nova

ok in my younger days while i could take on any hill near me with out to much trouble i never trained speciically for hills. What i want to know is how to delibratly train for them.

How do you train for hills personaly. Do you takle large grade short distance or do you take small ones over long distaces to start your training. How long do you stay with one hill?

Ive given up on getting my hill legs back for this season as its nearly done. But next season i intend on doing goba stomp and other organized rides. I dont want to end up not finishng the rides because some some big hill takes it all out of me.
Ive got no problems with distance riding. I just dont seem to ever hit the wall when it comes to distance long as theres no true beast hills.


Thanks for any replies on this.

BarconsOrBust

I think the key is practice on both kinds of hills (long/gentle and short/steep). On longer one's, I've personally had success using a lower gear for about a minute at a time, breaking up those easy intervals with a twenty second standing burst in a slightly higher gear. Sometimes on short, steep ones, I'll just stand the whole way up, or sometimes I'll spin through in an easier gear.

I used to be terrible on hills, and got some good advice from the forum. Now, as the season winds down, I feel they are my strength. The best advice is just to practice different approaches, know what gears you prefer to climb in (standing and seated), and make sure you stay focused enough so that you don't spend all your energy too early. Don't be afraid to push yourself even if you find that you've really approached a certain climb the wrong way. You can always come back and try it another day, with the legs a little stronger and with a little more patience.

Ineedhelp

Agree with the above. Until recently, I had an old heavy bike, and even if my legs had the strength, the gears weren't low enough and would give out, so I ended up walking up a lot of hills. My new bike just seems to walk right up hills now on its own.