livedarklions

You'll see huge variety in this when you're watching TDF riders on a long hill as well.

79pmooney

No. I climb on bikes with long, low stems so I have the full ability to pull up (actually up and forward) on the pedals as hard as I want. And I am not a hack climbing hills. (Ask the folks I passed or couldn't catch me climbing the 2 mile hill on Cycle Oregon 4 years ago with its 14% grades. I should have been an easy target. I was riding fix gear with a flip-flop wheel and didn't stop and flip so I did the whole thing on a 42-17. My back was close to horizontal.

If you stand vertically, pulling up is both far harder and loads the knee pushing down. For most out there, that isn't an issue. For some of us with knee issues, that would really limit what I could do uphill. (That 14% hill I would have had to walk. Just standing on the pedal with all my weight and the bike would have rolled backwards.)

Ben

cyclintom

It was pretty distinct today. I dropped the handlebar about 2" by reversing the stem from high to low. I was actually faster going up hills and I was going to slow for there to be any aero advantage. One a 50 mile ride that I would normally average 10-11 mph because of all the climbing, I was over 13 mph and for the first 22 miles that had a million hard rollers but when I was fresh I averages over 14 mph.

ksryder

Standing is also useful when you're in a group and you want the riders around you to give you a little room. People automatically move away from someone standing. I read that on Steve Tilford's blog a while back and I tried it, he was right (as usual.)

Possibly more useful in a race than a group ride but whatever.

cyclintom

In one of the local centuries a couple of years ago they had this 20% climb that was a half mile long. Sitting I could turn circles and ended up passing a lot of the fast guys up that. Then later I was riding on what I thought was a roller and then I remembered that in this area was a series of three really hard climbs. As I caught up to someone that was probably getting tired since we were 70 miles into the century, I asked where those hills were and he said "You're on the last one". It couldn't be more than 8% and everyone used to be afraid of it. Or maybe because so much of my riding now concentrates on climbing and not mileage.

Oso Polar

I wonder what gear did you use for riding sitting up the 20% half mile long climb? And how fast were you spinning? So far I've never encountered such steep climbs (except for, may be, some very short ones, like 100 feet long or so) but I find it quite difficult to maintain high cadence sitting even on much more reasonable climbs, e.g. 7-8%, with 34x32 low gear. And many have 34x28 or even higher.

cyclintom

At that time I had a triple so I went up in a 30/28 and when I say spinning I mean pedaling circles. This engages all of the muscles in your legs. When you are standing you only use two major muscle groups.

woodcraft

Do you have a link to that 1/2 mile 20% climb?
The longest 20% I can think of around here is less than .1 mile, & we've got some pretty good hills.

wolfchild

I stand up, because for me it's the easiest and most efficient way to climb hills.

cyclintom

Remember that I've had a concussion so details come and go. This was after the half-way point rest stop on the Grizzly Peak Century. There were a lot of people pushing their bikes up that hill. The other hills were the Three Bears. Actually if felt more like a roller.

cyclintom

I do this when you have a stop light directly at the bottom of an overpass and you have to accelerate fast to clear traffic for the freeway on-ramps.

I just did a 50 miler and forgot to bring my energy bars along. Hope I don't do that again.

livedarklions

Two words: Swedish Fish. Available at all convenience stores.