Quote Originally Posted by li10up
This was very well written and very informative. I have a couple of questions though...when you said you stop when you feel a twinge in a knee I'm assuming that you just shift into an easier gear? Or do you mean you just stop doing hill repeats? I'm sure you don't mean to stop altogether. Also, how many times should you repeat a hill? Should I do the first one in as hard a gear as I can without hurting myself and then on subsequent ones use one gear lower (easier)? Or should I use one gear that I can climb the hill with several times? Sorry, but to newbies these things aren't obvious. Thanks.
Thanks, I was just writing how I find it all...

I stop pushing big gears when I feel a twinge - my knees are over 40 years old, so I wanna look after them. I still have to ride home though, so I just ride easy.

So I stop the repeats. I usually only get knee pain when I have had a big week, so sometimes I do all my repeats, other times I stop short.

I don't know heaps about hill climbing, but what I do is I just started doing repeats and aimed to do one section of hill 2-3 times. When I found that was ok, I upped my number for next time.

Initially I just aimed to get up the hill even in a lower gear than I first started in. However, as I get stronger, I try to avoid changing down. My goal is races, so I need to be able to get to the top of a hill in a gear that I can dig straight into at the top so I don't get dropped... or that I can start powering into to open up the distance so that when anyone behind me crests the hilll will feel gutted by the distance between us and will settle to come in behind me.

Thats the plan anyway.

Racing is partly about power, but very much about strategy and one of those strategies is trying to make the other riders give up.