Climbing Hills
 

Most of my cycling has been done in a flat part of the world (Manitoba). I spent 13 years there, riding into headwinds, but not climbing hills.

Even though I moved a little over 5 years ago into a hillier area, and am now living in a very hilly area, I still have a lot of trouble climbing hills ... and I still prefer flat ground and headwinds to hills.

Does hill climbing ever reach a point where ...

-- your heart stops sinking every time you see another hill in the distance
-- your stomach stops going into knots as you approach the hill
-- your legs stop turning to jello a short distance up the climb
-- your lungs stop feeling like they are going to climb out of your body and die in the ditch
-- your heart stops beating so fast and hard that the entire left side of your chest aches
-- your body stops being in pain?

Does hill climbing ever become as easy as riding on flat ground? Can a person climb a hill without undo effort?

Gradual hills with a low grade (say, 2% or so) aren't much different from a headwind. Those I can do. But the steeper a hill gets, the worse it is, and the more likely I'll just give it up and walk.


Yeah, I know ... practice. And I am. I'm riding hills pretty much every time I go out. But will there actually come a time when I can just comfortably zip up a hill?

IMHO, the hills never get easier. You get faster, but they never get easy.

"It never gets easier, you just go faster."

I bet you are getting better....and faster...

That's why it still hurts...


Edit...And remember to be geared correctly...

Or maybe it is that dang Coriolis effect...

Are you sure your wheels are spinning the right direction Down Under...

My granny is a 26 x 34 (no, not a 34 x 26 ... 26 is the chainring, 34 is the cassette) .... I use my granny a lot!! Although, on one particular 8-10% grade in the area, I did it in my 26 x 32, so I had one shift left in reserve if I needed it.

+1 on doesn't get easier. Somewhere along the way I got it in my head that hills were "fun" challenges. I think it is sort of a mental thing. I would much rather climb hills than grind it out against a headwind for hours. At least I know the hill will end at some point. No such guarantee with the wind. Also, 11/28 + compact helps.

That is the same gearing I use for the big hills around here...

My heart pounds out of my chest and I feel like puking at the top...

I just look at it differently...

I embrace the pain and do it again...

Yeah, I know ... practice. And I am. I'm riding hills pretty much every time I go out. But will there actually come a time when I can just comfortably zip up a hill?[/QUOTE]


I was just thinking the same thing this morning. I decided that wheelbase helps.

climbs are what i ride for. reminds me of andy hampsten saying he could not get excited about a bike unless it had climbing gears (a compact for him). i'm not great at it, and am not even built for it, but i get the most enjoyment out of it. it is the best way for me to gauge and work on fitness.

take your time with it, don't be afraid to move slow, getting off should be a last resort, and i'm sure most of us have done it (my breakdown was on palomar, actually the first two times i attempted palomar i had to dismount). watch videos of others doing it, and get passionate about it.

keep it up!

i love this clip. 2k to go till the race finnish, try to guess who will have the legs in the end.

You know, the funny thing Machka is that I am the opposite - Steep, short hills I can do. The longer, more gradual ones are what kill me. It's all the mentality I suppose, and I attribute being young to being able to do short steep spurts easily. It probably doesn't help either that I went from an aluminum bike with a compact to a carbon bike with a full double, the full double making it harder. However I have learned to adapt. Granted I may have to work harder than someone on a compact, but it is manageable. I climbed Haleakala (or rather, attempted to...my thread about it is somewhere on the Road Cycling subforum here) on a triple aluminum rental last week, and have to agree that it's all mental. Being able to see all the switchbacks that I had to go up all at once really killed it for me.

For me the only scary things that have happened to me was 1.) feeling light headed while pedaling really hard as I was nearing the top of a long but steep hill (overexertion I suppose) and then 2.) Stopping, but when I looked down at the ground the road seemed to stretch and keep moving away from me (also overexertion I guess).

I'm sure you are doing fine, and that you definitely are making progress. There are most likely hills that you once thought were impossible, and are now you think "eh, it's not so bad after all!". At least that's how it is for me. There is a road around where I live called Ridge Road, and it is a stairstep kind of road, with false flats. I have been told "when you think you're done, you're not". At first I didn't like it because of that, but now Ridge isn't so bad, and is easily doable for me.

Rock on!

I love climbing.

It's definitely helps to have a positive attitude towards climbing, the right gearing, light equipment, and, of course, practice but nothing helps more than power to weight ratio.

Look at the people who climb quickly - what do they have that you don't?

Higher power or less weight.

Try to improve both.

Technique, equipment,... only helps so much.

