Tabor

So my commute to school is 7.0 miles. On my way there I start at ~250 feet above sea level, climb to ~1000 feet above sea level in 4 miles (more or less one very large, not very steep, hill). Then I decend to ~50 feet above sea level in 3 miles (another big hill, only this one is steeper).

I can ride to school fine, I only switch the smallest ring on my tripple once. However, coming home, climbing that big hill I have to stop and catch my breath at least 4 times, and today I did it about 7-8 times just so that my ride would not be unpleasant.

I have a triple (52/42/30) and a 12-25 rear cassette. If I switched to a 12-27, would I see any noticable change? I just started commuting (last week). Should I just stick it out? I don't really mind stopping, but I feel I could make it home faster if I didn't.

PS- I am not obese, just overweight. Specifically I am 5'11" and I weigh 200lbs. The BMI says I need to loose 22lbs to not be overweight anymore.

PSS- Can I get an even shorter small chain ring for my tripple?

operator

Don't bother switching to a 12-27, that won't really give you much of a gear change especially for the money you will spend.

I'd try and pick up one of those mountain bike cassettes with the massive 34t in the back.

Ashen

I would expect that after a few weeks you will not be as bothered by the hill. I'd just stick it out for a while before throwing money at what is almost certainly a fleeting problem.

dasein

Keep your cassette. Each weekend, run intervals up that hill. In a month you'll make it up no problem. The "learning" curve for this is remarkably shallow.

Tabor

Will do.

I know what an interval is, but I am not sure what I should do. Do you mean I should run the whole hill hard, then run the whole hill easy, rinse repeate? Or do you mean that I should go hard, go easy, go hard, go easy while going up the hill?

RonH

Time on the bike (miles) will take care of the hills and the fat.

jeff-o

Just keep riding 'er. Yep.

k71021

I think your feeling is correct on this point. Generally speaking, stopping does slow you down or slowing down does eventually lead you to stopping.

Sorry, I just couldn’t resist! Don’t worry about the gearing; just keep-up the exercise and your body will take care of the rest. I imagine it is more your cardiovascular conditioning then body fat level. If you are looking to lose weight you should be focusing on duration and not pushing too hard. While with cardio training you should push harder and not worry so much about the amount of time that you are exercising, but it should still be at least thirty minutes. I don’t know about the interval training up the hill, even though it would be good cardio exercise for you. If you are just starting out, go for long rides on the weekend (over an hour at least) and keep your pace at a level where you know you are working, you’ll improve your conditioning and maintain your interest in cycling. I just personally think challenging the same hill everyday would get rather boring PDQ, and cycling should be a fun way to get from point A to B, plus get some exercise. It would be great if you can find another person to ride with on the weekends too. It will keep you committed to training and a little rivalry can help you maintain a good pace, even if the rivalry/competition is not explicit. Keep up riding and the commute; it will surely get easier for you with time.

Michel Gagnon

The two changes you could look at:

- Changing the cassette. Go for 11-32 or 11-34, otherwise it's not worthed. The problem: make sure your derailleur can handle that wide gap. If you have a road rear derailleur (i.e. 105, Ultegra), it may not be able to handle such large cogs. A MTB rear derailleur such as LX or XT – which works fine with your existing levers – would handle those cogs.
The bonus: lower gears, and gears spread evenly from low to high.
The sore point : you will get a larger gap between each gear.

Alternate : Make your custom cassette, such as 12-13-14-15-17-19-21-25-32 by leaving out the 23 and buying a solo 32. You get a bailout gear but keep the close ratios most of the way. Same reservations as above regarding rear derailleur.

- Change small ring from 30 to 26 or 24. The 24 works, but you'll find the gap too large between both rings. You probably won't need to change the rear derailleur unless it's a short-cage one.

CBBaron

Time on the bike will take care of your problem but why not make it more pleasant in the mean time if you don't mind spending $30-$50 (maybe less).
Sounds like you have a road bike and probably a road style rear derailer. I've heard of people using a 32 tooth cog with those derailer but it sounds problematic and will affect your riding in the middle ring as well as the small ring. I'd try a smaller inner ring. 26 teeth should be no real problem except perhaps a trickier shift back to the 42, and will provide a little bit lower granny. 24 teeth maybe too small for your front derailer to handle causing the chain to rub, with some careful adjustment it may work.
Going to a 12-27 cassette could be done in addition for a even lower gear but it will have less effect. Putting a bailout cog (32t) will give you the biggest change in gears but as mentioned be difficult to get working with your current derailer.

