Tips for improving climbing?

[rebeccaC]

I think about strong climbing as power to weight ratio. Doing lots of interval work if you’re small, combined with diet if you’re not should help. I’ll even throw in some intervals on my commute to/from work to help with my power.

Sitting with a smooth high cadence and knowing the correct gear for you for changing gradients is the best use of stored energy. I usually don’t stand at all for hills with a lower than 10% gradient, I will if it's a really long climb. I’ll stand on a 10%+ gradient or really long climb to change up muscles for a moment, (also with foot position while sitting to bring different muscles into play), stretch a bit or to crest a hill. I'll use the momentum of standing to keep up with a faster rider/group only if I know I can make up for the larger loss of stored energy later on.

I work on psychological issues too. I break a hill into sections for a lot of positive small mental accomplishments and to avoid a mental image of disappointment. Concentrating on form and mechanics can get me into the now, help to divert my attention from negatives and gets me back to being efficient and focused on the positives.

[marni]

as my coach says- the way to learn to climb is to climb and figiure out what works for you. Having said that I will add that shifting down into an easier gear at the bottom and chicken legging (spinning) up the first part of the hill seems to work for me. I tend to leave myself as many easier gears to down shift into as possible and will shift down as soon as it becomes apparent that I will need to. Ialso prefer to climb seated. Just remember to sit up straight, release the death grip on the handlebars, open your shoulders, breath deeply and relax your face- it really makes a difference. In spite of the fact that you are trying to keep up with a group ride, remember the top of the hill will still be there whenever you reach it and that there is rarely a hill that you can't walk up.

[Crankin]

What Marni describes is what works for me.

[colorisnt]

as my coach says- the way to learn to climb is to climb and figiure out what works for you. Having said that I will add that shifting down into an easier gear at the bottom and chicken legging (spinning) up the first part of the hill seems to work for me. I tend to leave myself as many easier gears to down shift into as possible and will shift down as soon as it becomes apparent that I will need to. Ialso prefer to climb seated. Just remember to sit up straight, release the death grip on the handlebars, open your shoulders, breath deeply and relax your face- it really makes a difference. In spite of the fact that you are trying to keep up with a group ride, remember the top of the hill will still be there whenever you reach it and that there is rarely a hill that you can't walk up.

This. SO MUCH this. I also downgrade and try to stay seated on long hills because I worry about losing momentum otherwise. However, on short, steep hills, I will always get up and out. I mix it up to ensure my whole body gets a workout and one section doesn't work too much.

What really, really helped was spinning this winter in the gym. I learned what mentally worked for me to get me through 5+ minutes of pretty brutal climbs. Spinning was helpful most of all for form. Having our instructor yell at us to keep our shoulders back and hands light made me more aware of form than ever before. Another thing that helped when I first got a lot of gears and upgraded from my old 10-speed Columbia was climbing WITH people. Listening to how they timed shifting and watching them was instructive to helping me figure out what worked.

[azfiddle]

You sound a lot like me, except I'm small but not super light. One of the classic rides here is to go up Mt. Lemmon- a sustained climb of about 23 miles mostly 5% but ranging between 4-8%. Everyone passes me. One day I counted 60 people who passed me.

I tend to sit and ride in one of the lowest gears (I have 11-28 on the back), but now that I'm getting some coaching, I am supposed to do standing intervals on certain rides. One of the activities has 15 minutes of standing intervals during the ride. I am not able to do 5 minutes at a time, but I could do 1-3 minutes standing (which surprised me).

My coach also gave me this suggestion for shorter hills. On the hill, downshift once, and then once again, but instead of shifting down a third time, go back into a harder gear and stand to complete the hill (or a portion of it). She said that the reason you see pros doing this on big climbs the Tour de France etc is to use different muscles and allow other muscles to rest, not necessarily to attack. Also she wanted me to concentrate on pulling up as well as pushing down in my pedal strokes.

I totally agree with Marni about smiling and relaxing your face. I read that here when I first started riding, and applied on a hill that I ride frequently that gets up to about 10%. In fact, my husband put that as the motto on my Road Id when he ordered it for me - "smile on the hills"