Buckeye Bob

I thought I would add my 2 cents after reading all the comments.

To answer your shifting question...Get yourself in the smallest cog up front before the hill and use your cassette as needed. Let your body be your guide. It will tell you where you need to be. And you will almost always want one more gear than you have.

Anyway...What I do when climbing hills.

1) Concentrate on my breathing. Get as much oxygen as I can into my lungs. AND breath out as much possible. I found myself when I am close to going into the "red" that I tend to not breath out enough and then I can't breath in as much. In my opinion if you want to climb hills well you have to control your breathing.

2) I try to sit tall to allow my lungs to expand as much as possible. Don't know if it really makes a difference but it makes a difference to me mentally.

3) Never, never look all the way up the road to see how much hill I have left. I pick a spot just up the road. Weather a telephone pole, mailbox, or anything just 25-30 feet up the road that's my goal. And I just stare at the road just in front of the bike until I reach my goal. Then pick a new spot just up the road. Can't tell you how many times that has helped me make it when I thought for sure my heart was going to explode my head.

4) Just dig deep and make it up. At any speed. Just make it up. As a clyde we are "gravitationally challenged" and it takes a lot of power and effort to climb. I remember when I first started using Strava and tracking my hill climbs. Man was it discouraging to look at the KOM of the hill I just killed myself getting up had climbed it in half the time I did. Heck even the QOM blew my doors off. But daggone it I'm getting up that hill. I don't care if its at 3mph...I'm getting up it.

Trakhak

The key to learning to use a bike to improve fitness is this: learn to pedal at a slightly higher cadence and slightly higher effort level than is comfortable. If your gearing isn't low enough to allow you to climb a tough hill without nearly killing yourself, don't climb that hill---yet.

One of the best purchases I ever made was my first heart monitor (example: https://www.amazon.com/Udoarts-Pedom...+monitor&psc=1). Like me, you'll probably find that you're going too hard on climbs, which results in your being unable to keep up a good effort after the climb. The heart monitor tells you when you're trying to do too much.

Check with your doctor for a recommended heart rate for moderate exercise and use the heart monitor to stay within that range. Don't beat yourself up if you can't climb a hill while maintaining your target heart rate. As long as you maintain that heart rate everywhere else on your ride, you'll improve. (Fun fact: there have been Tour de France champions who did all their training in Holland, in areas without so much as a highway overpass to climb!)

PDKL45

OP, what sort of bike do you ride? If it's something like a road bike with a compact double and your lowest gear is the 39t chainring driving a 28T cassette cog, then I think most people would struggle. Personally, I feel there is no shame for anyone in not making a hill. It's hard.

Look at your bike and work out your gearing. If you can use drivetrain optimization to get a smaller chainring or a larger cassette cog you can often make climbing a much easier thing to do and render cycling a much more pleasant recreational activity. Even if you're struggling with MTB gearing, you may be able to get new components that will help you climb that hill.

Wilfred Laurier

Your experience is not uncommon. I would say the mistake you made was going too hard on your first time up the hill. Had you realized you were redlining your effort, you could have taken a break and let your heartrate drop, have a sip of water, stretch, then climb back on after a minute or two and ride for a little bit more. It might take you two or three or ten of these 'intervals' but you will make it to the top.

Walking is also totally acceptable if you need a break from pedalling. As you get stronger you will learn your limits and how to better pace yourself, and eventually you will make it all the way to the top in one go (not that there is anything wrong with taking a break).

kc0bbq

This is something you kind of learn SCUBA diving of all places, especially with the older style gear that vented back by the regulator on the tank. When your body is stressed your breathing speeds up, but under most circumstances it's the wrong response because the shallower you breathe the less "used" air you're forcing out and that means less space for new, higher oxygen air to come in. With the old SCUBA regulators the long hoses acted as an extension of your bronchial tubes making it even worse.

By breathing deeply, you increase the oxygen you have available. You end up shifting around where different metabolic processes happen. You have two options once you start getting to that point where the O2 you bring in starts to balance out the O2 used - you can get a little more air and move that goalpost out or you can lower your effort. On flat ground it's easy to do the latter. On a hill there's a limit before you stop fighting gravity. Good posture, open up your shoulders, and breathe deeply, especially out. Make use of that diaphragm!

Since you're fighting your body's natural response it takes practice. Unfortunately, it is really (really really) hard to keep yourself working hard enough on flat ground to do this, so hills (or a trainer with a lot of resistance) are normally the only place to work on this skill. If your body doesn't need so much oxygen you'll hyperventilate and that's not good either, so you need to be in a bad place where you need all that extra O2. That's one of the reasons hills and hill repeats are so helpful. If your technique is off you stand to make big gains just from learning to breathe in different conditions - at least while your legs are stronger than your heart and lungs, but your legs catch up quickly if your heart and lungs can push them once in a while.

