Shaun

Climbing technique. It may be true that you do this to some extent while standing and climbing. But really good technique climbing includes relaxing your arms. If you are doing a seated climb, you want all or most of your energy to go to your legs. That is what is getting you up the hill. So sit, keep thinking about bending your elbows, dropping your shoulders, relaxing your upper body as much as possible and working on the roundness of your spin as you climb. You want to be efficient. If you have to stand because of the steepness of the hill or because someone has jumped and you need to stand to stay with them, you still want to be relaxed but given that you are standing, your bike will sway under you - let it - but still try to keep a somewhat rounded pedal stroke - you lose efficiency if you mash to the bottom of your pedal stroke and then have to raise the pedal back up.

Hope this helps.

spoke