Hills!!!
 

I just tried taking part of the would-be commute route I would take on my bike to work. I didn't even make it half way before turning back home. Oh man the hills are horrendous in my area. I had it down in the granny gear barely going 4-5 mph up some of those things, and ended up stopping quite a few times along the way.

My commute route is about 14 miles one way. I made it about 5.5 before turning back, so a ride of just a hair under 11 miles, and that took me 1 hour 15 minutes.

Is this just the way it is with hilly areas or do I just still need more practice? I do still have the suspension fork which I'm sure is not helping on the climbs.

Elevation graph, midpoint is where I turned back.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...2012-05-06.jpg

can you lock the fork? I'm pretty slow on my commute, but that sounds like a long time

Sounds like you need to do a little conditioning then. You can make it.

West Little Rock can be pretty hilly. I had one 20% grade on my last commute and lots of other hills.

Have you looked for other routes?

Hey there Pat!

You've got to train on those hills every weekend, until you've mastered them. If you get an exercise bike, that would assist in your training, as well. Until you're conditioned, there's not much you can do other than locate other commuting routes around those hills ( detours are usually time consuming), or find alternative methods of transportation (hope you're driving).

PS.

Also, if you're the least bit overweight, losing weight will help tremendously....

Yeah I've been running since last Fall. I was around 215 then and now down around 197.

And yes there are other routes, but they're all hilly. That's just the nature of this area.

You just have to ride more until you get better conditioned. We all had to start somewhere. Are you able to leave the car or bike at work? You could start with riding in and driving home or something like that.

Those tick marks at the bottom are 1.3 miles apart and the elevation change is around 40ft over almost 1 mile which is quite flat by San Francisco standards. I think nothing of a 350ft climb over a distance of 0.75 mi any more but I wasn't always that way.

Cool, glad to know it will get easier.

I think I may be staying in the middle gear range too long and tiring myself out quicker, then having to stop for a minute, instead of dropping to lower gears and going slower, but still riding.

Ride those hills on your days off, thats the only way you can get better. The only "Hills" I have in the NY metro area are the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge. Riding those 'Hills" help prepare me for the Queensboro Bridge and the beast of a "Hill" the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

You have to ride them to love them. Might need to push at first, but it will get better if you keep at it.

Congratulations for giving it a try. I bet the next time you try it you will make it even farther. You will make it. Keep it up!!!

Ditch the suspension fork and who cares how slow you go? Get the lowest gearing you can. If it means you'll be under 4 mph, so be it. Try to alternate between sitting and standing. Shift up a couple gears when you stand and again, don't worry about speed, just stay upright.

I gotta say though, that is a long commute, especially being hilly.

Are you sure that's the right chart?

Don't get discouraged. You will feel stronger on the next ride.

May not seem like much elevation change but it's a lot to me.

Has the bike been tuned-up recently? A tight wheel hub or rubbing brake pad will make your trip a lot more work than it should be.

When I started commuting I had to stop twice on my 6 mile commute. I'd stop. Get off the bike and drink some water. After a couple of minutes I was ready to ride. After two weeks I could ride without stopping. After a couple of months I could sprint up hills that made me stop.

Give yourself plenty of time and take breaks at first. Pretty soon you won't need the breaks.

I had an errand to do today. Here is what my ride looked like on the return trip. Red is elevation and blue is speed. The speed is not entirely accurate though because as far as I can tell, the program that made the log only takes a position reading once every 6 seconds and Google Maps figures out the speed based on how far each point is and the difference in time and the GPS does not always give the correct position. It can be off by 10 or 30 meters sometimes.

When I first started, this would have wore me out quite quickly.

http://i.imgur.com/e2Z2x.png

Right click and view image to see the full size.

My advice: keep at it! I'm fat and slow, and when I started riding I couldn't even stand up on the pedals without wobbling and almost falling over. But I kept at it (and got some clipless pedals) and on my last ride I was able to sprint up a hill at 10 mph that when I started I had to get off and push.

Awesome man. Yeah I have some spd pedals already that came with the bike when I bought it, but I took them off and got some regular pedals since I didn't have bike shoes then and still don't. Just have to wait until I can spend another $100 on that, plus more for a rigid fork. I've already spent about $150 this past week getting it road-worthy.

Somebody already mentioned it, I think some conditioning is needed here..

You got a vid or picture of them there hils??? :)

I am 72, not a climber either, and no granny gear, and I will bet I could take them hills..Might do a stop here and there, might, not sure, but I dam sure wouldn't turn back.. ;)

When I first started riding I could only handle about 5-6 miles at a time. I tried to ride that much everyday though, and after about a month I decided to take the plunge and ride my commute on a day off (20 miles round trip and looks very much like yours in relation to elevation change). The wind was in my face at about 30 mph the whole way there, and it took me over an hour to do 10 miles. I decided that until I got into better shape I wouldn't want to commute if the wind was more than 10 mph. After commuting to work for 2 months I was able to keep a pace between 17-20 mph. There was a huge hill (bridge) at the end of my commute going over a highway. I would pedal at a crawl going up that thing at first, but after a while I could pedal up the thing without standing. It all just takes time man. Oh yeah, in doing all this riding I went from 215 to 185 within 6 months. Not too bad considering I didn't really stick to a diet, although getting vigorous exercise will make you lean toward more nutritious foods. I would recommend what others have said, to train on weekends, but take the toughest hilliest route you can, and make it your *****. You'll be zipping along incline or no incline in no time. :)

This is probably the biggest one I encountered yesterday. I know it doesn't look like much and y'all probably think I'm a pansy or something :p but trust me it looks much bigger in person. I think the Google Maps camera car's optics make it look stretched out and not as big. I believe this hill represents that tallest valley-to-peak in my graph above, on either side of the midpoint.

http://g.co/maps/u89dk

Coming back, going down that hill I hit my maximum speed of 26.x MPH maxed out in the highest gears front and rear. Got close to spinning the 46-11 gears but not quite.

But like y'all said I just need practice. This weekend has been my first "real" riding on this bike in nearly a year, not since the Ride of Silence in May of last year. I believe my recent running has made me better on the bike, but even still I'm not "there" yet with the running. When I started out I could barely run 45 seconds at a time, and now I can run for 6+ minutes at a time before dropping back to walking. Still working up to being able to run a mile continuous, and eventually a 5K.

I feel for you. My 30-mile round trip commute is full of hills. On my good days, they're a challenge. On my bad days, they're my nightmare.

Hills suck. And the only way to get good at hills, is to do lots of hills. It could take a year or so to feel like you've mastered your route. So take small steps and don't get discouraged. Hills make you strong.

That hill looks challenging to you now, but after a month, maybe less you'll be able to handle it and may even crest the top with a smile on your face :). It doesn't look challenging to me, but I would be breathing hard at the top for sure. When you first start out any incline is tough, it almost seems as though the looong drawn out inclines are the worst though. I almost prefer a steep ascent, if it's short ;).

You mentioned a suspension fork, is it a mountain bike? If so, make sure to put some smooth tires on it something like a 26 x 1.5 tire, will help a lot.

Stick with it. Try driving part way and riding part way. That's how I started. At first I was riding six miles (each way) and doing 4-5 mph in the granny gear up hills. Now I ride 15 miles each way, and I don't use the granny gear at all.

- John