Thanks for sharing this - good information.
I think the statement that most of what you can achieve is in the genes is very accurate. I know I haven't got the DNA for it nor do I have the inclination.

I don't think the 2lbs per inch of height is totally correct for everyone. I'm 72" tall and weigh 185 lbs. Using the formula I would need to lose 41 lbs and weigh 144 lbs. Not sure where I would be able to give up 41 lbs without taking off some of my larger apendages. I'm currently worried that I don't have enough fat reserves for hard days of riding and may be utilizing muscle for fuel. The image is from last year when I weighed 190 lbs.

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[QUOTE=Allegheny Jet;9117666]I don't think the 2lbs per inch of height is totally correct for everyone. I'm 72" tall and weigh 185 lbs. Using the formula I would need to lose 41 lbs and weigh 144 lbs. Not sure where I would be able to give up 41 lbs without taking off some of my larger apendages. I'm currently worried that I don't have enough fat reserves for hard days of riding and may be utilizing muscle for fuel. QUOTE]


Has that formula ever been correct? I'm 72" tall and weigh 160lbs after losing 40 lbs. due to serious illness. My doctor says my weight now is perfect for my height and my wife thinks I am scarily skinny. I can't wait to tell her I need to lose another 16 lbs.

It is hard for us "athletic" types to get great power to weight ratios. I carry too much upper body muscle and I will not trade it for lower weight. In fact, I continue to work on upper body strength.

I do not think you have anything to worry about with fat stores and low weight. If that were a problem, the elite marathon runners would be in big trouble.

I'm the same way. I keep adding reps to my "palms-in and wide grip palms-out" pullups. I guess the benefit would be when I'm really struggling up a big hill, I can always stop the pain by ripping the handle bar off the bike. My core resistance program also has me doing various kinds pushups using a stability ball and uneven hand heights while holding a rocker board or weighted balls.

You've got to be kiddng!: Just did this century with 9-10,00 ft of climbing. Couple hundred riders finished behind me in the timed event and I'm on an 11 year old bike with a standard crank 53/39-12/25. Being a heavy rider at 230 lbs, if this were true, al the riders behind me on new high end stuff would have been way ahead of me.

I also have a more modern triple Lemond and the bikes are within a couple of second of eachother, all lthings being equal.

Plus I have a bud with a Trek 1100 and an Orbea. He kicks my arse on both of his bikes!

It's all about training!


The heavy rider


The ride:

+1

It is not just the training.
It is not just the gearing.
It is not just the bike's weight, materials and geometry.
It is not just the rider's weight.
It is not just the rider's power output.
It is not just the rider's technique.

It is how all of these and probably several other factors work together and against each other to determine how a bike and rider will climb.

I recently lost 40 lbs. Riding the same bike with the same gearing up the same hills using the same techniques as before the weight loss you would expect that I would climb faster now, but I am actually slower. Why? Because I have not yet recovered my strength (power output). But I am stronger and faster than I was a few weeks ago. As I gain more strength, I will get faster. Eventually I expect to get significantly faster than I was before, assuming I do not regain too much of the weight. The more I work on my conditioning, the faster I'll get. If I also develop better technique, I'll get faster still. If I buy a new bike with a lighter and more rigid frame, I expect I will get even faster.

It would be a rare individual who has maxed out every one of these factors and could not improve his/her climbing.

I'm 74 inches tall which would mean 148 pounds to get to the 2 pounds per inch thing. When I was 21 I starved (no money) and went down to 175 pounds. I looked sick, you could see all my ribs and my elbows were bigger than my upper arms.
The 2 pounds per inch metric will not work for everyone, especially large framed men, but when I look at the best climbers in my club/area, most of them fit that formula.

Last summer I lost 20 lbs, I did get faster both on the flats and up the hills but I contribute that to better conditioning as well as the weight loss. I am just about where I was last year from bike performance point but 10 lbs heavier. Last year I track my % body fat along with weight loss and my percentage loss in body fat was not as fast as my percentage loss in overall weight so I was actually loosing some muscle as well. This year I am not worring so much about weight loss and focusing just on adding strength and fitness. So it's not just about being low weight - the weight you are carrying needs to be lean weight. IMHO 3 lbs of static weight in the bike (Frame, fork, bars, etc) will only make a small difference until you have gotten close to your ideal cycling weight and conditioning. However with that said - you can bet which bike I'm going to haul up Whiteface - the CF Tarmac, not the steel Simoncini...

I think you look skinny as it is...and you do have some big elbows!

2 pounds per inch of height? Maybe for someone from a German prison camp but even in High School I was more than 138 pounds. In college I wrestled at 181. In the Army I got down to 168 and that was it. If I ever see 190 again I will think I won the lottery.

That is just too disturbing. And they worry about girls and anorexia?

You know he's thin when a pro fit jersey is loose on the arms.

