Originally Posted by
noyb72
As far as shifting, I'm clearly screwing that up. I often end up shifting because I'm standing on the pedal and the bike refuses to go anywhere, if that is causing the issue then I'll work on shifting earlier. I just don't like the idea of not going as fast as I can, especially because I am so slow in the first place.
14mph, wall clock time, is not that slow. It is certainly nothing to be embarrassed by.
If you are going to a stand still while standing on the pedal, you are probably going too far on the gear. I make this argument, at that point you are going at 0 mph. If you drop down some gears say to 80% of you current gear inches, you're pedaling will be something greater than 0 mph. You could say being at your original gear is not the "fastest" gear. Often times, you will find that dropping 5% in gearing inches will let you pedal your legs 10% faster, thus the lower gear is the "faster" gear, just because your muscles weren't able to get over the hill at the higher gear. Sometimes it is difficult to see this without a cyclecomputer showing your speed or cadence. I guess you could take the hill in different gears and time each attempt instead.
It is also good to change things up by spinning or mashing up hills. It stresses your legs in different ways and in the end will make you a stronger rider than had you trained only doing it one way.