Ride yesterday: clipless victory, and Hill question

[emily_in_nc]

Amy ~ I didn't get faster on hills until I changed from riding a hybrid and heavy recumbent bike to a much lighter road bike. Rotating weight, namely wheels, makes more of a difference than the weight of components that are simply carried on the bike, and hybrids tend to have very heavy wheels. All that said, even though I am a lightweight, petite gal and switched to a lightweight carbon road bike when I was doing lots of road riding, I was still not that strong on hills. I improved a great deal, but I still considered hills by weakest skill area. Hill climbing is all about power-weight ratio, and even though I had an advantage in the weight area, I didn't have a lot of power, so often got whipped on climbs by heavier, bigger boned, and more muscular gals. So even though you're heavy, that doesn't mean you can't improve greatly on hills if you get STRONG. As Mimi said, practice, practice, practice. There is no magic bullet.

Mimi ~ You just have to give clipless a try! You're a good cyclist and would be much better with clipless. I honestly don't think you're going to have a difficult adjustment since you're already comfortable on a road bike, so it's only one new thing to think about vs. several for some new riders who are trying to learn clipless at the same time as how to ride a road bike. My mountain biking buddy had never, ever used clipless either this summer, but after talking to me about it, she finally decided to go for them. It only took her two rides to get the hang of it, and she did great! And this was on rooty trails with switchbacks. I was SO impressed with how quickly she picked it up. I predict you'd have the same degree of success.

~Emily