Dakota,

Hill technique really depends on what your hills are like. Here in central FL, we have some short steep hills out towards Clermont. The crank up the speed and hammer up them works pretty well on most of them. There are a few that are a tad too long for most people to pull that off. They blow up before they reach the top.

If a hill is really steep like over 15%, you are probably not going to be able to sit and spin unless you have really, really low gears. When you stand, your cadence goes from 100 rpm (or so) down to 50 rpm which effectively makes your gears much, much lower. For my riding around here, I opt for tighter gearing and if I hit a steep hill, I am out of the saddle.

Now if I go someplace like Colorado which has climbs of 7 miles at 7% (very long and not so steep), I just use a triple and spin up. Of course, if you go to North Georgia, you can get hills of several miles long which can be fiendishly steep (28% max on Brasstown Bald) and there one uses low gears, standing, hope, luck and prayer.