excuse me i was only 100 kilos yesterday! :P

You do use a substantially lower cadence. But your heart rate climbs because your legs also have to support your weight as Merlin mentioned earlier. My own experience consistently shows this.

Btw, I also ride 'bents and take them on extended climbs. Not being able to rotate muscles as effectively as with a road bike is a big deal.

You sir, like me, are "Gravitationally Gifted".

Coasting down hills is our strength and one we can use to great affect against those little whippets who will have to pedal like furious demons to hold our wheel down anything greater than 5%.

Another thing to remember is that the stand/sit ratio differs for people of different weight. Super light folks will have to stand a lot both on climbs as well as situations where they need to put out a lot of power since their seated weight won't provide enough torque to the pedals alone.

I agree with this. On certain bikes, you can change your position and that helps. But that doesn't work on all recumbents and even when it does, it's not as effective as being able to stand up. On recumbents, spinning up seems to be the way to go.

I climb badly on DF bikes and I climb (not quite as) badly on recumbents.

recumbents and climbing are two words you can't mix... would love to see a recumbent rider trying to stand up in a 15% climb :) More than funny would EPIC! The guys have the knees or the back in bad condition, either way they wont be able to climb using a regular bike anyways.

Glad you're sticking to stereotypes and not actually spreading about anything you know about. Keep it up, it works for you...

haha im not actually 100kilos, gsteinb just likes to be a smart butt with me because im young and beautiful.

Ill usually pace myself when im getting to a hill. Then once im so many yards to a block away, Ill run full tilt standing up the hill dropping two rear gears and aboit halfway up Ill sit and drop one more. Either way i take weight off the bars and sometimes i might lift the wheel. Theres a road i like to rise down that from my direction only two streets will lead to and its a steep hill either way. I dont know which is steeper, i know one is longer and the other has a slight downhill caise of the trainn tressle.

I disagree. Ride a long, sustained climb exclusively in the saddle, and your muscles will be screaming. Legs and back. I know, I've done the experiment on some Eastern Sierra climbs.

Climbing forever in the saddle is a dumb idea, don't do it.