This is correct.

But riding your bike up a hill isn't that difficult.

Enjoy a vacation in a place that has topography, and bring your bike.

I am a flatlander and far from a good climber, but I climb well enough as a fat old guy to finish Everest Challenge (with a stage win, albeit the Clydesdale division), Le Etape de Tour in th Pyranees, 6th place Master Nationals Road Race mixed 90+ Tandem, with a finsihing climb up Mt Bachelor, 10th place Brasstown Bald Buster, amongst others.

While I agree with you on the bridge repeats, it's possible to train for sustained climbs on flat ground by training to put out sustained power

Dunno about a trainer- but a spin bike sure can! I live where it's hilly- and the hills have always been hard on me. Over the winter, to keep up my fitness, I bought a spin bike. Doing high resistence intervals and Tabata drills on the spin bike has improved my climbing by leaps and bounds....more so than actually riding! A month of short sessions on the spin bike did me more good than 9 months of actual riding- I made immediate improvements. The Tabata helped especially.

True, nothing can simulate actual climbing...but if OP were to get a spin bike, I think he could be prepared.

I actually have a pretty new spin bike that is currently used as a clothes hanger. The resistance thing is weird but I'll give it a try and look into the Tabata thing. That and 2x20's, I might end up surprising myself on the climbs after all. I'll probably drive up to NC to visit family and then try some long climbs. Probably just like crit's. You can train all you want but you'll never really know how to do one unless actually doing one. I'm glad to know there's hope though. Thought it was just going to be a pipe dream.

That is because we have never met. :) I recently moved back to Omaha, Nebraska where it is generally flat except for some rolling hills and river valleys. Prior to moving back, I lived in the Seattle area and raced competitively. I thought that I would be at a huge disadvantage when faced with the common 500+ foot hill climbs all aorund the area. It turned out to be quite the opposite... I was one of the better climbers on my team up to 2 categories better. Several teamates even commented on this during race prep rides. How can this be??? It's pretty simple. Nebraska rarely has a day that is calm. Battling head winds of 25mph+ is often the norm on my training rides. These generally flat rides are really no different than ascending long climbs in my opinion since winds can provide the same resistance as hills and they do not let up and you cannot coast down them on the other side. They don't quit until you hit your turnaround point. There have been times when the wind actually shifted in the opposite direction shortly before my turnaorund on a long ride...Yes, this flat lander actually seeked climbs to challenge myself in Seattle. I often rode logging roads up mountains such as Bessemer on my Cross bike. I actually find riding into heavy unrelenting head winds more demoralizing than ascending steep mountain logging roads... So, after my long rant to simulate climbs in the flats, head out into the direction of the wind and put in a good effort.

What gets most people who don't have climbing experience is more a lack of an ability to choose the right pace than it is a lack of strength except when cutoff times are an issue. Normally, I think the trick is to go slowly, alternate standing and sitting, and generally relax. If you go even 0.2 mph than you should, you'll blow your legs after several thousand feet and be in for a world of hurt. There are huge differences between the way you approach 3k, 5K, 10K, and 15K of climbing

However, if the stage I found at http://ciclismo.com.do/tabid/229/Def...geContentID=47 is what you're talking about, you need strength. There are two really steep climbs which are long but not super long and the rest is not so bad so long as your goal is to just to make it. For that, you want the lowest gears you can get (definitely a compact and a 32T cassette) and the best legs you can bring. Intervals rather than hill repeats will get you that.

The main thing to wrap your mind around is that there are no breaks on a climb. On the flats, you can ease up which makes a huge difference. Once you're on those steep sections, you have to sustain the effort until you get to the top. This means that whatever pace you take, it needs to be one that you can hold onto long enough.

I got a Mt.Diablo 1-hour t-shirt on a strict diet of 2x20' intervals and, uh well, diet. For a month before the event there were no cookies, pie, candy, chips, fries, soda, etc.

The Tabata is the key- They are: 20 seconds of all-out most intense effort, followed by ten seconds of rest. Repeat 8 times. A 4-minute workout that will do you more good than an hour of regular spinning [That was actually proven in a study]. Sounds easy, right? 20x10x8.... but in reality, it is painful at first. I almost puked the first few times I did it, and I've been riding the hills..... I can't stand to spend much time on the spin bike, either...but the key is: short but intense work-outs. I've gotten to where i can do two sets of Tabatas- I do that, and maybe 15 minutes of regular spinning/simulated climbs, and the results have been amazing.

