spelger

i actually think the most rewarding part (for me) is barreling down the hill after beating myself up getting to the top.

popeye

To help with the wobbling don't stare at rhe front tire. Keep your head up so you can see the horizon.

rsbob 

i use a Garmin HRM but the OP is concerned about costs, hence my suggestion. Thank you for your concern.

jonathanf2

I've been dropped by men, women, old, young, fixed and geared climbers alike, but I'm always motivated to tackle hills and constantly improve. In my eye, a strong climber is the most impressive cyclist you can be. Also I find climbing can involve some strategy. For example a dedicated climber might not attack a steep section of a hill right after a fast descent, but I find sections like this good opportunities to go into high gear and power up the hill if you have the muscles to do so. Also proper breathing control to keep your blood/muscles oxygenated, mental pre-visualization of reaching the top can overcome body pain and I even like to smile on the strenuous climb sections which has been documented to help cycling performance during peak exertion. Also I find you can activate different parts of your leg muscles based on your saddle positioning. Lastly, make sure to be well-fueled. I've done bike rides during carb-cutting and it literally feels like my body is sputtering with no fuel in the tank. With a well-fueled body it feels like I'm running on high octane gas with all cylinders firing.

eduskator

You're very welcome my dear sir!

john m flores 

Climbing will always be a challenge, but the "getting better" part, i.e., tackling a hill faster and/or easier than you've done in the past, is very satisfying. It's a very tangible measure of improvement.

zandoval 

Even now my little short rides are Up and Down. I am so tired after climbing up I just catch my breath going down. So really I am only pedaling half of my ride!

So how far did ya ride today?
Well, I rode 14 miles but pedaled 7... Ha

genejockey 

How far would you have to drive to include them in, say a 30 mile ride? Or whatever length ride you do as your longest ride? (I realize not everyone does my routine of shorter, < 25mile rides during the week and >50 mile rides on the weekend)

genejockey 

Further to above...

Climbing is really the only way to strengthen yourself for climbing, so if you plan to ride more events like the one last weekend, it might be worth driving a bit twice a month to do a long ride with some serious climbing. Also, yeah, you need lower gears. Getting a 12-25 or 12-28 cassette would do wonders - I assume you're running a triple?

About losing weight - yeah, that'd be great, but it's also possible for us heavier riders to become better climbers. You just have to do it. And the more you do it, the better you'll become. You can find lots of videos with advice on climbing, but the key is finding your own pace. As a heavier rider, you'll probably want to stay seated, but also, for the steep pitches like inside switchbacks, standing up can help you power through them. Standing up is another thing that benefits from practice. If there are any 30 second steep pitches in any of your nearby moderate hills, start doing them standing, probably going 2-3 gears higher than you'd do them seated. 3 years ago, doing 10 seconds of climbing out of the saddle was really difficult, but I started practicing doing it for longer and longer stretches, counting the pedal strokes, and now I can do it for a lot longer.

PeteHski

Once you get onto sustained gradients >10% then a cadence of 80+ is a pipe dream for all but pro riders. It becomes more a case of just turning over the cranks, which is easier with a 1:1 or lower gear.

I have the same crankset as you, but a 10/33T cassette and on some rides that 1 lower gear makes all the difference between riding and walking the steepest hills. There are times when I would very much appreciate an even lower gear to increase cadence a little and reduce pedal force.

We are now starting to see pro riders using gravel gears on the very steepest climbs. Roglic at the Giro Mountain TT was a good example. I believe he had a 42T cassette, although he did run a 42 or 44T chainring. But when you are putting out 500W+ on the climb then it looks like a very low gear relative to what we would use.

