Originally Posted by
rideBjj
Very very important to keep your upper body as relaxed as possible. This includes your face and neck. This is very counter to what people naturally do when straining at something. But not only does it sap your energy, it just simply adds on to the "pain pile", which, if it gets tall enough will make you want to quit.
It also helps not to look too far ahead, or really ahead at all. That can demoralize you when you think about how bad you are suffering vs how much longer you will be suffering.
What I do is do on a really tough climb is to move slightly forward on the saddle, put my hands *lightly* on the tops, bend my elbows a little and "settle in". I keep my head in a down / neutral position and I look no further than my front wheel and I just concentrate on watching the pebbles in the road go by. That makes it feel faster and helps me "zone out" at the same time. I only look up occasionally to make sure I'm not about to hit anything / check for obstacles. I avoid looking at my speedo as well. I just think to myself "relax/breathe/spin". That's it. Nothing else.
If I feel myself starting to pick up speed because either the grade has eased slightly, or I've relaxed and smoothed out enough that it feels easier, then I may drop a gear and stand up for 30 pedal revs. Then I drop back down for 60 and repeat. This will make it go faster plus change things up.
This tip was given to me a while ago and was a HUGE help. Since climbing can be just as mental as physical the above really helped me out a lot. I managed to do 2000' of incline over 40 miles last Saturday and still managed a 11mph average. I also found this old video which explains the up on the pedals technique when you start and settling in also. I did some hill repeats last night and although I was on my 3rd lap of a good hill switching up and charging the hill actually helped me beat my previous 2 attempts. It's a nice way to use different muscles also.