jmu303

Hi, I've had some questions about hill climbing that I've never had unanswered. I've looked online but it still needs clearing up. On hills I'm told to maintain a steady cadence, 80-100 rpm, but I can achieve this cadence in multiple ways - pedaling very hard in a higher gear to bring my cadence up to that range (more anaerobic) or going into an easier gear and spinning, with less effort (aerobic). Which way is preferred, or do they each have their own specific situations?

monkeydentity

i'm just beginning to learn about this topic myself

check this out~

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...e-for-a-newbie

Brian Ratliff

Which way that is preferred depends on how fast you want to get up the hill, and how long you can sustain the pace. The faster you go up the hill, regardless of your cadence or gearing, the more anaerobic you will be.

chasm54

This. It's simple physics. If you want to haul 150lb up a steep hill, you need more power to do it fast rather than slow. If you can ride up a steep hill in the big ring at a cadence of over eighty rpm for more than a minute or two, do it. Most of us can't, which is what lower gears are for.

OldsCOOL

It's quite simple really. How much do you want to have left over at the top and can you recover to finish your ride when cresting? If you are on a double century you might not want to attack hills but rather let them come at you as they are.

Palomar01

I may add that it also depends a great deal on your fitness level. I know some riders who are strong in the flats and can maintain 18+ mph for long periods by themselves, but then just die in the hills. OTOH, I know some riders who are great climbers but has a hard time maintaining 18+ mph by themselves in the flats. It's puzzling to me.

In general, on long hills the ideal is to maintain a 70-85 RPM cadence all the way up it. Nevermind the gear, just pick one that will allow you to do that cadence for the whole climb. On short hills, you can probably just stand and attack to quickly get over it, as long as you don't burn out doing that. Having said that, you fitness level will dictate if it's possible. If you are not able to do the above and find yourself just surviving a long climb at 60 RPM at 5-6 mph, then you need to work on climbing more hills.

hyhuu

It's quite simple actually. Power/air resistance ratio vs power/weight ratio. They are two different things.

cmolway

https://www.flammerouge.je/content/3_...w/doiclimb.htm

AdelaaR

Do you really consider someone managing only 18mph in the flats to be a strong rider?
Maybe you just don't know any strong riders then.
Strong riders go 18mph on 4% hills ... I know I do ... and I'm not even a really strong rider.

OP: Definately try to keep enough cadence ... don't jerk the pedals straining your muscles.
If you keep a good cadence you can use more of your aerobic power and hopefully won't have to use up too much of the anaerobic.
You shouldn't think about how to reach this cadence though ... you should already be in it at the bottom of the hill

pcfxer

I averaged about 18mph for 50km after being stung by a bee and killing a bird with the guts lining my bottom tube and front Veloce caliper. It was a fantastic ride . If the riders are "good" on the flats, they should really push to go on some real climbs. It's the climbing that has got me to progress quite well as a cyclist and is bringing my speed, power, aerobic capacity to where it needs to be for racing.

AdelaaR is exactly right. You TRY to keep your cadence and shift as you need to. To make progress your goal is to keep leg tension to a minimum cadence (I go for about 70RPM), shift down (check cadence) etc. Also keep leg tension until you are fully done climbing otherwise you'll lose any forward momentum and will need to fight the wind just to get back to where you should've been in the first place. This is key in keeping your cadence high enough as well, I usually see my cadence pump to 100RPM after cresting (TT speed I like to think) and push it to a nice cruising speed/leg tension.

dolanp

My personal take is that I really want to improve on climbing and I find that this occurs when I take a lower cadence and use more anaerobic power. Yes it does drain you a bit but that's the only way the body will improve. Spinning up a hill makes sense if your goal is to preserve energy but it's going to do a lot less for improvement purposes.

jmu303

Alright, well now-on steeper hills, I can shift down and down and down, maintaining an 80rpm cadence, not straining myself much, but by then I'm only crawling along at 7mph. What if I want to take the hill faster-do I stay in the same gear and INCREASE cadence to around 100-120, or use a higher gear that forces me to pedal harder to maintain that 80rpm cadence?

Brian Ratliff

yes? You can do either. There is no one accepted way of climbing. Many people will alternate between high and low cadence on a long climb.

rooftest

Going up it as fast as you can is the way to improve. The "should I spin, or should I mash" question is really irrelevant - go as fast as you can.

danlikes

Being a bit on the large size pedal, push or pull until i get up the hill. watching others i see some cranking hard others spinning away. Seem to me you just want to hammer away until you get it done.

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haaseg

What is the maximum distance you can sustain this rate? I'm just curious. I wouldn't consider myself strong at all, but anything over 3% and longer than a mile and I'm usually in the lowest gear tooling along at 8mph.

kenoshi

The whole point of shifting into lower gears and into higher cadence when climbing is so you shift some work over to your cardiovascular system...If you mash on high gears in order to get higher cadence you are going to incur oxygen debt/blow past your lactate threshold a lot faster, resulting in the onset of muscle fatigue sooner. This doesn't mean you are using less energy, its just you lower your power output per rotation, flex ALL muscles for a complete rotation more often, therefore use up more oxygen from your bloodstream, and shifting work over to your cardiovascular system.

Now its perfectly fine to use lower cadence/higher gears for climbs for training (e.g. hill repeats) to increase your LT...But I wouldn't do that for say, on a century...I just recently learned this at my LBS, and it works well for me. I've started doing hill repeats for 2 weeks now, and in conjunction with high cadence climbing, I've noticed huge increases in my climbing ability. YMMV of course.

Hope this makes sense.

AdelaaR

This doesn't work.
If you hammer it as fast as you can on the first half, you won't have any energy left for the second half and you'll be slower in the end ... or not finish at all.
The hardest part in cycling is finding the right intensity.

KoYak

So True

AdelaaR

Quite long. Never really measured it exactly and hills around here tend not to go exactly the same grade for long stretches so it's hard to say.
Around 5 minutes or a bit more. That may sound silly to people doing huge mountains but there aren't any longer hills around here

Palomar01

Oh of course. You go 18 mph on hills because you are a superstrong rider and nobody can keep up with you except the pros.

haaseg

Which at 18mph is like 1.5 miles. Which to me seems insane. I've got to get out and climb some more.

Palomar01

5 minutes? That's not a long hill, that's what we call a "rise" here.

AdelaaR

I already told you in my post it would sound silly to people doing actual mountains ... no need to point it out even more ... I know
There aren't any actual mountains around here and so after max 5 minutes of ascending there is always a descent.

DScott

It depends.