Strength is strength and weight is weight and no amount of arguing can change that. :) 500 feet is pretty tame though if you're talking about sustained climbs.

^ Tabata intervals have their adherents, but IMHO, they shouldn't be the core of a program to prepare for a multi day stage race with long climbs.

You need to train for the type of efforts you're going to have to put out in competition.

http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblo...utes-week.html

Tabata is essentially an intense set of V02 max intervals. Doing any V02 max intervals will help with your V02 max.

But there are other systems that need work to race a bike, and in the this context the key question is FTP, specifically FTP in relation to weight or w/kg.

Doing V02 max intervals will help raise your FTP, because there's overlap between all the various zones of training, but they're not targeted at raising FTP, and the abiltiy to sustain power over longer periods.

Hence the recommendation for longer intervals.

Yup, headwinds are our form of climbing type efforts. Headwinds may seem harder than climbing just because you road is just flat and straight, and can mentally wear you out. And unless you have a power meter, you can't really measure the effort you did trying to fight it, as in elevation and gradient and such. Tonight I'll be doing a race sim ride. It's 24 miles at 27 mph on wide open road. The winds should be at about ~10 mph but at that pace, can be a bit tiring. Much prefer that than 25 mph winds which is no joke.

Yea, I know for sure the biggest problem I'm going to have is pacing. It's not something I'm used to doing and since you ride faster on flats, going 10 mph and suffering is something hard for me to get used to.

That's actually not the ride, but I've heard some pros go to that one. The one I'm doing is called Vuelta al Valle. Haven't found any official ride data on it, but it seems good. "Supposedly" all you pay for is the flight and the event is free. So visiting my family over there plus doing a ride like of this in the country is something I'd really like to do.

I'm going to look into it and give them a try. Doing all this training for a climb is starting to make me feel like it'll help me out a lot with my general riding. Regardless if I end up doing the ride or not.

you can do the scientific stuff
or just get a good climbing cassette and then make some wkend trips up to Georgia, and do some real climbing.
there's this - http://www.sadlebred.com/gamaps.html
and I'm sure you can get plenty of suggestions from riders in the Southeast for routes to try.
And then you can try MapMyRide for routes...
of course you'd want to do 'well' down in the Dominican Republic - but face it, there'll be plenty of riders who will be exceptional on the climbs. I would go to 'experience' the ride... and consider future outings there.
If you're putting in miles on the flat, your fittness is good and you have the proper gearing - you should make it up all the climbs, if you pace yourself properly. Doing some rides in the SOuthern Applachians, will give you a taste and let you measure yourself.
Once you do some climbing, you'll find out if its for you...

Your cruising pace is going to be considerably below 10mph unless the grades are tame. I would strongly recommend setting your computer to not even display speed to keep from tempting you to ride too hard.

Useful metrics include odometer (helps you know where steep climbs start/end -- I write critical mileage points and elevations on my arm to help me plan my effort), HR (keeps you from working too hard), power if you have it (ditto), and cadence (good for rhythm). Speed is irrelevant and possibly even harmful to look at.

Mhm, I'm going only for the experience of it and not at all trying to compete. On the other stages where it's flat, I will go harder there of course and try to stay with the pack and what not, but on the climbing stage, just finishing without being completely spent for the rest of the stages would be my goal.

but of course, I suspected that, and would do that myself...
I suggested trips up to the mtns so that you could experience sustained climbing beforehand, and then all the stuff banerjek and others have posted, will make sense... and then climbing, though exerting, can be fun... it's as much a head game (for everyone) as anything in cycling could possibly be.
then having done some climbing, you'll come to those stages/events with less anxiety and more anticipation. you'll have done shakedown sessions and sorted the equipment, learned the gearing steps and maybe made some adjustments.
just working big gears on the flat - regardless of the training method - and then going to anything with completely different gearing is not a great formula. however working a small gear on a 8-10% climb will give some intimate knowledge of what it takes.
so in a non-competitive, but challenging way, you'll be able to ride the best you can.

It helps to recognize where the grade eases up a bit and use that as a "break" of sorts. On a climb I do that is 10-12% for most of the way (climbing up to the Blue Ridge Parkway from Vesuvius in VA) it occasionally eases back to 7 or 8%. Even a short letup like that can help you recover. If you power through those "easy" sections you won't have much left when it goes back up to 12-15%.

