We're a relatively new tandem team (riding a year in a region with a 6 month season) and need some help with hill technique as evidenced by yesterday's ride. Part of it is just sheer inexperience. There are hundreds of miles of bike trails in the city but most of them are along lakes or disused railway beds. So not a lot of hills in our usual rides. We generally ride 30-40 miles per day on weekends and 10-15 on weekdays - either on the tandem or single bikes (since husband doesn't get home until 7 pm during the week and I work many evenings as a librarian).
So...yesterday we chose a route that criss-crossed both the Mississippi River and the Minnesota River Valleys. Lots of looooooong, steeeeeeep climbs up bluffs and hair-raising-but-fun (45 mph) descents stacked one on top of the other. I know my husband felt I wasn't contributing by the zillionth climb, but I was doing my best to keep my legs turning! I certainly kept hitting my max heart rate.
So what's the best technique? On our single bikes we're both hill attackers: start out in a high gear and work your way slowly down the gears if necessary, stand if you need to. Should we, instead, just start on the granny gear and slowly inch our way up these evil river bluffs? I think maybe we should have spent some time out of the saddle (and we're surprisingly good at climbing hills out of the saddle on the tandem for such a new team).
My dear captain has decreed at least on hill ride per weekend to work on our technique and fitness level, but I'd like to hear some thoughts on what people prefer as their technique. I will say that we have some gearing issues that the captain has promised to work on since the stoker was surprised more often than once by a sudden upshift or downshift in the midst of coughing up a lung on her own, personal Alpe d'Huez.
Thanks!
The BikeForums Team
-adv-
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Having some tandem experience (31+ years so far) and having ridden in your neck of the woods a few times, we can attest that those slow climbs up from the ole Miz-river can be a bit daunting.
Our method is to both communicate your needs for the shifting (stoker still asks occasionally: 'how about one grear back?!). Our method varies from yours as we have a tendency to use our gears more when climbing, rather than standing. We also pedal 90 degrees out-of-phase (OOP) which works great for us, especially when climbing. In an emergency (wow! steep hill right around the corner!) one of us may stand briefly to give a bit more oomph; otherwise we pretty well stay seated climbing.
Of course if you come out west we have some really long hills to climb . . . Ufda!!!
Hey, tell your husband that without a stoker on the tandem it would be a lot tougher!
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem
lmzimmer
Some things we tried a couple of years ago when we got our tandem and moved from riding trails (generaly flat) to the roads around here. First keep at it if there are one or two big hills in the area try to include them in your regular ride. Also try spinning up hills more- the greater weight of a tandem makes it less responsive when only one stands, on long hills you burn out rapidly if you get bogged down with too high of a gear. Standing together helps some but rarely will carry us over a really long hill- we use it for the short steep variety or general relief from sitting.
Heart rate monitors can be helpful in learning to pace yourself- I mention this with caution because I think some people/teams become slaves to their aerobic thresholds. We also use 90 degree out of phase pedals (suggested by Zona tandems) but this seems to be highly personal and many people don't like this . Biggest suggestion keep at it- yesterday we road a local organized ride with a >100 other people- although we were definitely not in the first starting fast group we did pass more than a few singles going up a long hill that we ride several times a week.
TandemGeek
More than you want or need to know...
http://www.thetandemlink.com/articles/climbing.html
In short, every team is a bit different so you'll probably need to sort out what works best for you.
However, "attacking from the bottom" is usually a bad strategy if you aren't familiar with the hill or don't have a lot of experience with deamdning climbs. You definitely want to try and carry as much momentum if you're coming off of a descent on a set of rollers as your combined team weight will carry you well up the hill compared to your single bikes (but you've probably figured that out). However, as the momentum falls off or if you start a climb from the flats I'd really recommend focusing on maintaining your cadence instead of your speed... shifting as needed until you can hold your cadence steady. As you settle into your climbing rhythm, work into taller gears so that you're strong coming across the top instead of spent. As for how to best incorporate climbing out of the saddle again, it's a team-dependent thing. Some teams can climb out of the saddle far more efficiently than others: if can honk out of the saddle and keep your heart rates in check.. go for it. If riding out of the saddle spikes your heart rates, you may find yourselves bonking before you crest the hill.
twilkins9076
I echo the prior comments about spinning up hills rather than trying to mash up them in high gears. As a single rider, until recently I had gone over a year without getting into my granny gear, even though I live and ride in the Ozarks, where we have and abundance of ups and downs. On the tandem, however, that just doesn't work.
