DRLski

I know it takes lots of miles to get good at hill climbing, this is my second year of actual training and racing and need some advice. What do I do for my climbing endurance? If there's a fairly large hill with a gradual gradient I normally don't have too many issues, but if it's long then I can usually make it about half way up and then my legs don't want to do anymore work. And if the climb turns steep then my HR max's out and it's like hitting a brick wall for me. I live in NH so I have plenty of hills to train on and I rarely take the easier route, the bigger the hill the more likely I'll be riding up it, I ride hill after hill and am have been training this year starting in January and am up to about 450 miles on the bike for April and am gonna try to step it up in a big way to like 600+ miles for May. The only positive thing I can say is that I recover extremely fast now once I get to the top of the climb which I could not do last year. I have no problem on flats or rolling hills but any sustained climbing and I'm doomed, this was my biggest weakness last year and I'm trying to make it a strength for this year but I don't know what else to do. I ride as many hills as I possibly can on my training ride and I have been doing some hill intervals. I've also lost 40+ lbs from last year so I feel a lot better than that but still have some more weight to lose, I'm 5'7" 160lbs, just to give you an idea of how much weight I'm pushing up the hill.

Also, will weight lifting help at all with climbing?

Thanks.