It sure will help you out, overall. In ONE month, my average speed increased by 2MPH overall [It's almost constant hills, here] and it increased by 4MPH on the flats. Every time I'm on the flats, I'm always stunned when I look down at my speedometer and see I'm doing 25MPH! For 9 months I was riding primarily in the small and middle rings of my triple.....then literally overnight, I'm now spending 75% of my time in the big ring of my standard double. And bear in mind that I'm a person for whom most other forms of exercise have never worked/had any effect- even when I was young [Tried jogging years ago- never could run any faster or further than the day I started; Tried weight lifting- never could lift more than what I started with.... Even cycling- I was never making any real improvements].

Also descending. you should practice that. because that can be dangerous if done incorrectly

and if its a race and descending amongst a group with racers taking chances is different from safely picking your way down Mt Diablo

This. is. exactly. correct. In your last couple of weeks of training it would be good to add all-out bridge sprints, 6 with 5 minutes between. Just a couple days of that. Then a week of taking it easy before the trip.

Tabatas, etc., help short term power, but that will totally fail you on your third long climb of the day.

That depends..... Tabata HUGELY increases your cardio capacity- and that stays with you and helps out immensely with climbing. The Tabata itself doesn't really help your muscles all that much- which is why I recommend simulated climbs also on the spin bike. Between the two, it works better than anything I've tried [Of course, that could vary from person to person though].

I used to often run out of steam half way up many of my bigger climbs. Now, I can make it all the way; I can go up them faster; and they often feel easier.

There is no doubt that Tabata intervals will make you faster and increase your endurance compared to the same amount of time riding around not doing intervals.

However, have you compared doing longer intervals to doing Tabatas?

Tabatas have their place, as do any V02 max intervals, and if your time crunched you might want to use very limited time on very intense intervals such as Tabata.

But assumming you have the training time, a program of base miles, then work on FTP through longer intervals, topped off by V02 max intervals (Tabata or otherwise) is going to be more effective, particularly for long stage races with prolonged climbing.

Seriously. That's one thing since Dominican Republic, at least the mountains I've been to, doesn't have many guard rails. Part 2 of this mountain stage is finishing the descent alive.

Completely agree with Merlin on the training.

Do less of the 20sec super-short Tabatas and more of the threshold-intensity type longer intervals for climbing. Save the Tabatas for hard criterium acceleration practices. It won't hurt to add Tabatas, but they won't be the cornerstone of your hill climbing power training.

Some of the best training in general, and not just for hills are threshold (1-hr max power intensity) and sub-threshold intervals, anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes in length. If you don't have a powermeter, join Trainerroad, and you can do the power test without a powermeter, and it'll be just as good in terms of training intensity. And yes, it'll hurt.

The one thing I would recommend as a flatlander going to hills though, is that you get at least ONE very hilly ride similar to the race day's hilliest sections in training. Mainly for you to get a sense of your pacing on those steep hills. YOu don't want to be figuring out pacing and burning out early on race day. However, you don't have to train regularly on those big hills - just at least have a sense of what to expect by doing at least one ride on similar terrain.

For training, focus on bringing up your power through intervals, long rides, etc. Hills are as Merlin said, a power:weight ratio - you don't have to train on hills to bring up the power, and in fact, some would argue that you might get better power gains by not training mainly on hills, and by focusing on routes where you can reliably and consistently target key power for improvement (the trainer is great for this if you can bear it.)

Again, I seriously recommend Trainerroad.com. I used exclusively for 2 months the past winter and on my first 60 mile ride with 6000ft of climbing, had no problems with it, even going pretty hard. I still use it 2-3x/week now for targeted power training. It's really, really helpful for making sure you're training hard enough to keep your FTP moving up.

I've been reading this book "The Cyclist Training Bible" and plan to try out some of the intervals they suggest. I think I already have a decent 'base' fitness, but this whole year my cycling has been very unstructured and more just going out to ride than actually having a plan. I ride around a local warehouse loop (2.4 miles) at a high pace with a group. Have been doing the same thing week after week for the past 4 months. Can safely say my riding, although decent, could be a ton better if I'd focused on intervals instead of just wasting time doing the same thing.

Unless you are in the 'untrained' category, HUGE gains are difficult, if not impossible, to come by. Long intervals provide similar increases in threshold power and are more typical of the conditions you'll incur on long climbs. High intensity intervals, like tabatas, can give you a fairly quick short term boost but the gains don't tend to last as long as those built up through higher volume efforts.