To give some idea of the power required just to barely turn over the cranks on a 20% climb, I was having to put out a minimum of around 350W to keep moving without stalling. That’s with a 35/33 gear. That’s pretty close to my VO2 max power so only sustainable for around 5 mins and then I would be gasping for breath at the roadside. Any reduction in gearing would be helpful in that scenario, just to keep the minimum power requirement realistic.

cyclezen

Hi, Jen,
Glad you're being able to recognize where the most productive areas are for improvement. Dropping that torso weight is not only gonna make you lighter, but the overall body metabolism will improve - the extra weight layers do cause heat problems, internally, which the body needs to deal with at the same time as it needs to provide for your performance requests.
I sortta remember one of your bikes image - SPecialized Roubaix. If that's the one you're using, that era Roubaix came with 9 spd and 10 spd setups - depending on the model.
In either case, you could get a 12-27 or 12-28 cassette for quite reasonable costs - $40-50ish. Those will still have plenty of options where you most often ride, but also have gears that will help on steeper grades...
For getting in some real hill climbs, it's worth the drive 1x a week. Maybe find a good place closer to you, 6-7 miles from the 'climb'. Start your ride from there, using the approach to the climb as 'warmup'. do the climb and then the ride back to car as 'cooldown'.. I think you'll experience some real improvement, not just in climbing, but also on the 'flats'.
If/when you're able to spring for a good basic heart Rate device, strap which comms with a cell phone app, or dedicated chest device with handlebar
wrist watch' mount - will be one of the most useful, and cost effective things you can do to improve your riding, training and performance overall.
Ride On
Yuri

merlinextraligh

That is really not true. Sustained climbs at their essence are all about power to weight ratio. So intervals designed raise functional threshold power will definitely improve your climbing and can be done on flat ground or a trainer. So while lots of climbing definitely improves your climbing (I’ve done almost 300,000 vertical feet this year getting ready for Haute Route Dolomites) it is not the only way.

I completed L’etap de Tour ( a full stage of the TDF), won a stage of Everest Challenge, finished 9th in the Brasstown Bald Buster Century, amongst other climbing events while training almost entirely in Florida.

Admittedly riding mountains makes it easier, hence the climbing I’ve done this year for Haute Route. There are guys here at Haute Route from the Netherlands who have only ridden in the flat Netherlands who are doing quite well.

Again, it is mostly about power to weight ratio, and that can be improved,without mountains.

genejockey 

Okay, then - the BEST way.

aliasfox

Given how most of this country is set up, that may be 30mi on highway, unfortunately. Not everyone is fortunate enough to have something like Foothills Expressway/Junipero Serra on the SF Peninsula to ride between nice climbs!

rsbob 

HOWEVER, there are some hills that are absolute beasts that no matter how fit your become they are still horribly difficult (not to discourage the OP, just sayin’ - or you may be faster but you suffer just as much).

VegasJen

I'm actually west of Las Vegas by about 50 miles. Have to drive 25-30 miles to get into any really good mountain routes. But ones more like what I did last Saturday are an even longer drive. Not that I'm opposed to that. In fact, most of the times I do drive in to Vegas, time permitting, I take a bike with me just for those routes.
On this bike, I've tried my best to replicate a TT geometry. The seat post allowed me to rotate 180* so I can actually sit a bit further forward. And I very specifically "carb loaded" the entire week before this event. I tried to maintain my hydration, although I didn't do as well on that as I intended. Even so, at least on the hill, I didn't feel like I was out of gas so much as I felt like I was expending too much effort for too little return to stay on the bike in that section.
To truly replicate that type of climb, my guess is the nearest route I could ride on a road bike is 40+ miles.
It is a triple. In fact, that is specifically why I took this bike instead of my Ridley TT bike.
Yes, that Specialized. I think I will start looking for another cassette for that bike. I will plan on setting this bike up specifically for more hilly events and save the Ridley for flatter courses.

If you have a suggestion for a stand-alone HR monitor, I'm all ears.

eduskator

I would certainly use gravel bike gearings or at least 36t if riding steep hills most of the time. My bike came with the 10-28T and I ride hills 90% of the time with no problems, but I would clearly benefit from the 10-33T. The new Tarmac SL8 comes with the 10-33t and I can understand why. I am seriously thinking or swapping for a 10-33T which is the maximum my Force RD can take before the end of the year.

john m flores 

Can you be more specific about "out of gas"? Were your legs starting to burn or where you running out of breath? Or both?

