YokeyDokey

To see if I could, I cranked my daughter's Specialized triple up 3,000 feet (run) of uninterrupted 10% grade using the lowest ratio, which is 32 (front) - 25. It almost killed me to do it one time. I need to consider a lot more training before going loaded touring, perhaps?

staehpj1

How bad of a fit is the bike? That could make quite a bit of difference.

xyzzy834

There are lots of great touring routes and destinations that don't require lengthy 10% grade climbs.

raybo

Did you rest on the way up? I find that taking frequent rests (sometime every few hundred yards) helps with sustained, steep grades. Also, by knowing where the hard climbs are, I can reduce that day's mileage accordingly.

Ray

YokeyDokey

it's only 3,000 feet - I did it non-stop and felt fine afterwards, but I sure didn't want to do it again the same day. If the bike had been loaded for touring there's no way I could have climbed it without stops/walks, or much lower gears.

rogerstg

Or change your gearing to something lower. You can easily go as low as 22f - 34r. That'll make it easier.

fietsbob

32t,by25t is a racy road triple , not a Touring ratio set.

32:25 is still 1.28:1 overdrive.. a 25:34 is 0.735:1 a reduction gear ratio

22:34 = 0.647:1 ..

Carbonfiberboy 

Absolutely. That's just a little over a 1/2 mile. Stoker and I climb grades with more than that vertically. You won't encounter much 10% if you stay out of the Rockies, but you might encounter some long 6% grades, depending on where you are riding. I figure if I can easily ride 60 miles with a total of 3000'-4000' of climbing (vertical) on my unloaded single, I can deal with what I might encounter on tour.

That said, of course you'll need lower gears. Most any triple with a 32 or 34 in the back will handle whatever you might encounter. That's an easy thing to do if you're running Shimano: new cassette, MTB RD, and a longer chain, done. Many people off on a long tour say they'll just get stronger by riding and don't bother training first. I'm in the I-like-to-train camp, which is more helpful on short tours of only a week or two.

Erick L

You need lower gears.

valygrl

Most of the passes in the Rockies are 5-7%. There are some steeper roads around, but they are much less common.

You probably need lower gears than that for a tour bike, and it helps to be in shape, but your "test" doesn't tell us anything. 10% on a 32x25 would make me suffer too, but I'm in plenty good enough shape for touring.

If you want to know if you need to train more for touring, a better test would be to do a few back-to-back days of riding 5-7 hours a day, at a moderate pace, carrying they gear you are going to carry using the bike you're going to use. You'll figure out pretty fast if you need lower gearing or more training or both.

If you don't have a bike yet - get something with mountain bike gearing, not just a road triple.

antokelly

if you want to climb hills then train on hills, lower gears lighter bike and a nice slim body should do the trick.
unfortunately i have none of these.

pacificcyclist

There are 2 ways to attack a hill.

You stand and attack the hill continuously with big gears. And that's how most accomplished Tour De France like Alberto Contador, Tyler Hamilton and Lance Armstrong do either with a 50T for quick acceleration and then perhaps sit on a 34T to cruise up. I have tackled 15% grade hills with a 53T/25 for a short duration before sitting down with a 39T. But this is all and good riding on a light race bike.

The second most common sense way to attack a steep hill is to use lower gears.

Just recently, I had met a guy who toured the rockies with 54 gears! He has a SRAM Dual Drive mated to a 9 speed 11-34 and a Shimano SLX 36/22 crankset! He is also a Cat 2 rider as he claimed, but he carried quite a bit of stuff.

However, there comes to a point where walking is faster than riding up a 10% grade hill over any extended period of time!

You will get strong touring, but get a decent low gear and don't get obsessed about training for these hills. Hills are not only your problem, nor the means to an end either.. Headwind can be your nemesis as well too and more so if you start touring in open country like Idaho, Oregon Coast heading north or Montana!!
How do you feel if you had climbed a 10% grade hill only to face a very strong head wind coming down so bad, you had to pedal with a 20T front and a 34T and barely even move! I had and is not pleasant!

Lastly, you need to reserve your water and energy level. Simply attacking hills like a Tour De France rider is going to raise your VO2Max level burning more energy rather than spinning at a decent low heart rate! Touring is not about speed, but rather about making the endurance! I have seen many people bonk at the end of the tour because they had to be fast, attack hills like they ride a road bike. You can only train to be stronger if you can keep your fuel last longer than everyone else. An experienced tourer can. A newbie soon bonk.

LeeG

32chainring and 25cog with 700x32 tire is 35" gear. When I was young, light and fit my low gear was a 37chainring and 32 cog giving a 31" gear which I'm pretty sure would have been inadequate for 10% grade fully loaded but worked fine for riding through the Rockies.

Assuming you have the correct position/seat height on the bike you've got a good lesson for what you need to do, get lower gears. What year of bike or type of crank is on her bike?