Good Luck
Craig

grgs

Don't trust BMI. All it is is a fancy name for a Height-Weight chart.

DogBoy

I'm 5'11" and 220. After riding a few months I was able to make it up anything in 30/25, but that didn't make it fun. Especially for commuting I think its important to keep it fun. I swallowed my pride, bought an LX derailleur and an 11/32 cassette [edit: after riding over 4500 miles and a year and a half]. My chainrings were shot also, so when I replaced them I went 28/39/50 instead of 30/42/52. I can now regulate my effort from easy to hard even on some of the steepest hills around (15% Grade). When doing training rides I don't let myself go granny, but still have 39/32 which is almost as easy as a 30/25. If you don't do the chainrings, this can be done for as little as $60 (Deore derailleur/cheap cassette). Its all about what will keep you riding.

Oh, and riding lots of miles on the bike will take care of the hill, but if you don't ditch the pizza/cheeseburgers/fries and beer, the weight doesn't change....ask me how I know that!

edtrek

Here's what's worked for me. I'm overweight, slow, and don't climb well.
(6'1", 225 pounds, ride in hilly PA, 2500 miles/year)

1. on the rear, change the cassette to get a 34 tooth cog
2. on the front, change the small chain ring to a 24
3. get a cadence bike computer ($25-ish, Cateye Astrale 8)

The cassette and chainring changes will involve your local bike shop.
Probably so will the cadence computer.

When you ride up the hill, just try to maintain your "target" cadence.
For instance, 85 RPM.
If the going's too hard and you can't do 85 RPM with normal effort,
downshift until you get to a gear where you can do 85 rpm.
If the going becomes easy and you can't avoid exceeding 85 rpm,
shift up until 85 is what you're doing.

As other posters have said, time and experience will certainly improve things.
I know that Eddy Merckx said "Don't buy upgrades; ride up grades"

But the physics of Clydesdale riders fall outside the "normal" OEM gear range
that come with most bikes.

Stick with it; keep riding. YMMV.

HiYoSilver

Very interesting. Your weight is about what mine was. I had a worst setup, a 12:23 in the rear. Your lowest gear is 32GearInches. Changing to a 12:27 would only drop the low to 30GI. Not worth doing.

I wanted less change when shifting gears, similar to a road bike instead of mountain bike, so my solution was to replace 30.42.52 12:23 with 28:42:54 12:27. It dropped my low to 28 GI. Before it was 35GI. I gained 2 lower gears by the change and find it much easier to go up hills. You'ld gain 1 lower gear from your current setup. If you really want to go low so you can ride the hill in your current condition you could go 28.42.54 12:32; that'll give you a low of 24GI, about 4 gears lower. But there is no such thing as a free lunch, you'll lose easier gear changes at the top 2 gears.

After you get in shape, you'll probably come to hate those harder gear changes. It'll probably take about 300 to 1,000 miles before you're in shape for riding the commute easily. Keep your 12:25 cassette, after school you might have an environment that asks for smooth riding.

Recommendations:
A- Only 1 gear change option
Replace the 30.42.52 12:25 with 28.42.54 12:27 and work on better pacing for hill climbing and slowly increasing your pedaling speed,i.e. cadence.
Advantages: only one gearing change
Disadvantages: until get conditioned, may have to pause a time or two initially on the hill.

B- 2 gear changes
B.1 Replace 30.42.52 12:25 with 28.42.54 12:32 and work on conditioning.
B.2 After in better shape, and you can ride the hill with the 28x25, replace the 12:32 with a 12:27.
Advantages: can ride the hill now and stetch out conditioning
Disadvanages: buying extra cassette for training and then replacing with another cassette.

Don't worry about speed, it'll eventually come. Since you're riding the same route, just for fun, time your progress. Use day one as a baseline. So you'll have something positive, keep times for AM commute, PM commute, AVG commute. Run numbers for 25 days. Your average at the end of 25 rides should be slightly higher than base of day 1. Now comes the fun part, start your averages again and calc rides 26..50. By then you should be seeing some nice improvements.