Hills cause suffering when you're a clyde, but you can minimize it. That makes all riding easier - it's not just for people who want to go out and hammer away. Making hills less of a chore makes JRA rides better because the hard parts are less likely to give you those negative feelings that can drag down the rest of the ride. You can't enjoy your descents (gravity loves clydes! the earth wants us close to her), if you're in a group you feel like you're making people wait too long, all that stuff that kicking yourself mentally really exaggerates in your head.

And, yeah, going into a hill afraid is making things more difficult. You've already defeated yourself at the bottom. I have one hill that's like this for me. It's steep, yeah, but it's very short compared to other hills I go up semi-regularly, and less steep than a number of them. Not sure why - it might be because it is dead flat up to the bottom, or it might be because it's used in the last stage of our big local pro race and it DNFs 70% of remaining riders pretty much every year. Probably that, it's kind of mythical around here.

genec

Listen, something I didn't see mentioned... while you are actually climbing, and you have a couple of gears left on the back (already in the small ring in the front), and you want to shift down to an easier gear yet... lighten up your pedaling load when you do this. Your bike will thank you.

You are moving the rear derailuer (RD) from a smaller cog to a bigger cog in the back... the chain has to move uphill, and the RD has to force the chain to the new location... it won't like being fully loaded.

You need to keep your feet moving... but just take a bit of pressure off the pedals while you make this shift. That will actually "save your gears."

Leebo

OP, bike and gearing you have on it? Might need lower. The loaded Karate Monkey touring set up weighed 72 lbs this summer( food and lots of water) Lots of time in the 24-34 gearing. Lots of spinning up the hills of New Hampshire. But below redline for the most part, and at 4.5 mph.

Buckeye Bob

Thanks for the information. I agree about hill repeats. I concentrated on climbing as much as possible this year and skipping the many miles on the near by Rail Trail. I was surprised at how much I gained in minimal miles. It made a huge difference.

Roadrash3

Get lower gears..... I don't know whats on your bike, but where I live in California, they are no hills they are mountains, I have had to take the majority of my bikes and put more easy climbing gears on it, then I just get comfortable, starting spinning and slowly climb like a mountain goat. Climbing never really gets easier you just get faster.

RiPHRaPH

Also, don't look at that hill as a whole... think in terms of sections. 1/3, 1/3, 1/3.

1/3 --> head of steam, charge up the hill
1/3 ---> gear up, not down and stand and get a rhythm going
1/3 ---> high spin in lowest gearing possible to get up and .... over.

Don't look at the top. Don't look past your 1/3 segment.

love the hill. embrace the hill.

StephenH

It might be conditioning. Then again, your hill might be twice as steep or long as my hill. They're not all the same.


How I generally do things: Ride around in the big ring up front, shift up and down in the back as needed.
On a select few hills, shift into the middle ring up front, usually when I'm nearing the low end of the rear cassette.
For a few choice problem hills, shift into the small ring up front. If I do this, more often, I'll do it prior to hitting the steep part, mainly to know it's going to make that shift! That puts me into the hill with practically no momentum, but then momentum doesn't get you very far u a hill, anyway.


On the effort put out, the key is pacing, and if you can work hard and breathe hard and keep going, great, otherwise, slow down to a level of exertion you can maintain.


In some conditions, you may be able to stop and restart- depends on your coordination, how steep the hill is, whether you can start across the road, then cut up, etc. Easier with platform pedals.


On gearing- I've got 32 or 34 tooth rear sprockets on the Sojourn and the tandem, with triples up front. That'll get me over 12% with the tandem, over 20% with the Sojourn. The hardest hills aren't the steepest, they're the steep + long.

bulldog1935

I live in the TX hill country (1000' higher than Dallas - ha).
To get to my house at the end of every ride is a 400' climb with up to 14% grade (that grade shows in 4 ridges on the climb).
I run both a cyclotouriste triple and a wide compact double with granny rings (two bikes). This is when I mostly use them - coming home at the end of a long ride and facing this climb.

Over the usable chainline, the granny rings give me 50" down to 23" or 24" in narrow steps. The 24" gear is low enough to climb 18% grades - and I know a couple of them in the hill country (Climbing to Old Tunnel WMA from Waring).

Making the approach for the final climb, I'll go to the granny ring and find the 50" gear. I spin-climb the hill, and the narrow gear steps let me shift down and up as the grade waxes and wanes. I can always make the 14% grades in 32" or 28" gear, but it's still nice to have the 24" gear in reserve, in case I'm really tired - or even hauling a load on the bike from the corner store (they call them ice houses here, it's a TX thing).

Here's the gear analysis for the wide compact double

WonderMonkey

First, follow people's advice on gears. Then....

When tackling a hill I know that I probably can't make it up in one shot I set target points. If you think you can do the hill in thirds, pick a spot one third of the way up and get to it and stop. Gather your wits and then do the next section, or whatever section is achievable. Then the next. And then done. However many sections you have to make to get up there. Do it that way a few times and then maybe you try to do longer on the last section and keep on it until you feel what you are doing is reasonable.

