Originally Posted by
cyclintom
I misspoke there. If you have a high gear to climb in you're pretty much stuck standing and pumping up a hill. A LOT of young guys are still doing this. Among other things the bike has to be fit properly so that standing you can be nearly upright and still have complete hold on the bars.
But this position makes it almost impossible to spin circles and that engages all of your muscles. This in turn make you grow tired faster.
No. I climb on bikes with long, low stems so I have the full ability to pull up (actually up and forward) on the pedals as hard as I want. And I am not a hack climbing hills. (Ask the folks I passed or couldn't catch me climbing the 2 mile hill on Cycle Oregon 4 years ago with its 14% grades. I should have been an easy target. I was riding fix gear with a flip-flop wheel and didn't stop and flip so I did the whole thing on a 42-17. My back was close to horizontal.
If you stand vertically, pulling up is both far harder and loads the knee pushing down. For most out there, that isn't an issue. For some of us with knee issues, that would really limit what I could do uphill. (That 14% hill I would have had to walk. Just standing on the pedal with all my weight and the bike would have rolled backwards.)
Ben