Tips on making it up steep section of hill?

[OakLeaf]

With the caveat that I learned all this stuff by feel and I'm not sure how much thinking about it helps ...

Increase your cadence by around 5 rpm as you approach the climb and spin into it. Are you already in your bottom gear on the shallower beginning? What cadence do you maintain on the flats? Make sure you're not shifting under hard pedaling, which will lose you momentum, besides being hard on your drivetrain. When the road steepens, use the increase in grade and your momentum to help throw your body weight forward into standing. Unless you're *very* tiny, once you're standing muscle power really isn't an issue, because you're using gravity and your entire body weight to turn the pedals. It will take more cardio energy but *less* muscle power to climb standing.


Also, doing the shallower hills *will* help you. You'll improve your shifting technique, your cardio endurance and your leg strength. Every one of those translates to steeper sections. If you want to actually "train," you can do repeats on one of the shallower hills, as well as practicing powering up them as hard as you can.