FYI I don't walk my bike up a hill that I want to ride. I stop and when I get back on my bike I actually go back down the hill a few feet to make sure I ride the whole thing.

StephenH

One other thing. Several years ago, we rode the Talimena Scenic Drive in Oklahoma. It's got some long steep hills.
On one of those hills, I rode up, used the triple, and averaged about 4 mph riding up.
One of the ladies in the club only had a double. So she walked it. At about 3 mph.
The moral of that story is when you get down in a really low gear, it may be good for warm fuzzy feelings to ride instead of walking, but you don't gain much on the time. So if you have to walk a hill, do it. It's slow, but so is riding up at 3 mph. Either option is better than staying home, though.

RubeRad

+1, OP asked a lot of questions about various cogs and chainrings, I'm not convinced we got enough information to ensure he really was in the lowest gear for climbing that hill.

OP, for climbing you want to use the lowest gear which is smallest chainring in the front, and biggest cog in the back. You should be able to briefly look down while riding to check. Gear ratio is front divided by back, which tells you how many wheel revolutions per crank revolution.

It sounds like you have 3 chainrings, how many teeth are on each?

And how many cogs? Assuming a relatively modern bike, the smallest is probably 11 or maybe 12 teeth, how many on the biggest?

Many road bikes will come with a 11-25 cassette in the back, or widen to 11-28 "for climbing". That's for 135lb mountain goats. Clydes like us need a wider cassette in order to haul ass (pun quite intended).

FWIW, I'm 250lb, and my bike has 11-34 in the back, and compact double (50&34) in the front. that lowest gear ratio of 34:34 (=1:1) is pretty low as road bikes go, but if I had a triple it could go even lower.

My mtb has 11-36 cassette and double chainring with 36&22. So lowest ratio of 22:36 is quite 'under water', and in theory I should be able to climb walls. In reality, I can ride as slow as about 2-3mph before I fall over.

IBOHUNT

You should not say that you are "walking". The more appropriate @TrojanHorse term is ... cross-training

mr,grumpy 

Grea thread. It was a question that I didn't;t even know that I had, but now I have an idea why I stink at hills so bad!

NYSteve

There is a lot of good information on this thread. A lot of differing opinions.

Our riding season here is NY is over. Here are my plans to get better on the hills.

I am going to use this off season to go to the gym and spin away. I am working on an hour of spinning at a cadence between 85 and 100 RPM for an hour and increasing the resistance. I hope to have a really good base built up by next Spring.

I am going for a proper bike fit by a professionals at Syracuse Bicycle. My very last ride was about 16 miles and the guy I rode with was talking how my seat was way to low, and I needed spacers for my peddle and a overall good bike fit.

Come Spring, I really plan on grinding the gears a lot and getting many miles under me.

eja_ bottecchia

This. New riders often make the mistake of worrying too much about the gear they are in.


A better approach, IMHO, is to ride whatever gear feels good for that particular's terrain's configuration.


Good luck and ride safely.

eja_ bottecchia

Like Froome?

IBOHUNT

Sure... The only difference between Froome and me is...
probably 27 kg and a tonne of power but then I have arms that appear that they can pick up a pint of beer where his.. not so much.

Ask that boy to sling bales of hay and that dog won't hunt. One and done is what I'd suspect

gsa103

There's a local hill that's about 1/4mi long at 20% grade. My mountain bike has 22-34 gearing, so you'll fall over backwards before you run out of low end.

I've been passed by a woman pushing a stroller up that hill. Granted, she was in far better shape than I. Probably from pushing a stroller up a 20% grade daily...

StephenH

Ahah! You jogged my memory! So some hiking stories!
We moved to Colorado long ago, I was overweight, started hiking in the mountains, had lots of fun, lost lots of weight.
I hiked up Round Mountain. I huffed and puffed for 4 hours getting up there, finally made it to the top, and there were a bunch of old people that looked like they were right out of the nursing home. (Estes Park is a popular retirement place, and those people don't all sit around in rocking chairs!)
One time...I was hiking up the lower Longs Peak trail, steady uphill but not steep, but about 10,000' elevation. And a fat lady passed me. That didn't bother me, but what DID bother me was that she didn't seem to be breathing hard.
Then...I hiked up Greys and Torreys peaks. A kid and his dad passed me. I think the kid was 11 if I remember right.
So I learned Humility. I learned to do what I can do, and if somebody else can do it twice as good, more power to them. I'm not them, they're not me, and the fact that they might be better than me isn't going to stop me from doing what I can do and trying to have fun doing it.
And that same lesson carries over to cycling.

outashape

If a hill is too hard. I stop for about 30 seconds or 1 min. It works wonders. Then I can go about 50 feet and then I start looking at little cracks or flowers on the road, and say can I pedal 3 feet, yes, 3 more feet yes. Most of the time it is a mental game, and the hill is not so steep that I can't start pedaling again. I seldom walk up a hill, unless I am on an organized ride that I signed up and paid for, and then did not ride my bike until the event.