Part of learning to ride hills is learning how to meter your effort - to get right to the edge of blowing up without blowing up. Modern methods rely upon HR and power meters but even before those devices riders learned how to listen to their bodies and adjust their effort accordingly.

prj71

I'm 51 and my numbers are very similar to yours.

Jen...what part of you gave up? Lungs or legs?

Eric F 

Meanwhile, I'm sure we both know people who max out at what would be a tempo pace for us.

PeteHski

Maximum HR variation is huge across individuals, even those of the same fitness and power. Max HR is also untrainable ie a fixed individual upper limit, although it tends to drop with age (more so for sedentary people).

In my 20s I had a max HR of 200+ (not measured very often) and now at age 55 it has dropped to 193. It has been at this level for the last 5 years since I started using a HRM for all my workouts. My resting HR is around 60-65 and the lowest I’ve seen in the last 5 years is 58. My LTHR is around 180.

I don’t think there is any inherent advantage to having a relatively high revving heart. I know plenty of stronger cyclists with much lower max HR and much lower resting HR. But it’s very important to know your own personal HR profile when using it to gauge your efforts on the bike. Generic HR max calculators are totally useless for athletes.

Broctoon

I'm going with those who say VegasJen needs to do lots of workouts designed to increase her FTP and therefore her power to weight ratio. Weight loss could help too, but that can be a very difficult thing for some people. Actually, with the right training plan, she might achieve more power and lose some pounds.

I also agree she needs some bigger cogs. The 30 tooth chain ring is fine. That's smaller than a road compact; it's a gravel bike crank. But 23 tooth largest cog? Kind of weird. Go up to at least a 29, or maybe a 32 or 34, and the difference will be striking. We speak of power to weight ratios (usually in terms of Watts per kilogram), specifically referring to FTP, which is the power a rider can (theoretically) sustain for an hour. But we usually don't ride up hills for an hour. Climbs on something like the Santa Barbara Triathlon are considerably shorter; they're each about 2-3 miles and should take no more than half an hour. She just needs to improve her 30 minute power, which will be slightly more than FTP. And remember how a rider can put out more power. It's not just by increasing strength. It's by pushing harder (force on the pedals), spinning faster (cadence), or both. With the 30x23 gears, her cadence was only about 40 RPM at 4.2 MPH. I would bet that with a 30x32 combo she has the strength to turn 60 to 80 RPM, which would yield 4.5 to 6 MPH (twice her walking speed) while not getting gassed. In other words, I think she's overgeared.

Broctoon

I'm very similar. At 53 years old, I have a max HR around 195, and my resting rate is 55 to 60. Usually about 58. This makes me happy, because there are some metrics that suggest I'm not super fit and healthy, but on RHR and blood pressure, I seem to be in good shape.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PeteHski

I don’t think there is any inherent advantage to having a relatively high revving heart. I know plenty of stronger cyclists with much lower max HR and much lower resting HR. But it’s very important to know your own personal HR profile when using it to gauge your efforts on the bike. Generic HR max calculators are totally useless for athletes.

Totally agree. There are many factors that determine how well a body can perform during a tough athletic challenge, one of which is max heart rate. Watching one's own RHR and max HR over time gives a good indication of progress (or regression); it does nothing to predict performance against another athlete or a standard benchmark.

genejockey 

The discussion of max HR seems off-topic, given the OP doesn't even have an HRM. I do think she'd benefit from one, and they're WAY cheaper than power meters and smart trainers, though.

PeteHski

True, but she seemed interested in getting a HRM, which would be of benefit in helping to evaluate her pacing strategy etc.

I use a Polar optical arm band monitor, which I find more comfortable than a chest strap and just as accurate - when worn above my elbow.