Do you sit or stand going up hills?

[CarbonCandy]

Ha! I sing to myself on hills (or running)-- usually "99 bottles of beer" for cadence. Sometimes outloud if I'm feeling the need.
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I amm soooo going to try this on my next ride!

[ima_bleeder]

I find standing to be much less efficient for me. It makes my legs burn and my HR spike. So if it's a very long climb it's a bad strategy for me.

But, if it's a pretty short duration, standing can give your butt and your back a break on a long ride.

Mixing it up is good.

[xeney]

For me it depends on the bike. I am more likely to stand on my mountain bike and on either of my mixtes (they are single speeds so I don't really have any other option). On my road bike I gear down and spin, partly because I read that Sheldon Brown article and I am very impressionable, and partly because I feel really unstable standing on my road bike. Which is one of the things I don't like about it -- I think it is the short stem that makes standing feel sort of terrifying.

[2Gowans]

It never occurred to me to sit going uphill. Mind you, the most gears I've had is 5 and a lot of the hills have been short & steep.

[kelownagirl]

I almost always sit unless they are VERY short and I'm not too tired.

[Dogmama]

If you stand, be sure that you still have one more gear "in the hole." If you need to sit again, you'll probably want an easier gear.

Here is something that really helps me: I don't "fight the hill." I mentally "work with the hill". So, I hit the hills as fast as I can so I have some momentum. I'll sit until my cadence slows to ~60, depending on how my legs feel that day. Usually that gets me over the hill - or close to it.

[cyclinnewbie]

We have so many hills here in my area I usually have trouble getting the right gears from hill to hill (easy enough to get me up one side, but hard enough to get some speed at the bottom in preparation for the next hill .....no rolling hills around here. They're steep and one right after another). But then again, I'm quite the hill-slug....