CDR already mentioned why you should be staying away from the front. I'll just add that 400 mi/month is probably half to a third of what most experienced racers are riding, particularly in season. You can improve on that mileage but not enough to keep up with racers who have been riding for years and train much harder during the season. You'll improve your climbing significantly if you can increase your riding to 10-15 hrs/wk.

Epo.

You are always so helpful to the new guys.

Thank you all for some good advice and some interesting comments. Here's a bit more detail, but I think I've got what I need to work on.

"Kid" : Some kind person keeps referring to the 'kid'. I'm 44 and most of the people I ride with are in their 40s and 50s. The only difference is they have been riding for many moons and I'm just a rookie.

"Fit" : Bike fit is something that has been constantly evolving for me as my strength, technique and ability improves. Every few weeks I tinker around with the seat position and am now working on lowering the handlebar in small steps. Some of this tinkering is based on advice from the people I ride with who notice little things and from my body responses to the changes I make. I even maintain a log of changes I make.

The Group : the group that I ride with is AMAZINGLY helpful and are constantly giving me good advice on fit, technique, gearing etc. I used to get dropped in the 1st mile when I started and now I can stay on for 10-15 miles and sometime even finish the 25-30 mile rides with the group.

Drafting : yes, I'm good at drafting and typically can stay with the group easier in a double paceline and rotate off the lead quickly. While in a single paceline, I need to rotate off very quickly from the lead, else I can't catch the tail after 3-4 rotations. While riding in a large group at 20-25 mph, I make sure I'm somewhere in the middle of the pack and thus limit wind turbulence from the back as well. Clearly I need to work harder and draft less to be able to get stronger.

Gearing: I don't ride in one gear as someone suggested. I use at least 15 of the 20 gears -- all the cogs on the rear sprocket with the big crank wheel and 5 bigger cogs (lower gears) with the smaller crank wheel. Optimal timing of gearing changes based on road gradient changes is something I'm working on.

Climbing : To get faster on climbs I need to get into higher gears, but my legs get tired and so I drop into a lower gear and start spinning with a high cadence and then I can't get enough speed. Climbing hills that are more that 1/2 mile result in alternation of low gear spin and high gear off the saddle pedaling.

Guess I just need more time, more mileage, keep working on technique and get stronger, but I was hoping at least someone would say I need a lighter full carbon frame bike ;-)

Thanks, V

I'm not a great climber, or a sprinter(all pride/ego aside), but I think of these as my favorite parts of riding. I work on hill, & sprint intervals on every ride. I use them as warm ups before my actual ride sometimes.
It takes work to succeed, hard work pays off. I've had to push even harder after my injury, I want to be better than I was before the injury.
You can settle for what you have, or strive to improve.
Its really your will to get better that is the key.
You can get all the info/tips you want, but you have to put them to use, & suffer to see the fruits of labor.

This is where one of the most common terms in the 41 fits the best... HTFU.
Take a page out of Jens Voigt playbook, tell you legs the shut up when you feel like your hitting the red zone.
"No pain, no gain!"

Keep an open mind, if you hate/dislike something, you often avoid it.
Learn to love what you hate.

In my group when I lead out I leave them behind while not trying. In fact I try to go slower but look back sometimes and they are not in sight. Now this is usually on climbs. But like I said.......not a strong climber I have just gotten better. I have worked hard this year on my overall performance rather than one area. I hate long boring flats..........I like rollers; mountain climbs; and some tricky switchback descents. I think on flats for extended periods of time I would actually start performing less than my ability over a variety of terrain.

Keep riding and unless your a pro rider which I assume from your post your not don't get too caught up in this whole thing. Do what you can do and never be afraid to push it like one poster stated you either puke or feel like it. This is how you push that threshold to get better.

I'm gonna be a contrarian and suggest...buy some 1200 gram wheels and an 800 gram frame...then watch your motivation soar as you ride more to amortize the investment....plus you'll have less weight to push up the hills....

