I have the Hillacious for hills (we're travelling to Italy in Spring and we're hoping that it will help). Besides using big gears, they also recommend propping the front end of the bike up a couple of inches. I'd love to know if this is just psychological or if there is something to it. With the front-end propped up when I'm in the hard gears, I do find myself more likely to slide back and push with my hill climbing muscles. But, again, I don't if that is all in my head.

The Hillacious set has you grind some longer sets in a moderately hard gear(to mimic a 4-6% grade), then he does some rolling hills where you're flipping gears from spinning to grinding (oddly, I find these almost as much fun as doing rolling hills outside) and then he does short bursts to mimic a 12% grade (puts you in the hardest gear). The Hillacious DVD comes with a hill climing technique short, but I think you can get that directly off the Spinervals web site.

We use our bikes supported on a trainer and, not being super athletes, we compensate on the gearing. But, I've learned that if my cadence is about what he's calling out and my effort matches what he's expecting that I sweat up a rainstorm and get a really good workout.