Originally Posted by
Carbonfiberboy
And that's the thing with clipless: you don't mash. You simply rotate your feet smoothly, though slowly, and up you go. I'm not particularly strong, but I can climb 10% seated in a 42 X 17 gear. That translates to a cadence of about 35 for me.
Prepping for a century with some steep climbs, Stoker and I were out yesterday on our tandem, climbing 1900'/hr at 50 cadence. The trick is to pedal smoothly, no upper body motion, arms relaxed.
Never walk! I'm against it philosophically.
I've wondered if using clipless pedals would help me to pedal more smoothly. And I definitely need to work on keeping my upper body relaxed and minimizing my movement there. On particularly bad climbs, I find myself really pulling on the bars, which I have to remind myself to avoid. I also feel that having cycling-specific shoes would probably help me a bit, too. I've tried some clipless pedals in the past, but they were ancient Look pedals that had seen better days, and I was using them to ride around town instead of long rides out of the city. So needless to say, they didn't work well for me. But I think modern clipless pedals would work well with the sort of riding I do now.