pushing down on the pedals down as hard as possible. Concentrate on pushing the pedals down during the Effort. These Mashing Efforts should last 10 to 20 seconds. You should have at least 5 to 10 minutes of recovery between each effort.

belfast-biker

Maybe this and the pedalling thread should be merged?

Pat

I like hills.

Here in central Florida we have some short mildly steep hills. As an aside, I did a tour in Colorado and none of the stuff with one exception was not as steep as a few of our steep ones around here.

Climbing hills depends on the hill.

On a short hill, you can build speed on the flat and then sprint up it. Our local club riders tend to do that. Of course, on the big hills, they tend to flame out and slow to a crawl on. It is amusing to watch this.

Longer hills, you need to avoid going over your anaerobic threshold on.

Another thing to do is try to diagnose hills. I like looking at a hill and mentally I plan my climb. It is quite satisfying to map out my use of energy so I climb quickly and efficiently. Of course, sometimes my plans don't work, but that is fun too.

We have a local hill here called "Spook" hill that is something over 7% for a little way and the blasted thing looks downhill where it starts to climb! Sneaky rascal.

On hill climbing, some people like to sit and spin (that's me) and others like to get out of the saddle. I recall riding up a small mountain in Colorado with a guy. He had a double chain ring and I had a triple. I was seated and he was out of the saddle. He knew I was from Florida and I stuck with him in my granny all the way up to the top. If you run a high rpm like I do on climbs, you want really low gears. So get the gearing that works for you.

I often go out west and climb passes for vacations. I generally don't push really hard. It doesn't seem smart to burn out your legs 1 mile into a 10 mile climb now does it? Odd thing was that even relatively low effort hill climbing improves my climbing quite a bit. I come back to around here after climbing passes for 2 weeks and I can climb all the local hills in bigger gears. So in order to improve, just going out and doing "easy" hill climbing has its place.