I'm new to this sport, just started riding in May. I soon learned that climbing really hurts and can be very painful. On my first organized ride, I was quickly dropped on the first hill, then proceeded to struggle on the next 4 climbs. After a break, we hit the biggest climb where I completely ran out of air and had to stop midway to catch my breath. The hill after that I was gasping for air when both legs cramped up, they wouldn't move causing me to to almost fall over before managing to frantically unclip one foot. I was a mess and way over my ability. The people with me thought I would get discouraged and quit. Instead, I vowed to get stronger and also get some help by changing gearing.

I started doing short intervals; max effort for 1 minute with 1 minute easy spinning, followed by 30 seconds max effort then 30 sec. easy spinning, then high cadence spinning 100 - 110rpm for 10 minutes, followed with 15 minutes light spinning. Then repeat up to 3 times.

The gearing - I kept the 50/34 compact cranks and changed the rear cogs from 12-25 to 11-34. Yup, figured why not get the training wheels for an out of shape newbie. Now I have gearing for any situation and really like having such a large range.

My son also taught me how to breath when climbing and I think this has really helped. Instead of focusing on breathing in, he said focus on breathing out quickly. The idea is quick breaths out means even quicker breaths in since you'll always take in air. Except you only focus on exhaling. Now when faced with a big climb, I get in the right gears and just concentrate on breathing out. This has helped immensely and allowed me to climb 2 miles on a 10% grade.

I've improved some over that first organized ride. So two weeks ago I went back and rode that same route again starting from my house, which makes this a longer ride. I rode every hill without stopping and climbed most hills using only the 24 or 26 rear cog and dropped into the 30 cog only once. Total miles was 72, another personal best.

So don't give up, take it slow, get the gearing you need and focus on your breathing.

Best of luck....