What works for us is to keep an eye on cadence, and use the gears that will keep us in the 90-95 range. Since most of our up hills are preceeded by a fast trip down, we take advantage of our momentum, and cycle down the gears as we climb. As soon as we drop below a cadence of 90, I'll shift down another gear, and as I see cadence climbing, I'll start shifting up again. I know that if I don't, my stoker will call for an upshift if we've been spinning between 97 and 100 for any length of time.
The other thing I watch out for is situations where I can tell I'm going to need to use the granny chainring. I can usually tell before we bottom out on the middle if we're going to need more, and if we do, I try to make the shift on the front somewhere in the middle of the rear cassette range while we're still spinning well as opposed to when I'm out of gears on the middle chain ring and we're beginning to mash a little bit. Doing that helps us make a smoother shift on the front chainrings.
We rarely try to climb out of the saddle unless it's a very short steep climb, and when we do, it's always at a very slow cadence and speed...almost like "walking" the bike up the hill rather than trying to power over it like I would do on the single. Finding the right gear is tricky. Too low, and you'll blow up from trying to stand at too high a cadence, and too high will make you blow up from mashing too hard.
As an aside, my wife absolutely hated climbing some of the hills around here as a single rider, but on the tandem, they don't bother her at all. The difference is that we work together and finesse our way over them as opposed to trying to conquer them as she did do on the single.
Lakes and River
What excellent advice and techniques! Thanks everyone. We probably won't ride for the next 10 days or so since the in-laws are in-bound -- for the third time this summer. OY! (I'll sure be ready to let off some steam on the hills when they leave. :rolleyes:)
I'll be taping your advice to the back of the captain's jersey and calling out different techniques mid-hill....well, just kidding about that. I think that would be ruled justifiable homicide when they picked my body out of the river.
TWilkins, I like your cadence suggestion. I've been hemming and hawing about putting the cadence sensor on the tandem (we have them on our single bikes) and it sounds like that would be very helpful in figuring out our hill-climbing style since we're used to riding with cadence sensors. It would allow us to work on spinning rather than mashing, as many here have suggested. And I am ASTONISHED that your wife likes hills better on the tandem! May I be so fortunate.
lmzimmer, not to worry about us abusing heart rate monitors. We pretty much use them to keep track of the overall workout (distance, speed, calories, etc.) and to make sure one of the team members is not doing all the work - AHEM. One of us is very crow-like and easily distracted by "sparklies". Okay, that would be me. We have lots of friends who are either cycle racers or triathletes so I know how weird people can be about hrms. Never fear! We are definitely in the "ooh isn't that an interesting number?" and "honey, 145 bpm?! Admire the view AFTER the Alpe d'Huez!" hrm camp.
As to this:
Of course if you come out west we have some really long hills to climb . . . Ufda!!!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem
Are you kidding?! I can't even manage these silly river inclines! The idea of longer hills makes me feel faint! Someday, when we figure out our technique we might venture to a hillier geography. And we've been talking about OOP. I don't know if it's for us, but I'm guessing we'll try it before the season is over.
Thanks again everyone! I'm actually looking forward to some hills!
bockwho
out of phase. zona has alread said it .. but experiment with it set you ecentric up so you can derail your timing chain with yor fingers and set you cranks at a few differnt settings. this really helped Jennifer and I in the hill department. sometimes we do it just for fun and something differnt ... btw dont both stand untill you know how the bike will react or befor you re snug you timming chain. being out of phase at differt angles gives us some real weird bike handling issues.
The cadiance sensor will also help im pulling my polar sensor off the trek single and on the cannondale asap of course I cant set a pace to save my life with the tandem. single I lock my hr down at 130 and go that is normaly sufficent.
Kb
JohnC
I have had similar experience with the differences of hill climbing on a single vs. on our tandem. The best analogy is driving with 18 wheelers in Vermont on Interstate 89. I am sure all of us have had the same experience with this. Faster on the descents and slower on the climbs than when we are on our singles.
I ride an even mix between the single and the tandem. I find that even when I feel good on the climbs on the single it does not necessarily map to the experience on the tandem. I think the comment about being an "attacker" on the hills is likely the best clue here. It is about the physics. It seems to me that unless the stoker and captain are in very tight sync, the little "micro-bursts" that we do on our singles don't seem to do much on the tandem. So I tend to kind of wear myself out before getting to the top if I am in a "single" frame of mind.
We do our best on the tandem when we stop thinking about the hill and just settle into a smooth cadence. I (the captain) will occasionally stand to get by a short steep part, but again the effect is much less than on a single.
For us, it is more about conditioning. The more we ride the hills, the easier they are. We have done some rides with 2000 ft of climbing, but usually later in the year. We are almost never out of the saddle.
