climbing out of saddle form
 

i need help on climbing hills, i simply suck at it. i try to avoid them as much as possible.

my problem is that i just cant get the form for climbing out of the saddle, i can do it in the saddle but its tiring and on steep hills, i feel like im gonna pull the front of the bike too much and flip backwards! plus im really slow

i try it out of the saddle but it just doesnt feel right. i fell once and almost fell another time. it feels unbalanced and i dont see a speed increase really.

it doesnt feel like the bike is swaying side to side right, i try to emphasize the sway by pull with my hands but then that just made me fall. i want to be able to climb out of the saddle well and be able to sprint up them in the future.

how high should the gear be? cause when i spin it to fast, i just get scared cause it feels very unbalanced.

thanks

Being a heavy guy, climbing is always my weakness. But I can say that I never felt unstable when I get off the saddle.

I shift to the next smaller cog and just stand up and dance away. The sway should come naturally, your hand should only be "pulling" to keep the bottom-of-the-crank side from going down.

Go back to riding a trike:D Just kidding.

Stand in a big gear with your hands on the hoods. Point your toes a bit. keep upper body relaxed and forward over the bars. Pull up with your knees driving forward and push to counter with the other foot. keep upper body still and use leg action only. Bike will sway. Let it. Your knees will pull out of the way of the frame as it sways. Start trying this on the flats to build up a sprinting form and this will carry over to the hills. As you get smoother with a quiet upper body you can increase caddence. Good luck. Now go for longer rides up hill and stay out of the saddle until it hurts, then go some more. This is where good form in lost and you have to fight to maintain it.

hmm, im a complete noob, but what i do when attacking hills (trying to go up them at a brisk pace), is ill be in the small chain ring before the hill, and as i get to the base ill shift to the large chainring and climb out of the saddle. from there i only need to make minor adjustments to get the right gear depending how fast i want to go up it. for me the swaying seems to come natural. i hold onto the hoods when i climb out of the saddle. in the saddle i like holding the tops of the bars because i feel like i can breath easier. dunno how correct this advice is though, but it seems to be working for me thus far.

Standing climb technique:

• hands resting lightly on hoods
• elbows slightly bent
• hips back towards the saddle and over the pedals
• relaxed upper body
• cadence around 60 (increase only when comfortable with the technique)
• press lightly through the bottom of the stroke -- stomping through the bottom of the stroke is wasted effort
• let the bike sway naturally (don't pull on the bars)
• relax, this is supposed to be fun

Good idea to practice standing on the flat. Click up a couple of gears, stand and pedal for 30 revolutions. Sit back down, click down two gears and spin. Very little weight should be on your hands.

ok, I have climbed some STEEP stuff and never experienced this "flipping over backwards" sensaton I kep hearing about.

you'll find that you need to shift to a harder gear(one or two cogs) when you stand--unless you are really laboring at only about 20 rpm while seated. in that case, you can probably stand with out shifting to a harder gear.

Not true. Climbing out of the saddle is slightly less aerobically efficient compared to seated, and even this difference can be overcome with technique and practice.


Also not true. Standing typically raises your heart rate a few beats, but that's all. If you adjust your speed accordingly, you can maintain the same heart rate seated or standing.

relax your arms and keep your center of gravity just a bit in front of your bellybutton
resist the urge to lean too far forward, keep your torso and butt over the tip of the saddle

A trick very rarely mentioned: Keep your elbows close to your torso when standing, open them like wings make you unbalanced. Try it and you'll see and feel the difference. It'll make you get that rocking motion alla Lance.
Get a DVD and watch the climbing standing master (Lance) in action to learn.

Corsaire

It happens only when you're on the saddle. For me, I have to start watching my technique on grades of 15% or more. I get my chest low towards the bars, slide forward on the saddle, and try not to stab the pedals at the top of the stroke.

The photo below somewhat shows this.

I can't really add anything (I mean, it is Terry Morse after all), other than don't intentionally sway the bike back and forth; that will come naturally. Also, if you have a chance, practice pedalling while standing on a spin bike or a fixed bike --it certainly helped me with pedalling through the bottom of the stroke ...

