I'll take the hills over the wind in Saskatchewan any day!

Wind...wow, I'd forgotten about that stuff. Yes, very nasty. Makes mountain climbing seem pleasant, in comparison.

Two things have helped me.

1) standing up while pedaling - this allows me to use the weight of my body on the downstroke. You can essentially ride in a bigger gear while climbing than when sitting.

2) Mustache Bars - The mustache bars give you great positioning while standing.

I seem to be moving east at a rate of 1 province every 30 years... maybe in a while :)

Different question, but related. How much easier does a rigid fork make your climb versus a suspension fork? My old MTB is my commuter now, and tweaked a lot of things on it, but not the suspension (hard tail). My commute is mostly flat, with one huge hill. It takes me about 90 seconds to go down this hill, and probably 4-5 minutes going back up.

Seems I don't keep any momentum to start up the hill. But the suspension is nice for the rest of the ride because it's on a MUP, and there are plenty of sections where I go over concrete that's been pushed up by tree roots, so it can get bumpy. Weighing my options, and not sure if it's worth the trade off, since it's only one hill.

I see a lot of info on technique, but not much on disposition. I think a lot of it is attitude. I have a steady, unrelenting grade for the first two miles of my commute. I take it as a challenge. I'm thinking every morning "I refuse to be beaten by this hill" and I essentially "assault" that hill. It sorta took on this "mission in life" kind of status for a short time. It was very tough at first, but as you build your strength and endurance it gets easier. It also makes the rest of the commute (for me about 10 more miles after that) seem like a snap. There are other ways I can go that are longer with much more gradual slopes....but that "taking on" of the worst case scenario is very gratifying, and it works well to get it out of the way so early in the ride (when your energy level is presumably highest).

Not saying the techniques aren't important.....some sound advice out there to be sure. But even with those ideas I still dreaded the climb until I took it as a personal afront.

I use to hate hills. I have to bike up a few hills both ways on my commute. The way home sucks, I have 30-40 lbs of luggage to carry, my bike weights 30 lbs and I'm 170. so thats 230 minimum that I have to carry. I do it five days a week and I use to hate it. I still hate it when I have my bags on, but when I don't have to carry my panniers and I'm on a regular ride hills are a sinch. I've broken both hips so if I can do it you can do it as well. I found that standing up helped too, using lower gears makes you a weaker rider, use some hard gears that you have to turn at 70 revolutions per minute or more, but under 90 and you will get a lot better at climbing hills.

I'd say a suspension fork kills your power transfer. when you are standing up and pushing hard you will not get the power transfer of that of a road bike or hybrid.

I had two hardtails both of which I put rigid forks on. You have to get suspension corrected forks. I love the change as I rarely took these bikes off pavement.