Catching the breath while riding should come quickly, after about 15 rides. Being able to ride up the hills is definitely doable as your hill is not bad, but it will take a tad more time.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

cooker

Can you maintain a good pace while you're riding and only stop because of shorness of breath, or do you also grind to a halt due to leg fatigue? If it's only your breathing, I say tough it out until you get in better cardio shape. If it's your legs too, change your cassette so you can spin. My two cents.
Robert

RJOsprey

I vote for spinning an 11-34 cassette and maybe a new derailleur. Just cause you can get out of your saddle and crank it out doesn't mean you'll turn into Eddy Merckx.

rainedon

Just out of curiosity, what hill are you having trouble with?

Nate

Ashen

Good question actually, I'd probably be more sympathetic if you say its up Burnside for several miles headed up out of town, heh.

hamandcheese

This is where I'd put my vote too. I'm 5'10'' and about 215 so you certainly have my empathy (or is it sympathy?) and I grew up in Portland (Hillsboro actually) so I'd be curious to find out which hill it is.

Tabor

rainedon,

SW Montgomery and then SW Greenway.

dfw

I have a 12-26 cassette and the same triple as yours, so just about the same gearing. My BMI is roughly the same as yours. For the first few months I had the same problem as you. Now I go up hills and never have to use my granny anymore. Eventually I'm going to chuck the triple and go with a compact double.

Doing intervals with hills is pretty simple and will help your overall conditioning tremendously. Basically what it involves is getting your heart rate up to a high level and keeping it there for as long as you can. Then you recover for a few minutes and repeat the process 4 times or so.

What I do is this. I have a short, steep hill not far from where I live. It's only 3/4 mile or so, but it's a 10% grade almost the entire way. What I do is hit the hill about as hard as I can. By the time I make it to the top, my HR is almost to max. I coast down the other side, go around the block, and hit it again. Usually by the 4th or 5th go round, I can't make it up the hill anymore. When I first started, 1 time was my limit.

You can just keep doing your normal ride and eventually it will get easier. Intervals are just a way to speed up the process. The more you stress yourself to your limits, the faster you will improve.

phidauex

Tabor, for more technical advice, we need to know more about your bike.. What type of bike is it, and what front and rear derailleurs does it have? If we know that, we can suggest more possibilities.

There is no shame in changing your gearing. Bikes come with 'racer' gearing, not 'real people' gearing, and many people need to change gearing to match their style. You don't need an 'upgrade', just a change. If you have to stop 4 times to make it up the hill, you aren't getting as good of a workout as if you had a lower gear, and could make it up in one long push. The workout is in the fact that you rode it, not the fact that you trashed your knees by mashing up it in a gear that is too high.

So anyway, let us know more details about your bike's drivetrain, and we can figure out how big of a gear you could go to in the rear without changing derailleur, or how small in the front.

peace,
sam

rainedon

Those are pretty good climbs. I'm guessing you live on the backside of Council Crest and have to go up and over on your way home. Those are really fun roads to ride when you are feeling good. As you keep riding you'll be able to make your way over in pretty good shape, but they will always be a challenge. I don't think a cassette change would be a bad idea. I don't think it is totally necessary either. I tend to like the punishment and challenge of my commute, but for a lot of people it is nice to have a bail out gear to go to if you don't feel like mashing the pedals that day.

Tabor

More or less. I actually live on SW Canyon, but over council crest is pretty direct (and challenging!). I could come up the other side of Hwy 26 on SW Fairview, maybe I will try that, I don't know if it is actually any easier.

phidauex,

I have a full Ultegra Groupo on a road bike that is optimized for commuting (rack, fenders, lights). I don't really feel like swapping out my perfectly good Ultegra derailers to accomodate mtb gearing. 100% of the rides that I have gone on EXCEPT MY COMMUTE, my gearing is fine, so I will just stick it out until I am stronger/have more endurance.

steveknight

to me it just sounds like lack of endurance. I weight a little more and I could do it on my road bike with only a double. thought a triple would be better. going to a 30t in back would help a lot but after awhile you won't need it then it will be too large.