Riding out of the saddle difficulty
 

Want to ask about this technique as I’m finding it surprisingly exhausting and incapable of doing it for very long at all. I consider myself at least a moderately conditioned cyclist doing centuries a few times a year and around 200,000’ annual climbing numbers. At times that I try riding out of the saddle, it’s not long at all before I sit back down. I have specific points along a favorite route where I intentionally work on it but I’ll be damned if I can see any improvement.

Riding out of the saddle and standing on the pedals is like second nature to me. I find it very easy to do....Best way to become good at it is to climb hills while standing up, stand up when accelerating from a stop and riding singletrack trails which requires you to stand up a lot when riding over obstacles. The more you do it the better you become at it.

It requires more arobic capacity (as well as capable core and upper body strength and fitness) in order to climb standing for prolonged periods. I think pedal dancers are born, not made, though everyone can certainly improve somewhat. Larger heavier riders usually have trouble with it. Technique also has a lot to do with it, unless sprinting a short burst, one wants to use effort to align the feet (foot) over the pedal, and use body weight to apply power to the pedals, augmented somewhat by arms on the hbars.

Riding single speed helps me keep the necessary muscle tone and fitness. I also make sure my bike is set up so that it is suited to a lot of standing. So there will be some balancing of what is optimal for standing and what is optimal for seated riding.

Otto

I have always had difficulty riding out of the saddle for very long. I used to find doing just 10 pedal strokes was about as much as I was comfortable with. I've gotten better because of two things. The first is, I just intentionally worked at it, doing it more often on my rides, and for longer stretches. I count pedal strokes and set a goal, and I've found that keeping at it makes it possible to do it for longer.

The other thing was getting a smart trainer. Finally, I had power data, and what I discovered was that I tend to try to push too high a gear when I climb out of the saddle. So, let's say I'm doing a long climb at 225w. I get to a steep pitch, get out of the saddle and click up a couple gears, and now I'm pushing over 350w, and of course I tire quickly. But if I go one gear easier, and only push 300w, I can do it for longer and I don't feel blown up after. Basically, unless it's REALLY steep so you have to fight for every pedal stroke, an easier gear might help you carry on longer.

A Global Cycling Network video from a year or two ago had a bunch of their presenters start a very long climb together while attempting to ride out of the saddle for as long as possible (inspired, as mentioned at the beginning of the video, by Alberto Contador's habitual training practice of climbing out of the saddle for half an hour at a time).

Turned out that the presenters fell into two groups: taller and/or heavier cyclists, all of whom were strong riders but who were unable to stay out of the saddle for very long, and smaller, lighter cyclists, who had no trouble climbing that way.

At 5'8" or so and 120 lbs, I can climb out of the saddle for 10 or 15 minutes with no trouble, which gets me up the longest hills around here.

Out of the seat
 

I run a Cross Country bike mostly because it is a 12 mile ride to get to my Single Track Trails. I have broken either my Seatpost or Seat twice on my off-road adventures. My last time I had to ride 14 miles standing up. I learned a lot about being out of the saddle. First, you need to shift up about 3 gears. This settles down your cadence, next bring your weight a little to the rear, and third is to get your speed up and glide the flat sections getting as low on the pedals as you can. I would recommend everybody do a standing up session on their ride. Talk about cross training, it is completely different in every way. Your muscles will burn and parts of you will complain. It is all for a better, more well rounded skill set on your ride. You will be a better rider and can handle situations you come across with experience and confidence. Like all riding, start a little, and practice up.

At 6' and 205 lbs, I can do 10-15 SECONDS easily, but much beyond a minute is really hard.

For fun and practice last night, and because I was on Zwift due to poor AQI, I was climbing the "Leg Snapper" in the "Innsbruck" world (0.27 "miles" at 6.9% average "gradient), going out of the saddle the whole way. I was carefully watching the watts and keeping it right around 300, and that took 1:46 or so each trip. That worked out pretty well - I made it to the top without being so gassed that I had to just coast.

IMO, riding out of the saddle is old school if we are talking about road bikes. I can climb better for longer in the saddle at 90-95 rpm. I just resort to standing when needing to get the last few strokes to crest the hill if I don't wish to shift to a lower gear. I'll let my cadence fall to where I can stand while pedaling. Don't know if I'll ever be able to do 90 rpm standing.

Standing takes more energy. It also takes different muscles or uses your muscles differently than when seated. So if you want to stand, then you are going to have to work at it. Start at a lower cadence than you would for climbing seated and build up your muscles and ability to stand and pedal at a higher cadence. I also find I seem to control the bike better if I'm in the drops while standing.

Agree about singlespeed, riding SS or FG gives me no choice but to stand up and ride out of the saddle very often, if I didn't stand up I wouldn't be able to ride up hills.

I avoid riding out of the saddle. I have snapped more than a few pedal axles and one crank arm while riding out of the saddle.