I have seen the pics of the scary skinny guys like Rasmussen and others. I think the guys to look at are Indurain, Merckx and Armstrong. These guys are big powerful men who optimized their weight for racing but produced a lot of power. They killed the Rasmussens of this world in the mountains and the time trial.

Here is a pic of Merckx at the track in 1972 setting a world TT record.



Check out his back and glutes. That is where he generates his power in the TT and on the climbs.

Indurain (5 TdF wins in a row) was 6' 2" and 175. He massacred the "skinny guys" on the climbs. And Lance was 5' 11" 163ish.

Indurain, Merckx, Armstrong. 3 genetic freaks. I never thought Indurain was a great climber, at least not one of the greats. He would limit his losses in the mountains and destroy everyone in the TT.
Armstrong was probably the best climber of his size, IIRC.
Merckx was a machine, never be another one like him.
Look at the best climbers today, skinny guys like Contador. While Rasmussen was leading the TDF, before he was bounced, nobody could climb with him.

It's the bike and the rider -- smaller riders have a better strength to weight ratio; heavier bikes make things much more difficult. Before I set my bike up for Randonneuring, with lights, rack, heavier wheels etc. I used to spin up anything with my 53/39 ... once I added the weight to the bike, I changed over to a compact crankset. That made a huge difference, but it's still harder to push 35 pounds of bike & crap up the hill than < 20 pounds.

Having said all that, my hill-climbing style is still the same, albeit at a slower pace with the Compact Crankset -- I start out climbing from a standing position. I can stay standing for a long time, if need be, letting my body weight push the pedals. I save a couple of gears for when I want to "rest" -- sit down, slow down -- then get up and go again. I find that by splitting my time sitting and standing, it makes it easier for me. My lets don't get as tired as if I tried to do the entire hill sitting. In my regular rides, I'll do a lot of standing just for training purposes. Standing into a headwind is harder than climbing a hill, in my opinion.

The other thing that I do is more psychological -- after all, with a lower gear, as long as you don't run out of gears, the only thing different about climbing and riding on the flat is your speed, assuming all else being equal. So ... I ignore the frustration with riding <10 mph vs 18 mph. In fact, the physics show that at a slower speed going up the hill, more of your energy is actually being used to move the bike forward. At a faster speed, much less of your energy moves the bike -- the wind resistance goes up with the cube of the speed.

Dave.

I'll buy some of that....Your friend is a better rider than you are

Bump.

What I am finding is that the secret to climbing is climbing. Form helps, weight helps, but the big key is getting out there at every opportunity and just doing it. I now practice on hills which are just no fun but their steepness builds strength and also make you realize mentally that you can do it. Earlier this week I climbed somer very steep grades during a nightly workout, my legs were jello but I had not exhausted my areobic fitness - a different kind of workout for me on the bike.

Bump - this topic has come up again.

I have climbed very few tough hills, but on the ones I climbed the best I reserved the lowest gears for when the climb got really tough, and each time I shifted down I felt relief in having another gear, which increased my mental (and physical) momentum. That is a trick I hope to remember on the tough hills in my upcoming metric.

Mental tricks can provide the motivation needed to perform any difficult task. When I don't feel like riding at all (too cold, too tired, too dark, etc.) I sometimes tell myself "Just go out for 10 minutes, you can do that much!" Of course, once I'm out there, 10 minutes turns into 30, 40, 60. The same mental tricks can be applied to climbing tough hills.

I would say your strategy is backwards. I think you should shift to an easy gear that you can spin at a good cadence very early on the hill. You'll need to work at spinning to have this technique feel right. If you can ride at 85-90 rpm at the bottom of the climb it will save your muscles for the harder effort if the hill steepens. You might also have a gear left that you can drop down to to maintain the cadence. If not, you will be no worse off than if you pushed a bigger gear at a lower cadence and dropped down as you climbed.

As you get near the top of the climb, shift to a harder gear and use those muscles you saved earlier in the climb. Proceed to pass your riding buddies and show off your climbing skills.

Thank you for the advice. I didn't mean that I don't gear down at the bottom of the hill. Rather, that I don't shift all the way down; I save a few gears and keep a good cadence until I can't, then shift down a gear, and continue this if necessary.

Short hills don't intimidate me, even steep short ones. It's the long ones on which I hope I'll be able to remember and maintain the important skills for the long haul. OTOH, there's no shame in stopping for a minute to recover, and that will be my strategy if the toughest climb overcomes me, and next time I'll do better.

I think BikeWNC's technique is spot on, but I also like to add a bit of Yen's mental trick by setting my bikes up with gearing that allows me to keep a gear or two in reserve just in case I miscalculate which gear will get me up a tough hill. Another apect of the mental trickery is how strong I feel when I do not need to resort to using those extra gears.

This price of going with this strategy can be giving up the joy of having small steps between gears. This is one reason I like having a triple crank so I can have tight gearing and bailout gears.