Climbing - oh those hills!

[Dogmama]

This is a really good article about how to climb hills efficiently

http://www.active.com/cycling/Articl...ement=1&Dy=Thu

Ride on!

[txred9876]

This is a really good article about how to climb hills efficiently

http://www.active.com/cycling/Articl...ement=1&Dy=Thu

Ride on!

Thanks for the great article.... I have often told my workout group that I am like the tortise and the hair......slow....but consistant!

tina

[sundial]

Never attack a mountain, instead, let the climb come to you.

Sage advice!

[Dogmama]

Sage advice!

Sundial - I really liked that too. I think so much of our cycling struggles are mental.

[sundial]

I think you're right, Dogmama. Last year I focused on the road just 10 feet ahead of me and it helped. I also try to keep the cadence about the same as I drop gears during the climb. This year I have really wanted to do doozy hills. I have such a sense of accomplishment when I do them--even if I have to stop midway.

[RoadRaven]

Good advice.
The way to get better at anything is to do more of it... in this case climb more and often.
Gradually you will get to the top a little more quickly.
One day you'll find you can ride it in a bigger gear.

And what Sundial describes is exactly how I get to the top of two of the gnarliest climbs I do... Seafield is about 14% at the top... Burma is about the same but for longer.

Just focus on the road in front, your breathing and your rythym


Eeyore said: "Rivers know this. We will get there in the end."
Thats how to face a hill.

And like others, I love the quote from the article too: Never attack a mountain, instead, let the climb come to you.
Thanks for the link

[Ana]

I think so much of our cycling struggles are mental.

Which is why I will probably never like hills

Only last weekend I discovered that I really do love cycling while I was riding on the paved (and mostly very flat) path that goes up to Cadillac. I'm just not a fan of hills

[tctrek]

I'm just not a fan of hills

+1. I keep telling myself it's mental, but when my heart rate is pegged at 182 and I'm in my granny gear, and that big drop of sweat falls off the tip of my nose and my quads scream with lactic acid, and I feel like I'm going to throw up... it ain't mental... its PHYSICAL!!!

[LoriO]

"Never attack a mountain, instead, let the climb come to you. "

I have to say, this is the best advice! Last year I struggled terribly with hills and of course living in New England, that is all there is!!

After reading that and thinking about what I do, I realized that I was attacking the hills and trying to hard! By relaxing and just taking a nice steady easy pace the hills that were killing me last year suddenly seem so much easier to me!

[Christal]

I've just started my hill climbing. On my very first rise, got to the crest and was shifting back up to fast and threw a chain, bent a link and had to stop. Thank God for Motorcycle guys - they carry tools. Its one thing to shift one gear at a time down to the lowest as needed - BUT no one told me how to shift back up to the highest and NOT create a cross gear strain on the chain. You live and learn.

[Dogmama]

When I let my brain tell me that a hill is steep - it becomes steep. If I tell my brain to be quiet, my body tells me when to shift and hills become much easier.

[Zen]

When I let my brain tell me that a hill is steep - it becomes steep.

Last night i rode with Catriona and led her to what I remembered as a killer hill. The last time I climbed that hill was two years ago and I remember cursing my friend who led me there.
So last night I was prepared for a grueling climb. But it did not come.
Either I'm in better shape than I was then or it's because I'm a more experienced rider. But last night I was laughing at myself for building that hill into such a mental mountain