Hill training

[north woods gal]

Forgot about the upshifting before standing on the pedals. Good point. N.Y. Yeah, sounds counter-intuitive to shift to a harder gear when climbing, but it's true. By the time you decide to stand, you're in such a low gear that you'll over-spin when you go into stand unless you shift up.

I tend to be more of a masher than spinner on my hill climbing, these days. I try to keep the number of shifts to a minimum. With every shift I lose a bit of momentum. My mountain biking has really helped my leg strength, so I can get away with more mashing. Hasn't always been that way, though.

Also, when I approaching a hill, I gun it hard to build up as much speed as I can before going up the hill. Really helps to get farther up the hill before need to shift. Standard procedure in mountain biking because the hills can be steep and sudden. Did I mention I don't like to shift?