I have been accused of being a climber on club rides and even in some age group races even though I think the opposite. I'm 5'11" and 185-188 giving me a ratio of around 2.64 lbs/inch. My climbs in the Cleveland area are mostly 2 miles or less with a total gain of 300-400'. The best training hill within riding distance of my home has 407' of gain in 1.7 miles. For many here on the forum those are not climbs but rather large rollers. During the early season I will ride repeats up the hill in overgear in Z4, then later at Z4/5 at preferred cadence. Later in the season I will ride Z5+ intervals up really steep short (1/3 mile) hills that are close to 15% (Oak Hill in the CVNP). Basically the hills become very hard efforts and are not sustained climbing per say. I believe you can get better at climbing those kinds of hills I refer to, just by doing hard intervals. To climb 1,000'+ on the same gradient would take a sustained and very controlled effort that could last 30 minutes or longer, where the Ohio hills will take 8 minutes or less. I look at them as more of a sustained sprint that I meter out my effort as consistent as possible to reach the top without blowing up before getting there. I don't worry about after the climb as there is usually a recovery back down.

One thing I always try to avoid while climbing is putting extra effort into the climb when the road tips up. If I’ve been riding at 350 watts for 4 minutes then suddenly hit a rise and begin to press the effort at 450 watts there just might not be a recovery back to the 350 watts needed to still climb resulting in blowing up and having to go to salvage mode. The power meter does really help while climbing since you know how much effort you are putting into or not into the climb. I know that at X watts I can hold the effort for a long time, at X watts the sustainable effort is a 5-8 minute, at X watts the sustainable effort is 2-4 minutes, etc…