Rollers and momentum

[Catrin]

Multi-Quoting is apparently my friend

.....I'm trying to imagine it and I think that coming fast into a steep hill I maybe downshift in 3 or 4 separate "sessions", several gears at a time, if that makes sense, before ending up on my smallest grinder gears. It comes with practice, judging at which speed you can use which gear, or rather - how much slowing down needs to generate how much downshifting.

I would think it helps to practice on the same hill or the same route, and try out several strategies. Downshifting too much is rarely a problem, you can just shift up a bit, but downshifting too little will have you struggling to shift again under pressure.

Oh, and long hills really are all about just grinding along, all momentum lost... Sing to yourself, stand a little, sit a little, practice reaching for your water bottle, don't worry about speed :-)

Today I experimented! I went to my "favorite" local park that has a very long, steep, and somewhat windy hill for a main road. I figured since I am doing this ride Saturday morning that I should practice with hill repeats so I could work on shifting.

I completely forgot about momentum as I lose it in the curves anyway - even while the fast boys and girls are blasting past me. That is fine, they can go around me Instead I worked between middle and granny front cogs to figure out where I needed to be in the rear to take full advantage of the front gears. I could tell a difference! I found myself going up the steepest bit of the hill at an entire 5mph, but with a cadence of 80 and my legs felt great! Ok, so there is something to this thing about not trying to power up in a harder gear - as has been my practice.

Like Grog and Becky said: don't coast down the hill--there's always an up on the other side of the down. Pedal (in harder gears) down and shift as you need to going up the other side. It will take practice.

Yup, and I found myself wanting to do the opposite - there is a part of me that wants to hit a harder gear at the bottom - probably because I want to feel that gear under my feet. Instead I put it in the granny gear and then into a hard gear in the rear so I could shift down as I needed to. This worked MUCH better than in the past when I tried to stay in the middle chain for too long.

You will develop a better feel for it with practice......I actually tend to rely less on momentum with some of these steeper hills and more on choosing a gear at the outset that will allow me to set a sustainable pace up the hill. I do not keep the same cadence on those hills that I use on the flats. I would blow up if I tried to do that. Rather, I get in a relatively easy gear, take a deep breath and then just pace myself up, susatining a good balance between aerobic and power outputs.

This is what I tried to do in the steepest parts of the hill tonight - I WANT to mash gears and just need to break this tendency of mine where long hills are concerned... though this would indeed be easier clipped in...

mantra for hill climbing- to the song of Frer Jacques
we are climbing, we are climbing,
yes we are, yes we are
This is not a real hill, this is not a real hill,
No it's not, no ti's not.

when in dobut/downshift until you can't shift anymore and remember, as long as you are maintaining enough momentum to move forward, you are in balance and all is good.................marni

I like the mantra! I will try and remember it Saturday

Something funny about my ride tonight. I have only gone one direction on THAT hill since something like March. I've only gone north to south on it, never the other direction because something about the downhill side scared me. So I've carefully avoided it for 4 months and carefully ignored that I was avoiding it. However, with hitting far more significant hills this weekend, it seemed time to finally "face my fear" of that particular stretch of road.

I decided to do it very first thing after warming my legs up a little. Rode to the southern end of the road, turned north, and started downhill.... First bit was fine, good - kept reminding myself that "I" am in control of how fast I go downhill. Got through steeper climbs and short yet fastish curvy downhill bits - then I realized that I was at the bottom!

You see - I had remembered a section of the road where the pavement was raised in the middle of the lane and then dipped on both sides - and I wasn't in very good control of my bike in March the last time I went down that hill at 27 mph - and I had NO business going that fast 4 months ago!

The end of the story is that after 3 repeats of that side of the hill - I never could figure out which section of road had me so scared - and I did not allow my bike to go that fast either. There is a lesson here about facing your fears, for sure. I am glad that I did - even if it turned out that there was nothing to be afraid of