...otherwise, just learn how and when to accelerate uphill... but somebody already said that.

I will admit their is a method to climbing. Knowing when to get off the saddle and when to stay on the saddle. You learn it through trial and error. And what works for you on climbs may not for me. I have stayed off the saddle for about a mile on a climb which sounds crazy but I was in a groove and it felt good and worked. Could do it again on same exact portion of that climb and may kick my arse.

Thing is do not get too caught up in this and push it each time on the climbs until you feel like you have no more left and I am sure your going to get better.

Reminds me of a story I heard many many years ago........not sure it is true but it was told to be true. A guy was told he was dying so he began running to hopefully have a heart attack and die. He would run until he collapsed but not die. Each time he went out he got better and ran further until he was in phenomenal shape and no longer dying. Like I said, not sure this was true but it was portrayed to be a true account! If it was true what a story for sure!

Its the hills that keep us honest.

400 a month is what i comute. Miles alone is not an accurate training yard stick. I am 50 something and started riding a bit over 1 year ago so take what I say with grain of salt.

Get a watt meter ant start training with power. You cant hide behind a paceline with a meter. You are putting out good watts or you are not. Power takes wind, hills and most aspects of being faster, strips away doubt and ego and distills it into a number. Gather the numbers up and make a graph to see if you are improving or just getting better at group riding.


I love hills. I go looking for them. Climbing is you, mass, power and gravity. You make the best of what power you have to get up the hill. Matching bar tape and sharp looking kit is nice but power and proper application is what gets you up a hill.

Hills and rough road surfaces make it tough to maintain your momentum between pedal strokes.
If your pedaling style is slow and uneven (visualize that there is a ketchup packet on the pedals that you want to stomp and explode), it won't make much difference how fit you are.
The people who have a quicker cadence and can apply force more evenly for more of the pedal revolution will have an advantage. They are not subject to the same accelleration/decelleration a masher will endure.

The way I see it, on the flats and smooth surfaces you are limited by your strengths.
On hills and rough roads, you're limited by your weaknesses.

+1
that was funny enough to get me to stop lurking and actually post

Probably all the advice you need has already been given, but I'll add my $0.02

1. 400 miles/month just isn't enough to build real cycling fitness. At least when the days are long if you really want to improve your skills, 800 miles/month is more like it. You don't by chance have a job or something inconvenient as that do you? Absolute minimum, I would say, is 600 miles/month to get in halfway decent shape.

2. It's not impressive to do 25 MPH in a double pace line if you're not spending appreciable time on the front. Fun as hell, yeah, but not any kind of measure of your skills.

3. If during the climb you are switching back and forth from high cadence to low cadence, then you don't really know how to climb hills yet (unless the switch in cadence corresponds to getting in and out of the saddle). We could give you all kinds of advice, but you just need experience and advice is no substitute.

4. Hill repeats. Hill repeats. Hill repeats.

5. Yeah, some people never get good at hills, but from your account, you're probably not any where near your potential yet.

Just trying to cut through all the preliminary 41 bull****.

You list good things, supportive group, good attitude, etc.

Kid: You're still at a good age. Based on the riders I've seen start "later in life" it seems like it's in the mid 50s that you really start to lose speed etc. At about the peak of my strength I was soundly beaten by a (very experienced and savvy) 52 year old in a sprint where we hit 50 mph on a slight downhill going into the sprint. I was 43 when I finally got to upgrade to Cat 2; I'd had probably my second best year ever, and only because the rules have changed a bit from, say, 20 years prior, could I get my upgrade.

Fit: Some details on what I did in the rider's post here. Super quick synopsis: bar-saddle drop increased by 3.2 cm, saddle moved forward 1 cm, stem lengthened 2 cm (so effective reach increased only 1 cm). Rider in question had been racing for 2 seasons and change. He made all those changes, at my suggestion/recommendation, at one time, and committed to it.

