I need to get better on the hills
 

[New info at post 180. Jump down there.]

Did the Santa Barbara triathlon yesterday. Once again, on the same bike, I had to walk up about a 1/2 mile of the course. The difference between this year and last year though is I think I could have stayed on the bike, but I got to a point where I think I was spending more energy staying on than walking up. I have a Velo on this bike and when I dismounted, I was averaging about 4.2mph. Walking I was doing 2.9mph. So I definitely gave up some modest speed, but I also don't feel like I was burning myself out as much. I think the gearing is OK, I guess. It's not like I ever ran out of gear. I could keep spinning at a decent rate, but I was going so slowly that I was wobbling all over the place.

So I don't know if there is anything bike/equipment related that can help that, or if I just need to get stronger on the hills. I do know that I can maintain a pretty strong pace on the flats or down hill sections, but I give every bit of it back and then some when I get to the climbs.

Gearing and intervals.

I run a 36x32 or a 36x36 for the mountains.

I do 3x8 min FTP interval sessions, 3x3 min VO2 max intervals - 2 or three weeks on -2x per week, one week of easy riding. Do 3 blocks of this a few times per year.

During non structured interval times, I attack hills on my shorter rides…

After some time you get stronger and the hills become easier. Hills that used to put me at my limits are now no big deal…

Edit - and weight. Power to weight ratio is everything when climbing. Everything.

If when climbing, you wind up using up all your low ratio gears and get to the point of having to use a lot of muscle to pedal, then you need to figure out a way to get lower gearing. Or work on your leg strength so the low gear you currently have doesn't feel like you are using a lot of muscle.

If you want to build leg muscle, use the gym for that. But ride often to keep those muscles in shape for pedaling.

more info would be helpful to understand the problem... weight, bike weight, current gearing, any rough idea of your heart rate and power on these climbs?

most likely you don't have the gearing you need to maintain an efficient and sustainable cadence at the speed your power:weight ratio results in for said hill. but you know what they say about hills, they never get easier - you just get faster.

How much climb is there on this hill you had to walk?
What is your gearing right now and do you wish you had easier about gearing?


A deeper question is- what keeps you from going faster up the hill?...lack of power or lack of stamina?

Could be gearing, could be pacing (did you gas yourself on the swim and beginning of the bike leg), could be fitness, or a combination.

Getting the lowest gearing you can on your bike to suit the course may help, something like a 34 front and 32 or 34 biggest rear cog will get you spinning up most climbs. But more than likely it's a fitness (and maybe mental) thing.

Everyone I know is a firm believer in gearing. I'm fully convinced that if someone invented an 11 tooth small chainring that'd mate to an 11-56 cassette, someone in the cycling group would say that 1 more tooth is "where it's at."

Even with all the modern advances in gearing, there is no substitute for strength and an/aerobic capacity. The way to get stronger is to get stronger, so to speak.

Others may (meaning: will) have many suggestions. What I do is occasionally ride a single speed geared at 75 gear inches which is ~90rpm at ~19mph. But much more regularly when actually training, I climb the Alp du Zwift in 34,25 gearing with the smoothest, roundest pedal stroke I can muster. Mentally I call the workout "bicycle leg-presses." It's great for raw grunt strength but also good for concentrating on developing coordination in a distraction free safe environment.

If you live in a place with out hills to train on, or if Zwift or a single-speed are unavailable to you another option is to simply labor along in a deliberately uncomfortably low cadence to specifically target, build and develop fast twitch muscle. This will generally get the same effect: High resistance at low rpm.

At the very least, your sprints will thank you. It's nice to be able to have watts on tap.

To the cardiovascular thing, that will follow duration at effort. There are all sorts of intramuscular adaptions that take place. (Primarily growing more mitochondria in each muscle cell.) This is a years long process for which there is no shortcut.

The secret, as far as I'm concerned is consistency of training and variability of content. I'd not recommend bicycle leg-presses up the Alp du Zwift more than once or twice a week. It's enough to cook anyone as it is. Nor would I recommend high cadence spin-fests for straight heart pumping cardio any more frequently either. Both work a particular skill/discipline but each balances the other.

A lot of talk about gearing - for good reason, BUT if you're wobbling while still being able to spin a low gear, that means your upper body and core muscles need to be strengthened, and/or you need to adjust your fit. Wider bars may help, but you mentioned this was on a tri setup - I hope you weren't trying to climb while on the aerobars.

I have to admit, I'm not really sure about the gearing on this bike. I know that's going to seem elementary but I've made some changes and haven't noted the most recent configuration.

