Hybrids Don't climb well
 

Hi I have a Giant Cypress and was unable to get up hills despite having 24 gears.

I went and got an old Raleigh frame, built up a touring setup and i now have no problems with hills.

It seems the relaxed frames of hybrids are better for flat road riding
So check frame angles with bike shop or online also if you want to put a rack on the bike beware of short wheelbase road racers as you will hit your heel on the pannier

What are the cassette and crank ratios of both bikes?

The Cypress is also a rather heavy bike...

One can climb well on a frame with relaxed geometry and a set back riding position and the right gears but it utilizes different muscle groups and until those muscles get a little more toned it can take a while to adjust.

This bike has some pretty slack angles and only one speed... but the riding position is anything but relaxed.

http://www.ravingbikefiend.com/bikep...path1sepia.JPG

volvoredrobin, it would help if you would post the weight of both bikes and the number of teeth on the coggs of both cranks and cassettes.
With the little information you are giving us we cannot help you out.
It would surprise me that the geometry of your bike would make it impossible to get up hills, unless you have a very weird bike.

Beautiful bike and picture, 65er :D
I've never seen a bike with two top tubes before.

hi Thanks but i was merely commenting on my experience with a hybrid and a touring frame btw i pinched the rear wheel,
off the giant. Cassette is 11 to 34, 8 speed and put a mtb triple 48 38 26 up front

The best modification I made to my hybrid for climbing purposes was handlebar bar ends. They provide excellent leverage (better than the HBs on road bikes, IMO). Don't know how I even stood to climb, before I added them.

So ... you are saying that you encountered a hill which you could not master in a 26/34 ratio?
Most hybrids have mountainbike or similar frames ... I do not at all see how that could stop you from succesfully climbing as mountainbikers are by far the ones who take on the steepest climbs in all of bike sports. Except for BMX's maybe.

It was a utility bike... the double top tubes did allow the builders to use lighter tubes in the main frame so it is much lighter than one would expect.

Anyways... the Cypress is more roadster like than anything and really well suited for flat riding and rolling hills and like I said... you use different muscle groups when you ride bikes with a lot of set back.

My friend rides a Raleigh Sports 3 speed that weighs 42 pounds and she can out climb a lot of "fit" riders without ever getting out of the saddle... took lessons from her on how to stay in the saddle a little more when I was more of a stand up and hammer it kind of rider.

And then you should see her on a road bike... and she still never stands up.

comments on hill climbing were purely based on experience of 2 different bike designs.
A lbs owner told me the angles on the hybrid were to slack and recommended me to get a touring or road frame opted for touring frame as i use panniers and dont like heel clip bike with rack - pannier = 13.5 kg or29.7624054 pounds

That's a pretty open-ended sort of statement...

I had a Cypress that I used frequently in and around the Upstate NY area, where we generally range from rolling hills to some pretty significant short, but steep ascents. There weren't any hills that I couldn't get up, albeit slowly.

The only significant difference from my current touring bike, a Raleigh Sojourn, which has comparable gearing, is that it's a heck of a lot more comfortable climbing out of the saddle.

It may well be open ended

But I am riding my Raleigh Royal 531st framed bike and it is much faster on the flat and much better uphills
so the giant ended up minus its wheel
Raleigh Sojourn is a nice looking bike but i had to stick with v brakes as schmidt hub i bought didn't come with disc option
I find that v or linear brakes have excellent stopping power



My Raleigh has no dings but lots of scratches lol

i had the same problem when i first bought my bike............train harder son!!!!!!

I understand what the OP is saying about the climbing abilities of the two bikes. I have the ultimate in relaxed comfort geometry in my commuter bike: The Schwinn Sierra GS comfort hybrid. I was able to easily improve some of its geometry by removing the swept-back riser bars and opting for a flat bar. I also changed the gearing, put on smaller tires, etc. I use the Schwinn for my 27 mile round-trip commute, which is mostly downhill in the morning and mostly uphill in the evening. I definitely use different muscle groups riding this bike than my Specialized Allez road bike, but can still climb my hills without problem (even with a loaded rack). It did take me some time to learn how to pedal the hybrid differently than the road bike when climbing hills.

My wife has a Cypress, and its geometry is not quite as relaxed as my Sierra was before my upgrades. It's a good bike for her, as she aspires to cruise the neighborhood, lake path, etc. If I were buying my hybrid again, it would be more like a Surly LHT.

So ... the change in position because of the geometry calls for the use of different muscles?
Is this the concensus?

It's the engine.

Maybe the engine hasn't adapted to a certain bike yet.
Adaptation and feeling comfortable on a bike is something that takes a long time.
One can put more power once one is one with the bike.

+1

Of course a touring bike with Reynolds frame will climb better than a comfort bike.

From the spec sheet,

Weight:
How much does this bike weigh? It’s a common question, and rightly so. But the truth is, there are no industry standards for claiming bike weights—and this leads to a lot of misinformation. Variances exist based on size, frame material, finish and hardware. And as bikes get lighter, these differences become more critical. At Giant, we believe the only way to truly know the weight of any particular bike is to find out for yourself at your local retailer.

Haha, talk about dodging the question. Why put weight in the spec sheet if you aren't going to tell the weight?

If you can lock out the fork, that might help.

Other things you might try; Swap out the fork for a rigid fork, get a lighter wheelset and lighter tires. Rigid seatpost, lighter saddle... or sell the bike and get a lightweight hybrid. All hybrids aren't like yours. The Cypess is a nice bike for cruising around on and has the gearing to get most riders up most hills, but I wouldn't tour through the Alps on one.

26/34 is extremely low though.
In that gear I'm pretty sure I can pull somebody on his bike up a hill while riding mine :D

It does make sense they stopped displaying the weight because as they rightfully say some brands would take the smalest frame without pedals nor saddle and others would use the whole bike.
We need an industry standard and we need it a century ago.

Robin must live near some big hills! He's got a bike now that he can climb them with, that's the important thing.

Perhaps, I just find it really hard to believe that rather small geometry changes make the difference between can't get up the hill at all and go right up it without breaking a sweat! Go on a fifty mile ride with 10k feet of climbing and tell me that you feel much better doing that on bike A than bike B, yeah I will believe that. If some other person then tells me on the same ride bike B works better for her, yeah I believe that too, we are all different. As an example while my Fuji hybrid is very nearly a road bike and climbs very well, thank you, I switched from flat bars to (now) swept back Jones bars and unlike the experience of another poster above I find that the swept back geometry climbs exceedingly well, it gives me great control on soft surfaces, and I think I have enough road miles on it now to say that it works as well as drop bars for me while riding on the road. The first two are to be expected, Jones is an MTBer after all, the last is just a happy accident.

Hybrids don't climb poorly, one may climb better for you than another though. I am sure you could make the same statement for road and any other type of bike.

Ken

I climb ~4,000 feet a week on my hybrid, including steep grades. Bar ends help, but they aren't mandatory.

I couldn't have done that when I started last year. It's the engine.

The hybrid term encompasses a lot of bike styles. I think I'd pigeonhole the Giant Cypress as a "Comfort Bike", probably the least gainly hybrid sub-genre. I can certainly imagine it sucking in many situations.

http://wheelworld.com/images/library...s_blk_11_m.jpg

It might not climb too bad with a few changes : Rigid, zero setback seatpost. Rigid, -17° stem. Rigid fork.

That fork might be the real problem.
If it can't be locked out and if the rider doesn't pedal perfectly ... it will wobble and suck energy.