Originally Posted by zimbo
How long does it take you to climb one of these hills? If it's a one minute hill then your training approach is significantly different than if it's a 5 minute or 20 minute hill. The former is all about anaerobic effort and recovery; the latter is about increasing your aerobic engine.
--Steve
+1. First you must define what a 'hill' is. Here in Austin the hills kill me. Most are short (less than 5min) and steep. These hills take raw power and they come one right after another so it's like doing interval work. Give me a long climb, that is miles long like the type I had in So Cal, and I can ride up them much more easily. For example in most of the hilly races last year there were guys who were putting the hurt on me. When we lined up at Ft Davis, with it's long sustained climbs, I dropped them easily. Like the saying goes 'styles make fights'.