Hills VS Miles...very vague question

[grunzster]

Which is more effective, overall miles or lots of climbing?

First big ride of the season is next weekend, and I haven't done any longer rides yet this year.

BUT

I live in very hilly area now, and just about every time I go out I'm hitting some long steep monsters. In fact within the first 1-1/2 miles of leaving my apartment, my legs are already screaming after doing a pretty big climb.

Also last season I was do more longer rides, but pretty much only riding on weekends. This year, I've at least been getting out a few times a week.

[umd]

More effective for what purpose? For general fitness and riding improvement, focus on time not miles and then hills vs. miles becomes irrelevant.

[grunzster]

Yeah I guess that's kind of what a meant.

Assuming an equal amount of time:
less miles with lots of climbs ≥ more miles on flats.

[umd]

I should add that you are not going to gain any significant fitness the week before your event.

[grunzster]

No doubt, just trying to get a better feel for how ready I really am.

[Carbonfiberboy]

You know what they say: to ride fast, spin a big gear at high rpm. So to get fit, ride lots of hilly miles. If you have some sort of instrument - gps or hrm - that records total elevation climbed as well as miles ridden, you can develop some metrics. I find 50' of climbing/mile ridden to be a nice mix. 75'/mile is good too, but emphasizes the climbing. 100'/mile is a lot of climbing for a training ride.

The big difference between hilly and flat rides is that hills force you to go harder, so you wind up doing impromptu intervals, which is good. OTOH, if all your rides are hilly you might overdo it. I find a mix of hilly and flat rides to be the best training. You'll have to find the mix that works for you.

So to finally give an opinion on your question: Hilly rides will give you the most conditioning per hour of riding. If your riding time is unlimited, then more time is better than less time, which may force you to ride fewer hills. It's hard to do a multi-hour hill ride every day.

This week, ride at least as many miles between now and your long ride as you will do on that ride. Make those pretty flat miles, and then take the day before the long ride completely off.

[grunzster]

Does the stationary bike at the gym count?

There's really no such thing as flats around here, unless I find a good sized parking lot and just do laps.

[Carbonfiberboy]

Does the stationary bike at the gym count?

There's really no such thing as flats around here, unless I find a good sized parking lot and just do laps.No, that doesn't count. Neither position nor pedal action will be the same. I mean that's OK if you just can't get outside because it's snowy or raining hard or something. But it's not the same. So if you can't ride flats, then sometimes when you ride hills just keep your HR down and cadence up by riding in itty bitty gears. You can also cross train at the gym using a StairMill or Stair Master or one of those elliptical trainers. I'll use a spin bike at the gym, but not one of those horrible bike-like machines.

[Hammonjj]

If you can, start training with power. If you do, you'll never need to ask these questions again because you can look at the avg and normalized watts. If you use WKO, you can even look into things like the TSS and ATL, which will help determine the actual training load of your rides.

[veloGeezer]

I live in the Conewego Mountains in PA. What I have found is that hills help your sprint, but not the other way around.

The kind of hills that are around here are steep, but only are 1 to 3 miles long. So I developed alot of power, but where it hurt me was in time trial like efforts where I have to hold a steady pace for up to an hour.

With the hills around here I get a break every 10 to 20 minutes when I reach the top.

So that basically trained me to blow up a couple times every hour on a flat course.

To fix that I spent a year riding out in the valley where I could find flat to moderately rolling ground where I could actually do a 45 minute tempo interval. That really helped alot of things in my riding.

So I agree with the earlier poster who said that you need hills AND miles.

And I disagree that training with power is the answer. When you go over the top of a mountain, you will not be able to sustain the power output no matter what you do.

That's the problem with doing long intervals in the mountains. Once you reach the top your interval is over whether you like it or not. It's the descent that is the problem.

you need to find ground that fits the kind of interval you want to do.

[RelevantCycling]

You know what they say: to ride fast, spin a big gear at high rpm. So to get fit, ride lots of hilly miles. If you have some sort of instrument - gps or hrm - that records total elevation climbed as well as miles ridden, you can develop some metrics. I find 50' of climbing/mile ridden to be a nice mix. 75'/mile is good too, but emphasizes the climbing. 100'/mile is a lot of climbing for a training ride.

The big difference between hilly and flat rides is that hills force you to go harder, so you wind up doing impromptu intervals, which is good. OTOH, if all your rides are hilly you might overdo it. I find a mix of hilly and flat rides to be the best training. You'll have to find the mix that works for you.

So to finally give an opinion on your question: Hilly rides will give you the most conditioning per hour of riding. If your riding time is unlimited, then more time is better than less time, which may force you to ride fewer hills. It's hard to do a multi-hour hill ride every day.

This week, ride at least as many miles between now and your long ride as you will do on that ride. Make those pretty flat miles, and then take the day before the long ride completely off.

This is spot on. I am flat "challenged" here and need to work to get the right mix. For the year I am at 82.5 feet of climbing per mile (140,000 feet in 1,697 miles). When I want to go longer I need to look for flatter. A couple of weeks ago I went to Marin and did 115 miles with just over 6,000 feet of total ascent. Right around 50 feet per mile and a good way to get the distance in.

I find the heart rate monitor essential for telling me to ease off on recovery days. You can learn to climb at a recovery heart rate, but I find that I really need that number to keep the heart rate down.

[Jrather]

In the same boat here in the northern suburbs of NYC. The problem is that living in this area, you have to really look hard to piece together a flat route. As soon as I pull out of the driveway, it's all hills, all the time, and you burn a LOT of matches on these rides. Recovery rides are not possible. The upside to all this is that you get a beastly sprinting ability from constant climbing. Keep climbing and it will all get much easier. What I do is to get around the hills issue is to go to spin class in order to get some time on simulated flats. I keep the intensity a little lower than the instructor is calling for in order to train to where I need to be.

[ericgu]

Which is more effective, overall miles or lots of climbing?

First big ride of the season is next weekend, and I haven't done any longer rides yet this year.

BUT

I live in very hilly area now, and just about every time I go out I'm hitting some long steep monsters. In fact within the first 1-1/2 miles of leaving my apartment, my legs are already screaming after doing a pretty big climb.

Also last season I was do more longer rides, but pretty much only riding on weekends. This year, I've at least been getting out a few times a week.

Lots of climbing is more effective *assuming* that you know how to pace yourself on the longer rides and have reasonable aerobic fitness. You will remember how fast/far you have ridden in your best fitness, so be careful.

Last summer without riding more than about 55 miles I did back to back 100 mile 6K and 120 miles 8K rides, and got through it because all my short rides are hilly, but I wouldn't recommend it...