For me, real hills are WAY better than Coach Troy, weather permitting.

I'll tell you what puts my HR into the stratosphere: standing when climbing. I can only do it for a very short time, and usually only for a brief change in position, or to get up a very short ,very steep hill. I have a really hard time standing in the trainer, so the Coach Troy hill DVDs are not so helpful to me. (But I know V and Jo are all over those videos!)

I am a heavy cyclist, and when I first started riding hills with my generic gear set, I was DYING. People would say "soft pedal" or "spin" and I thought they must be crazy - I was working SO HARD to turn the cranks over. So changing to my current gear set up made all the difference. And everyone is right - nothing makes hills easier than riding hills.