I'm not sure about the gearing. The reason I brought this bike was specifically because I knew how steep this climb was. I felt like I was spinning pretty fast, I just wasn't moving very fast. I tried changing my gearing but that put a lot of strain on my quads. I could have supported the effort, but I would have spent a lot of energy I knew I was going to need for the run.

No idea of what my heart rate was. 130 maybe? I am 53 so that would probably pretty close to an aerobic max.

Don't know if it's the stamina. Maybe. I do know that my heart rate dropped quite a bit walking up. Part of my logic was that I was spending more energy pedaling than walking. Since I still had a 10 mile run to look forward to, I opted for walking up.

I don't believe I gassed myself on the swim. I know there are multiple components, but I swim almost entirely upper body very specifically to save my legs for the bike and run. Of course, that doesn't mean I didn't put myself in an energy deficit at some point, but I think that was later than the ride.

What is the Alp du Zwift? Never heard of that before. We have hills here, and I ride them frequently. But I have to go search out steep grades like the one yesterday. As far as my work outs, they're pretty intense by the average person standards. Maybe not so much in a triathlon though. I often ride 25-35 mile training rides, swim between 2-3K meter pool laps and run between 4.5-6 miles on a regular basis. So I'm not deconditioned. But maybe I need to crank it up another notch or two.

This was a road bike. I do have aero bars on it, but I never use them when going slow. I do have a triathlon bike but I knew the gearing on that was not suitable for this event so it stayed home.

HR varies a LOT from person to person. I’m 55yo. My threshold (max sustainable HR) is 170-175bpm. For me, 130bpm is a VERY easy pace. The top end of my Zone 2 is 150bpm.

Maybe 130bpm is your threshold, but you won’t have any real idea until you start monitoring it and getting familiar with how your body actually works.

As for improving climbing ability, it all comes down to power/weight ratio (watts/Kg is the commonly used unit of measure). Improving this number means…
1. Improve power
2. Decrease weight
3. Both of the above

So my heart rate was entirely a WAG. I really have no idea. But the one area where I absolutely know I need some work is the weight. Not to give too much away, but for my height and build (and age), I would like to be 135-ish. All I'm going to say is I'm heavier than that.

Were you wobbling at 4.2 mph because you were pulling on the handlebars? That slow speed requires good technique - as smooth a pedal stroke that you can muster and a light touch on the handlebars.

The old school way to get better at climbing is to climb more while training. The new school way is to get a fitness watch to track your time, speed, distance, heart rate, etc...and then climb more during training.

Best of luck.

Heart rate monitors are cheap. You can get one on AliExpress for about $15 IF you have a bike computer that receive the input. They have those too for cheap.

As stated above, it is all about power to weight. The less weight you have to move the more competitive you will be, I’m 6’1” and have been working for the last 6 months to get my weight down to ideal precisely to help climbing. Have half a pound to go. But then I do it by half pounds rather than making huge goals which can feel defeating when I don’t hit them.

At 68, my max heart rate is 192 but that is unusually high.

I highly suggest getting a HR monitor and starting to learn what your body is capable of. Because I know my body and numbers, I know what HR I can push for a long climb without blowing up. I also know the indicators that tell me when my body is fatigued and needs to take it easy. Monitoring HR while riding is critical for effective and productive training.

I’m 20lbs over my race weight from 20 years ago. My power is also way less. I will never get back to those numbers. I’m just trying to do the best I can with what I have today, maybe be better tomorrow, and just enjoy being able to ride my bikes.

Now that I'm working again I intend to invest a little more in the tools and equipment I need to train better.

Since you're serious enough to train and do events, it makes sense to invest in knowing and learning about your ride data: heart rate, cadence, and route info (total elevation, segment gradients), and maybe a power meter. Part of it would be to just better understand your body and fitness, and part of it would be for tracking training and preparing for events.

I don't ride competitively and it's been a while since I did any fast group rides. I mainly ride for recreation but even I recently got back to riding with HR and cadence data. It's nice to be able to compare my perceived effort against HR, cadence, and segment info after a ride even if I don't pay attention to these data points while riding. It's also been interesting (depressing) to see how quickly I lose fitness after time off the bike as I've gotten older.

what pace are you running at ?

back in the day my climbing continued to improve as my running pace improved (lowered)

might have missed this - but do you ever get out of the saddle during climbs ?

also - might have missed this also - ensure your seat height is set appropriately ...

Not cheap (and I was lucky, got mine for free) - but a power meter, coupled with HR is a complete game changer.

I don't have any local climbs, just short steep hills. To train for the mountains or longer hill climbs I need to estimate the power required to get up the hill, then train above that power on the flats.