Climbing out of the saddle takes much more effort than sitting. On our group ride I look for all the "standers" on the first set of hills and go left or right to avoid them even if they keep tempo because midway up they hit LT and are dropped like clockwork. But hey all that standing looks cool especially at the coffee shop:)

thanks, i think ive got it, i owned a bunch of tourist bikers on rentals up a hill today (about 2 dozen). lol

but i had a nasty fall today, see my other thread

Don't confuse the "standers" on your group ride with cyclists who know what they're doing.

My personal tests indicated that I'm about 10% less efficient standing than seated aerobically, using climbing rate over heart rate as a measure. Since I made those tests a couple of years ago, I've probably improved my standing efficiency more, so I suspect the difference is now less than 10%.

Reports from physiologists suggest that the best climbers are just as efficient in or out of the saddle. Pantani was certainly successful at climbing out of the saddle.

Terry, short of pics/video shot by someone else as one rides, any way to tell whether one's hips are far enough back? I often end up with quite a bit of weight on my arms. Does that mean my weight's too far forward?

I agree and think the extra 5-10% of effort is worth the time-savings; just as an example - if I can stand and maintain my momentum approaching a short hill from a flat or downhill, and get up the hill in two minutes standing versus three minutes seated, then the 5-10% extra effort is worth the 1/3 time savings. I think standing for the duration of longer, sustained hills is much less efficient, takes its toll on you and is probably not worth the time savings. But standing periodically on longer hills to regain momentum, work different muscles, stretch and break the monotony is a must for me.

When I started cycling I was heavy and out of shape. Now I am just heavy. :) But at the outset, standing climbing was essentially impossible. Two strokes and I felt like I was going to fall over. Now I can climb out of the saddle with much more efficiency and speed. It takes practice. I would start by doing it on flats for short periods. Even if all I could do was two or three strokes, I did it. Now I can climb full hills with no problem. It is actually fun!

I can attest to that. But I purposedly go out on some hilly training rides and try to climb as much and as long as I can out of the saddle, working on my form as well, this accomplishes two things for me:
Improve my LT/anaerobic efficiency and get my body used to that type of climbing stress. I spice it
sometimes with some quick low gear accelerations, then going back to the rythm, again, to get my legs used to the stress. Hopefully, I'll be ready to drop some riders going out on real, competitive rides.

Corsaire :)

yep, if there's lots of weight on your arms your removing weight from your legs thus defeating the purpose of standing which is using gravity to turn the cranks

on lower percentage hills the backs of your legs should just about graze the nose of the saddle

Indeed, and in my experience in ALL the races Ive ever been in, if you didnt have the out of the saddle technique in your toolkit so to speak you had ZERO chance of winning or even getting in the top 10. Someone in decent shape who can stand versus someone who cant usually isnt even a contest.

Part of the technique for adjusting the load you put on your HR while standing is adjusting how much you pull up on the handlebars, I can change the effort by quite a bit, it makes a difference.

Takes quite a bit of time for most rookies to get comfortable with out of the saddle efforts, it can be quite taxing on one's system, your legs wont like it at all. Its taken me years, but anymore I can ride tens of miles out of the saddle, its a handy tool to have.

Seems obvious when you put it that way. I'll work on keeping my weight better centered over the cranks.

It's very likely. See if you can lighten the pressure of your hands on the bars. It should feel very light.

Simply relaxing your arms may help get the pressure off your hands.

Look at this photo of Simoni. See how relaxed and comfortable his upper body looks, compared to his teammate:

http://www.simonigilberto.it/content...6cec86e7b2.jpg

It takes practice and your position will change a bit with effort and how steep the hill is, for example Im a bit further forward on the cranks when going uphill versus flatland sprinting. When you get tired one of the first signs will be propping yourself up with your arms rather than using your legs. Another hint is keep your knees bent, do NOT allow your legs to become straight and fully extended, you need to be changing which leg has the weight on it just prior to the pedal with the weight on it getting to the bottom of its stroke, otherwise your screwing up the rythm and timing of how it works.

If you really want to learn good out of the saddle technique, get a fixed gear or singlespeed bike, they force you to learn how to ride, you have no choice.

He was also good at climbing in the drops.

When I stand the only thing my arms are doing is preventing my body from moving forward over the bars. Finding "mid-balance" is important.

The only time I muscle the handlebars is when I am balls-out trying to catch air off the top of 10% grades. This is usually done in the drops.