Where abouts are you? Unless your in the mountains, I can't imagine it being worse than Wisconsin. I find sprinting a hill and coasting down the other side is faster and saves more energy than spinning up and spinning down. This is how I beat countless people. If your blowing up on longer hills do you practice them more? Don't get me wrong, I'll blow up on a long hill w/o question, but I've always just thought I needed to practice sprints/climb-sprints more. Or do you think that it's just a waste of time to try and increase your sprint/climb-sprint endurance?