For us anyway, it is slow steady and relax. What's the hurry anyway? Just being out there is the point right?
Lakes and River
For us anyway, it is slow steady and relax. What's the hurry anyway? Just being out there is the point right?
Heh. Well, that's part of it. The other part is my need to lose 20-30 lbs. (which will also help with my hill climbing!) And after I reassured lmzimmer that I am NOT a slave to my hrm, I must confess that I try to keep my tandem and single bike workouts in the 80-90% range. Thus, I'm probably a bit more likely to want to mash up hills instead of using common sense and proper technique!
Thanks for the advice and encouragement, everyone!
The Octopus
Mrs. Octopus and I are a relatively new team (1500 miles in our first year on the bike), but we've had some luck with the climbing thing. What's worked for us, with the short, very steep hills we have here, is keeping the cadence constant and also (my responsibility) making sure that the shifts don't cause us to lose any prescious momentum. I try to anticipate whether we can get up a climb in the middle ring (a 42) or whether we're going to need granny. Shifting onto granny can be a momentum killer, so we try to do it in the middle of the cassette. We're also pretty willing to stand (both of us) for power, which definitely helps.
We still have a lot of work to do to get tandeming in general and hill climbing in particular dialed in. But so far, we're having a lot of fun dispelling the myth that tandems are slow up hill. We're slower than I am on my single, but we're considerably faster than Mrs. O was on her single bike. We're also faster than most fast single-bike riders. At last night's "A" club ride, we not only made all the cuts (where the group got chopped from about 35 people to 7 through a series of hills and nasty head-winds), but we never got disconnected on any of the climbs and finished the ride (47 miles in 2:10) with the lead group. There are few things that Mrs. O enjoys more than hearing about how fast we are, expecially climbing, on that bike!
zonatandem
We are afficionados of the OOP way to ride.
We have our pedals set-up 90 degrees out of phase.
Good (for us): easy/smooth/quick start ups as stoker's pedalstroke follows captains, from deadstops (lights, stop signs).
Smoother riding, as we do not each push left foot, then right foot down, creating less frame flex. If you've ever followed a tandem while they are pushing hard/climbing, you'll see the back end sort of 'waggle' . . . that is greatly minimized, or eliminated, with OOP.
Less torque on rear wheel and other components.
Bad: Crossing some of those old-fashioned high speed bumps you *could* bash a pedal.
Same if you lay a 'hard-leaning' racing corner . . .
Only one of the team can stand comfortably (have seen 2 couples that can 'stand' simultaneously while OOP . . . looked a bit like a circus act).
Been told 'it doesn't look cool, . . . so what?!
Give pedaling OOP a try for a few weeks . . . you may like it!
Been tandeming that way for over 200K; yup, we like it!
Pedal on TWOgether!
Rudy and Kay/zonatandem
cornucopia72
We also use OOP. We have been doing it for a little over six months. We like it for all the reasons that zonatandem does. We can stand togheter at any point.... our friends say that it looks as if we were dancing. The frame moves very little and we produce a lot of power. We have hit the stoker pedal three times with no consequences but a little bit nerve wracking. On all instances it was while cornering and due to my lack of attention. The way we got into OOP after reading zonatandem's comments, was like this: We were going to do a hilly 60 miler. We switched to OOP and made the agreement that we will finish the ride OOP no mater what. The first couple of times that either one of us standed were very unerving. Then it wasn't so bad. Then it was fine. Before the ride was over we were standing togheter and loving it.
We stand togheter after stop signs and sharp corners to regain momentum. We also stand togheter to finish strong steep climbs.
zronn
Sounds more like a fitness issue and training time than anything else.
There is no technique that can replace good fitness on hills.
Lakes and River
Sounds more like a fitness issue and training time than anything else.
There is no technique that can replace good fitness on hills.
AHEM! Maybe yes, maybe no. We tried a couple of the techniques today, especially Mr. Octopus' cadence thingy and we were surprised just how speedily (and relatively easily) we went up the hills. I have really appreciated the ideas posted here and we plan to try each and every one of them -- especially after the rousing success we had this morning. So a big THANKS to everyone!
Now, doubtless improved fitness would also help, but with our silly jobs and commutes, that's going to be a struggle for us this year. Here's hoping Mr. Lakes' job interview yesterday was successful enough to reduce his 1.5 hour commute (that's 3 hours in a car each weekday which severely cuts in to any riding time we might scrape together). I, of course, work nights and weekends so I ride my half bike during the week.
zronn
That's what lunchervals on the Noon ride are for.;)