Climbing: Your heart rate is tied to your cadence. If you increase your cadence dramatically when already at the limit you can blow yourself up without increasing power output. Instead you should focus on increasing rpm slowly. A good example of this "blowing up" is at the top of hills. You are climbing for a bit "at your limit" and you blow up just as you crest. Perfect timing? Probably not. You could have gone further if you needed to and you probably would have blown up if the hill had crested 50 meters earlier. What causes this? As you crest a hill you speed up because the grade eases. Most riders keep it in the same gear and accelerate, perhaps shifting one or two gears. Your cadence may increase by as much as 10-20 rpm. Instead of doing that you can shift into higher gears to keep your rpm within about a 4-5 rpm range. Instead of increasing your cadence by 20 rpm you'd shift 4 or 5 gears.

There will be a slight penalty - you'll be in a huge gear going 80 rpm, pedaling like you were while you were climbing. This means you can't respond to a significant surge. However if you're not blowing up and you can gradually increase cadence/speed from there then you'll be okay if someone launches an especially hard move in 15 or 20 seconds.

To work on climbing power you need to have a low position. You lean forward when you climb - that should be a position you ride in often; if that's the case you'll be increasing your fitness/strength for the muscles called into play in that position. This is part of that fit thing that I harp about in that other post. You can also do specific riding techniques, like rolling for 10 minutes in a 53x12 at 60 rpm, stuff like that.

Good luck and keep us posted on how things go.

JAV,,, funny..... Um,,, I going to try that.

I climb pretty well for a Fred and can usually go from the back of the bunch to the front on any reasonable hill but the serious race guys go past me like I'm standing still. Find some more ordinary guys to ride with.

that's awesome. I'm going to get a new bike :-)

Found your problem...

oh yeah one more thing. all this talk about cadence and gearing probably won't do you much good if you don't really yet know how to spin. Going from mashing to spinning takes time.

So true!
A good thing to come from my injury, is I my new ability to spin.
I'm starting to push the big ring further again now that my knee can take more abuse.
I was a notorious masher, now I can spin fast without bouncing, even while standing.

Your first sentence of your initial post says it all...first year of riding...

It takes time to build the strength and hardness in your legs as well as your lungs, blood system and mindset to become a good climber.

Climbing : To get faster on climbs I need to get into higher gears, but my legs get tired and so I drop into a lower gear and start spinning with a high cadence and then I can't get enough speed. Climbing hills that are more that 1/2 mile result in alternation of low gear spin and high gear off the saddle pedaling.

This is a great opportunity to understand and improve just from the above. Your strength and bodies ability to cope begin to fail and you have to shift into an easier gear and try to spin...this is normal...just understand it is your bodies inability in its' current fitness level. You can improve.

If you can find a hill that is like what you describe, if not that hill itself, you can use it as your building ground and test bed. Hill repeats are best with decent recovery in between each attempt. Twice per week is great. Use landmarks to identify when your body begins to break down and keep a journal of them. As you continue to train you will improve and see those landmarks move further up the hill until you crest it...most important is to continue to pedal over the crest. Many make the mistake of thinking they are done when they hit the crest but not so. It is very important to continue over the crest carrying that momentum with you.

Once you crest the hill you can now continue to improve by using the next higher gear and starting over...there is no completion point merely becoming better and better and how good it feels.

I was not a good climber initially but after several years of hard work I became good enough to do well in some very hard road races in New England...it felt so good to be competitive, whether in a race, group ride or against your previous attempt and it is your hard work that got me and you there.

This is very true. One only needs to climb a hill with even a casually competitive group. You get to the top first and you ease off thinking you're golden , and then they all blow by you over the crest.

I suggest quitting the sport before it sucks you down the Velo Rabbit Hole with the rest of us.

Nobody gets out of here alive kid.

You should go into Motivational Speaking Your Holiness.