Find a hill that you can run up, the steeper the better, and run up it without touching your heels to the ground. Then do the same thing on the bike.

Out of the saddle riding definitely gets easier the more you practice it. And it's a useful skill when the road gets steeper than your gears can handle.

On climbs, I get out of the saddle often, clicking up a couple of gears, pedaling slowly with a relaxed upper body. When done this way, it should be no harder than walking up stairs.

There is a tendency to want to push harder when out of the saddle. Try to avoid this, as it will tire you out faster. I like to watch my power meter to keep my effort in check.

For me it was a total inability to move my Glutes…. at all.
A good dose of PT & I’m able to move them. Now trying to strengthen them.
I didn’t know it was even a thing, let alone I had it.

Barry

As TerryMorse and Genejockey and a few others pointed out, it's best to fight the natural tendency to push much harder when you ride out of the saddle. I've been riding fixed-gear bikes as well as geared bikes a very long time, but it's only comparatively recently that I've had the sense to moderate my effort out of the saddle to where I'm pushing maybe 10% or so harder than in the saddle.

That's fairly easy to do with a road bike, but it takes concentration to keep from overdoing it with a fixed-gear bike. The best trick I've seen for that was shown to me by a racer friend of mine years ago, when he demonstrated what he called "skateboard climbing"---leaning and lunging the bike sharply to the left and then to the right.

On a mild enough incline, he was able to make his way up the hill without pedaling.

That can be adapted to fixed-gear climbing---lunging left and then right with each pair of pedal strokes. Less forward progress per revolution, but (or therefore) lower climbing effort.

Who cares if it's old school and who cares if it uses more energy ?....I actually enjoy riding out of the saddle when climbing , it provides a great full body workout and I also believe it saves the knees from too much wear and tear... if I didn't enjoy this style of riding I wouldn't be doing it. I can't imagine being glued to my saddle for an entire ride and never standing up.

You obviously didn't read any more of my post than you quoted. I don't think I said that one shouldn't ever stand. I even gave suggestions for working on standing and some of my own perceptions of what helps me when I stand.

However, if one is lacking the energy to stand but can make it up the hill seated and spinning a good cadence even at 4 mph, then maybe they'd care at that moment whether which uses more energy.

Yeah, with the right technique and cadence, standing can be the restful way to make it up the hill, assuming you have the muscle tone to be comfortable standing.

There are steep short climbs I do and sometimes I do them at about 1000 watts. Seated is the only way I can do them at that rate on my single speed. I start to push myself out of the saddle but I’m starting from seated because higher cadence is needed than I can manage standing. If I want to take it easy, I climb those same hills standing.

Note: the considerations are different for a multi-gear bike versus SS.

Otto

LOL. We used to do laps around a military base that crossed a taxiway for the airfield and had a stop sign at the crossing, of course we blew by it after checking for planes until the CMC got hold of it, and the CO said we had to put a foot down then we could proceed, didn't slow down any, but did have to change a cleat more often....

When I was racing and in shape, I weiighed 138-145, and at 5'8" I looked forward to long steep hills, The way I finally got rid of the last couple of guys was to put the bike in the largest gear I could pedal sitting down, and then alternate between standing and sitting without shifting, pedaling around high 60s mid 70s rpms, yes it takes more energy, yes, your heart rate will be way up there, but it gets the job done. Thank you mon and dad...

This describes me.

This also describes me, except for the taller or strong parts.

But the odd thing is, I can climb out of the saddle better (i.e., > 10 pedals strokes) on my hybrid bike with flat handlebar and flat pedals. I wonder why?

Not sure about your easier on the knees theory. I have osteoarthritis in both knees and have continued cycling as one of my physical therapy things. I’ll be getting knee replacements in a few months. My out off saddle ride ability has really declined because it hurts.

I’m kind of surprised by this line of comments because I find starting a hill in a higher gear (seated or standing) encourages a lower cadence that helps keep a rider from blowing up on the start of the climb.

It’s more complex to really understand the dynamics of riding out of the saddle because you have all the joints in play and many adaptations are possible.

If you ride SS or FG for a while, you will learn the little adaptations that help reduce the instantaneous difficulty and stress of climbing and riding into headwinds when the single gearing seems high. You will also develop additional strength that allows comfortable and stable pedaling at low cadence with significant pedal force.

Single gearing will push you close to your limits in ways that multi-gearing would allow you to avoid except perhaps on the steepest climbs. This has some positives for strength and fitness. OTOH, it has negative consequences for maximizing speed and overall power output and reduces sustainability on long multi-day rides and races.

Otto

^Everyone I know who had knee replacement (s) came back and rode strongly (assuming they rode before.) I never asked about climbing in or out of the saddle.

Maybe a theory or maybe there is something to it...I have been riding SS and FG for the past 16 years and never experienced any knee pains or problems as yet...but i am only 53 so still relatively young.