Originally Posted by head_wind
Lets see... 2. I seldom ride during the week: commuter 'r us. 3. I try to keep 90 RPM as my lower threshhold too.
okay, not being negative, but... you can;t really expect improvements to anything but small and evident only over a long period when you can only ride one or 2 days a week. Just a fact of repeated 'training' to see improvement that is more rapid. Even more mileage on those few days, unless done towards aerobic strength, will have limited effect on improvements - too much time in between
If you are limited in the time and days that you can ride, then you're better off approaching that improvement in a more methodical way. Climbing is a combination of aerobic 'strength'(capacity) and muscular strength.
Since you don't mention anyhting about you state of 'conditioning', what should we assume? Are you well conditioned and trim? That all has a huge affect on what might work best for you.
But given only 2 days of riding what I would suggest is working on aerobic conditioning while on the bike. Doing this will also have the added benefit of making your pedaling more efficient, over time.
By that I mean, stay out of big gears that keep you below 80 rpm on flat and rolling. Try to stay in smaller gears that will work your aerobic system - gears that keep you 90 to 100 rpm. Invariably you may find you'll actually ride 'slower' for an extended period (maybe months) and tax you heart and lungs more.
This will, over time, improve your mechanical pedaling efficiency and your aerobic capacity. This is exactly what racers do in early season preparation for a coming season. Low gear 'tempo' riding.
Cadence while actually climbing is a very 'personal' thing and will vary for each rider. Good to test how high you can go and still be comfortable and efficient; but then identifiying the current cadence that works best for you is good. Sometimes a rider might be better, more efficient and have better endurance from a certain cadence level if they were to gear a bit higher than try to raise cadence. It's always good to 'test' for that and aim to improving cadence to a point, but then 'riding within yourself' is alwys the advise experts give when it come to extended climbing effort.
If you are limited to a day or 2 of weekend riding then take 2 of weekdays, maybe Tue and Thurs, get intoa gym and work on muscle strength. Start out with at least 20 min of building warmup and hard spinning on a stationary bike, again high rpm, keeping it at 100 rpm. Then do circuit workouts aimed to strenghtening the entier body, with strong focus on torso core and legs. 2 complete circuits of different machines or free weight exercises, preferrably 15 reps done to muscle exhaustion each time, rather than working one msucle group over and over again. This allows some recovery before a 2nd hard set is put to a muscle group.
Between the 'tempo' riding and weekday weight workout, you should see the most improvement over time for all your riding. Subbing a weekday ride of 20+ miles for one of the gym workouts is also okay.
Either way, you really need at least 3 and preferrably 4 days of focused effort to see some strong changes in your riding.
EDIT - btw, if you don;t have one, I would recommend highly the use of a HRM. Aside from knowing what to do for a workout, the feedback of a HRM goes a long way to helping you evaluate the proccess and progress. Especially when it comes to deciding how hard you need to go to get some benefit. I'm totally stoked on the info my HRM has given me about myself, since re-acquiring one this Jan. Do a search on BF for all the info you could possibly want on how to use and apply HRM data you get for yourself...