Training & Nutrition - How to keep heart rate down

I'm fairly new to road biking and I notice that every time I hit a hill (4-8% grade) my heart rate rockets up pretty fast, 165+ typically whereas on a flat road at ~18-20mph I am at 144bpm. At the same time I start breathing pretty hard and get winded.

Are there any exercises I can do that would allow me to improve my heart rate and breathing?

Thanks

You simply have to ride more. You have to build an aerobic engine, and that will develop over time.

Are you struggling with the hills, or are you pretty comfortable? Sometimes people drop their cadence very easily on hills and don't attack it early enough and then they are really hammering hard in the wrong gear and then by the time they are in first gear they are not at a fast enough cadence to help the heart rate stay maintained. Your heart rate should rise some, and that does not look like a bad change from what you have posted, but it would depend upon each hill. Grade and length.

The above post is also a very good reply..

I'm fairly new to road biking and I notice that every time I hit a hill (4-8% grade) my heart rate rockets up pretty fast, 165+ typically whereas on a flat road at ~18-20mph I am at 144bpm. At the same time I start breathing pretty hard and get winded.

Are there any exercises I can do that would allow me to improve my heart rate and breathing?

Thanks

First, you need to know that it takes around 20-30 seconds for your heart and lungs to respond to an increased load. So, when you first hit the hill, you need to ride slowly for the first 30 seconds to make sure you don't overdo the early part (if you do, it's really hard to recover).

In other words, you need to learn to ride slowly before you can learn to ride faster.

Second, you need to spend a lot of time at the low heart rates (say, 95% of your ride time), and then work in intervals where you work out really hard.

But yeah, hills make your heart rate go up. You can't overturn physics.