Originally Posted by
Trakhak
Getting off the saddle to climb puts your center of gravity further forward to enable putting out increased power to accommodate the grade. Same thing for sprinting---out of the saddle and forward over the bars for increased power.
You're right, of course, that seated climbing with the correct saddle position and gear choice is usually more efficient, especially for long climbs.
That said, feather-weight riders like myself can stand and climb efficiently for 15 or 20 minutes with no burning of the quads.
That is correct but if you look at the hip joint angles at somebody pedaling off the saddle you'll notice that they are at much stepper angles in order to maximize quad muscles engagement.
If you love them hills you could consider leg weight lifting exercises. While the fast twitching muscles that are utilized during anaerobic output do not contribute as much to fast cadence aerobic pedaling, they shine on them hills. One psychological reason why you don't experience the burn is because of the slow/fast muscle fiber distribution on your legs, more of the aerobic ones than the other.