How to practice hills when there are no hills

I live in Houston and the only hills we have here are the ones we call "over passes." I've been wondering how I would train for the Texas Time Trials since I've heard it's hilly. Last night the VP of our club messaged me and told me she's going to schedule training sessions in an empty parking garage. I wondered if anyone else has done this and what your experiences were.

Hopefully I'll be comfortable with the clips before attempting it. I'm thinking zipping downhill and clips could be entertaining.

Could you get your hands on a trainer?

The guy at the shop will let me throw my bike on his trainer. He's very nice.

Use a trainer. Do intervals in the harder gears (big chain ring and 15 - 12). Get a couple of Spinerval DVDs - the Uphill Grind and Hillacious come to mind. Find a good headwind and ride into it. A nasty headwind can be harder than a hill. ;) Good luck!

How far do you have to drive outside of Houston to encounter hills?

Here in Central Indiana, we have few hills. So, to do hill training, we drive about an hour or more south to train for hills. If you don't have to go too far, that would be my suggestion. I've never used an empty parking garage--in part because I am unaware of any parking garage that is, in fact, empty.

I know of a few that are empty, but only in the evening and weekends. It's probably a couple hours drive for hills, so that works be doable, but not often.

I've ridden in places that are flat and in places that have really steep hills. Strength shouldn't be a problem for you - it never is for me - because places that are flat usually have vicious winds. That DOES translate directly into the leg strength you need for hills.

What you'll need to practice for hills is shifting and body positioning. How to back off your pedal pressure before you hit the lever ... exactly when to shift and into what gear to maintain your cadence ... what cadence works best for you at what grade ... when and how to stand vs. when to sit and spin ... how to keep your weight over both wheels, and keep your pedal stroke smooth enough to prevent wheelspin, when it gets really steep ... etc.

You can do plenty of that in closed parking garages (with permission), bridges and overpasses. It just takes some dedication to do the repeats over and over - and if you're doing bridge repeats, be very sure you have a safe place to cross over to the other side ... remembering that motorists descending the bridge will likely be speeding just on account of the descent, AND not paying attention because they haven't had to deal with any cross traffic for the length of the bridge ... and if it's an overpass, there will be issues with merging traffic from on- and off- ramps as well.

If you have a place with two bridges not too far from each other, you can do loops.

I don't think unclipping is more of an issue in a parking garage than anywhere else. I DO think cornering skills are super important there. If your cornering and descending skills aren't topnotch already, I'd recommend you practice them somewhere where the walls aren't quite so unforgiving. Which is not to say that if you aren't with a big group and you have permission to use the garage, you couldn't practice climbing on the ramps and then walking your bike back down for the next repeat. I would NOT recommend riding your brakes down the ramps, because that will worm its way into your muscle memory and give you very bad habits for real-world descending.

I had a similar issue last year and I really think that intervals helped. Same as Indy in flat-land and I was going camping in hilly country and wanted to ride while there. Intervals into the wind really helped in particular.

One thing I want to caution about parking garages - there tends to be a lot of oil from cars on the pavement and it can get REALLY slick, so be careful. The oil can also make its way to your rims to impede braking power. (I once had a pretty bad slip and fall in a parking garage from engine oil on the pavement... walking, not riding... so I'm cautious even when walking in parking garages.)

Good luck with your training!!!