Hill Speed

[KnottedYet]

I do wonder about standing your bike. I see a lot of people do it and I have tried. I find it exhausting. I do better gearing down and just going for it. Which way is right?

The way that gets you to the top of the hill.

[jessmarimba]

Hills are always going to make you hurt. It's the nature of hills. Don't worry about your speed, because you'll always feel slow when you're chugging away. You got up the hill, didn't ya (one way or another)? There you go!

I will say that it helps me to remind myself to pedal in circles, rather than just mashing the pedals. Kind of eases up on my legs and gives me a little burst of speed when I've been just plodding along.

[marni]

As long as you aren't falling over like the old man on the trike on laugh in, your speed up a hill is just what it should be.

[Velocivixen]

I don't care for hills in general especially one particular short and very steep hill. However I climb about a 2 mile stretch with about a 6% grade when I ride to the Zoo, and this might sound strange, but as I'm pedaling there comes a point where I can actually relax my quads and, it seems, I actually use LESS effort to get up that hill! Maybe I tense up my quads at the beginning of the hill then relax them along the way. It seems counterintuitive to relax muscles that I am actively using, but it happens. I literally tell myself, "relax your legs" and that difficult pedaling immediately becomes less difficult. Not sure what all that means but it works for me. It's as though all that extra tension in my legs was simply wasted energy.