I think it's more mental than anything.
I used to feel the same way you did, especially with anything steep and over 1/2 mile (or say a kilometer for those in the rest of the world).
A couple years ago I started doing hill repeats up a well known stretch of road in my area (leading up to Mt Wachusett) - it never got easier, but I did get faster by finding the right gearing and cadence on different parts of the climb, and was able to find different positions on my bike (moving up in the saddle and lessing my grip on the tops) that lessened the suffering.
On our tuesday night group ride I can now get up the hills at a reasonably fast pace, but I suffer like hell when people decide to drill it on the long flat sections of road.

it's a love hate relationship.

Well Rowan (who zipped up one particular 1.8 km 8-10% grade climb on a ride a few weeks ago ... while I walked) ... has a carbon fibre Merlin. He's also got a better basic fitness level than I do now.

If you dread it it will be that much harder. I usually find a hill easier after doing it every day for a week, then resting on the weekend.

sometimes you have no choice but to just take the pain and get stronger.

What's that someone said, it's not about the bike?

I'd rather have more power than a "better" bike. What would have occurred if you two switched bikes.

If you really want to climb better - it's as simple and as difficult as - stronger legs/less weight to carry

I've already lost too much weight. I'm looking at power.

I'm the other way. Gads but I hate flats. Nothing more boring than unbroken flatlands. It's as bad as riding on the trainer. Can't stand it. Give me hills!

I'm not fast up them, and often feel like my heart is going to jump out of my chest and hit the ground with a wet "plop," but the effort sure feels good and makes a ride interesting. Short hills, long hills, steep hills. I don't care, bring 'em on!

They never get easier, and steep ones just plain hurt. But you do get faster.

Rowan's about 6 or 7 inches taller than me and rides a much bigger bicycle than I do, so switching bicycles wouldn't work ... however, he wants to build up a carbon bicycle for me like he did with the Merlin. :D

I do have a bit of weight to lose, which might make things easier ... but I'm not considered "overweight" according to the BMI charts.

In contrast, most of my cycling has been done in mountainous areas of the world.

As you know Machka, even Vancouver Island is not flat anywhere for long and mostly consists of constant steep rollers that soon add up to similar gains found in the high mountains. Crossing the Island, especially to the north, presents some really challenging passes. That's why it has been said that if you want to train for Paris-Brest-Paris, the Island brevets are the way to do it -- the topography is very similar.

I've always had the advantage of my small stature, which is good on steep rollers, where I excel. However, that doesn't endure when I put weight on the bike, the wind is against me and/or the climb goes on too long. Then I hurt.

Still, climbing is what makes cycling fun for me. I simply hate long, flat rides. I'm a mountain man to the core. I couldn't even survive on the prairies. I'd go out of my mind. Give me forests and hills! I ride to explore such geography -- or, I hope to again someday if recovery allows.

If the weather is good, try stripping down your bike and carrying a bare minimum. Otherwise, it's just a matter of embracing the pain :)

There is one hill near us ... a fairly gradual one. I think it starts with about 2 km of maybe 5%, then flattens out to about 2% for a while, and then gets a bit steeper a km or so before it turns to gravel at about the 15 km point. Then we turn around and ride back down.

The first time I tried that hill, I was slow all the way up and struggling by the turnaround point. But we've ridden it a few times, and I've ridden a few other hills in the area, and the last time we tried it, I was a couple km/h faster and didn't find it a struggle at all. So I guess there is some improvement happening.

To me your question has two parts, one physical and the other mental.

Riding up a decent grade at a decent speed requires a high power output so it's never "easy" in the physical sense of not requiring a lot of energy (power x time = energy).

Ultimately your speed on hills is governed by your max power output.

How you feel about riding hills has a lot to do with how comfortable you are at elevated power outputs but there's also an element of anticipation.

I'm a born inclinophile, despite my 90+ kg body mass I love climbing hills, I relish the opportunity to strut my stuff (even when the only audience is the wallabies on Flinders Peak)

You appear to be a classic inclinophobe, in fact your symptoms sound a lot like performance anxiety to me*. Dealing with the anxiety may go a long way towards making the process more pleasant.

*I am not a psychologist and you'd be a fool to listen to psychological advice from some random on the intertubes

Personally for me, hills have gotten much easier as my experience and fitness level went up. Hills that would once make me cringe, I don't even notice anymore. I think some of the issue for you could be your low gearing. With gearing like that, you'll most likely never get any stronger. For me, what it took for me to get stronger was to get rid of my triple and move to a standard double. It took me a good year, but I finally got there.

I used to hate the hills. I also used to smoke a pack of cigarettes every day. Ever since I quit (5 months ago), hills have become much easier.

Yeah, time to quit smoking, Machka!