AbueloLoco

I agree with the lower gearing suggestion, but even with lower gears I have yet to meet a hill I couldn't walk up. Then again bicycle riding is only a part of a tour for me. With a 10% grade, there are quite possibly some great views to see along the way (and maybe some roses to smell).

acantor

Having toured in many hilly/mountainous areas with different bikes and different gear setups, I have noticed big differences in the difficultly of climbs based on small differences in grade, hill length, gear ratios, etc. On one trip with intense but not long climbs, I experienced 13% grades as doable, but anything steeper as challenging. Climbing an Alpine pass all day, which was "only" a 6% or 8% grade, was excruciating after a fe hours because the climb was unrelenting. Headwinds and tailwinds change everything...

Super low gears help. Ditto for taking breaks, eating and drinking regularly, and all the other good strategies that people have mentioned. It really is OK to walk up hills if they are too much!

BengeBoy 

If you expected to encounter 10% climbs on a loaded touring bike, your low gear should be around 20 gear inches -- which is quite a bit lower than the gear you used.

camcycad

I tour quite a lot in the hills. I ride up them VERY slowly. I stop as often as is necessary. In extreme cases I count pedal revolutions and say to myself "just do another 50 then have a rest". I have a low-geared road bike and an even-lower-geared MTB. Often the challenge is more about staying upright than about the effort needed to get up the hill, and sometimes I'm going so slowly - less than 2mph - that the speedometer on my cyclocomputer gives up and displays "--.--". I HATE having to get off and push, and can say truthfully say that I have never had to do that on a paved surface.

For me, it's a zen thing - big long slow climbs are one of the best things about cycling.

YokeyDokey

LOL ... well, the slim physique is the part I do have. The rest can be handled with a credit card.

ClemY

As I get older (and heavier), I find I gravitate to lower and lower gears. My current setup is a 94/58 crankset with 20-32-42 rings and a 12-36 9 spd. cluster. If I can’t do it with that, it is time to get off and walk.

Erick L

I've heard that many times when I said I could climb as slow as 4-5km/h. "It's walking speed, might as well walk!", they say. Except walking uphill is slower than on flat ground, and pushing a heavy bike is slower still, not to mention very awkward. Also, if I push my bike long enough, the pedals will inevitably swing around and hit my shin, which hurts like hell. If I can't push the pedals, I prefer taking a rest than walk. Low gears are awesome.

Rob_E

I think/hope the trick is to keep training on those hills with your current gears, then switch a more favorable set up when you're ready to load up.

I don't have very extreme hills around here, but I have wished that my bike was geared a little lower on some of my climbs. It's a hub gear, and the manufacture's specs say not to gear it lower then 2-to-1 front-to-back which leaves me with a low end of 26.8. I thought I was used to it, but once I loaded the bike up, I was once again wishing for more low end. A few days later, though, when I finally took that weight off, the bike felt so light that I moved the front to my big chainring, and I left it there for the last three months with the exception of one overnight trip and one, grueling, heat-stroke afflicted ride. Now I'm working with a gear range of 39.4 to 141.7. It's my hope that riding around in that range will make my low end on the small ring seem more then sufficient. I have 80-100 miles of loaded riding planned for this weekend, so I guess when I load up the bike and move that chain back to the small ring, that will be the test.

antokelly

lol well your nearly there and that's what counts.

pacificcyclist

It is easier to push the loaded bike up the hill when the weight is predominantly on the front (front panniers) plus keeping your core engaged, shoulders low and moving from the core and moving your hips rather than your legs. If you hit your shins, you must be bending at the waist and not moving from your hips, not moving from the core, shoulders probably raised to compensate from your bending action and your legs closer to the cranks. The idea is to allow yourself to be in front of the cranks and pedals not side by side. This way, your walking speed with load is just a tad slower than simply walking up without a load. I have done this many times, cause we have hills here that are 22 to 25% grade!

chasm54

To answer the OP's question directly, yes he does need to get fitter. It's remarkable how quickly one's hill-climbing ability improves with practice. But of course a loaded tourer is going to need lower gearing than an unencumbered road bike. I must say I disagree with those who walk up hills, pushing a loaded bike up a steep hill is a joyless experience. If I wanted to hike, I'd leave the bike at home. On my tourer I have a 19 inch bottom gear. I haven't yet found a hill it won't cope with.

ClemY

One thing I was reminded of today: as we get older, heavierand screwed up medically, some of the meds we may be on can adversely affect aerobicexercise capability. One of those is the beta blocker. It is often given forcombating high blood pressure. In doing that, it also limits the maximum heartrate. My maximum heart rate dropped from something over 160 to more like 120.That may not have much of an effect for anaerobic exercise, but it sure limitslonger term aerobic exercise, like climbing a long, steep hill.