The simplest, cheapest way to improve your climbing is to climb lots. Obviously your weight is a limiting factor but to do the best with what you have do some long climbing rides.
When you do a lot of climbing you learn your body and you understand the gearing you need and you gain the confidence to go into a climb knowing you can stay on the bike.

I think you have posted similar threads many times.

If one's weight drops from 80kg down to 60kg, they will climb 33% faster all else equal but usually the differential is higher because cooling is better.

That is where you need to focus.

This. Find some local climbs and get to work!

I'll agree - heart rate monitoring is the essential key to effective training and improvement. Power meters are very nice, but without Heart rate it;s hard to correlate power production relative to 'effort'.
I have tried numerous Fitbit watch HRMs and find them very inaccurate (for me) as compared to a chest belt monitor. Especially in the most important range from 130 bpm and up.
Started using a Wahoo Tickr a year ago and very pleased with the function (nothing to do, just wear it), accuracy and comfort. Works and sends signal/info to my phone, track with many diffferent apps, including Ride With GPS, Connect (Garmin), Wahoo and many others... $50 - well worth the cost. I don't need anything more complicated. Will give full HR tracking for the entire length of use as well as good realtime HR.
Power to WEIGHT - what it all comes down to - whether climbing or time trialing on the flat-ish...
If I'm climbing strong, I'm riding strong overall - direct correlation.
2 suggestions:
do 1 weekly ride/workout dedicated to 'climbing' - pick a climb/ride which you can ro regularly which can give you at least 20-30 minutes of steady climbing - preferrablly with variable steepness, from 4-5 % to 10-12%+. Pick a standard 'start' and 'finish', and time every ride. You'll quickly learn more about the pacing which works best for you. Time EVERY ride.
Try to do 6-7 miles of warm-up riding before the 'climbng' section. Do 'cooldown ride after...
Most riders do best with a steady effort. A litttle harder on the flatter sections, steady but no accelerations as steepness increases. Key is to find that keeps you at your highest effort, without going Anaerobic.
To find out where your personal 'Anaerobic' zone/region really predominates, do an Anaerobic Threshold Test - currently terminology calls it 'Lactate Threshold' - basically same thing.
As your fitness improves, your AT/LT region will move to higher Heart Rate. It happens over time, like months... often longer segments like periods in a year or years.
Climbing is tough, and mentally testing. But very effective, both in fitness/strength improvement and also in mental strength, determination and willingness to suffer a bit.
DON'T compare yourself to others - it's purely a challenge to and for yourself !
Ride On
Yuri

If we’re talking about that climb up and through Toro Canyon, that’s a legit climb by my standards, measuring 1.36mi at an average of 5.3%, and .6mi of it averaging 7.7% with kickers in the double-digits, up to 15%.

Since the OP had the gearing for it, I’d say this is about two things: pacing and learning to suffer better.

I say pacing, but of course have no idea what the OP’s strategy was, however, not having a heart rate monitor suggests it might have been easy to overextend on previous sections of the ride (due to excitement, feeling good, etc.) and simply hitting Toro on a too-empty tank. Again, that’s speculation; it could have been going to hard on the run-up to the climb, or it might not have been an issue at all, but without an HR monitoring, we can’t really say.

“Learning to suffer” essentially means persevering at the most difficult times, like wobbling up a 15% pitch at max effort. I think the real key is confidence, that courage which comes from having been there before and knowing you can make it, but there are also mental and physical strategies one can use to push aside the pain and fear, find a way to relax a bit, and get in those few extra pedal strokes it might take to get over a hump. That can be telling yourself “you got this!” and focusing for a few seconds on controlling deep breaths and feeling calm, or maybe it’s consciously relaxing your shoulders and figuratively settling into the pain of the effort, rather than trying to force your way through it.

I dunno…I’m a heavy rider and I find I have to go through all sorts of pain and tricks to get up stuff lighter people seem to hardly notice. That said, I’m not a bad climber, at least to the extent that although I’m usually the heaviest, I’m never the slowest! My point here to the OP is to give encouragement that, regardless of weight or current fitness, they can improve their climbing, and in practicing it, they’ll get stronger and fitter and more comfortable suffering, and at some point, hills which were once a struggle will get a lot easier.

Of course you spend more energy cycling up the climb at 4.2 mph vs walking up at 2.9 mph. As you didn't run out of gears, your problem was the energy expenditure at your minimum cycling speed. Solutions are:-

1. Lose weight so you require less energy to climb at 4.2 mph
2. Get fitter so you can cope with the required energy level to climb at 4.2 mph
3. Learn to ride slower than 4.2 mph without wobbling

Here's the course for reference:

https://www.santabarbaratriathlon.com/course/