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

[hilldweller]

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

Great quote! My favourite hills always used to be the long winding roads where you could only ever see a couple of hundred metres ahead of you. Nothing worse than looking up at miles of hill ahead of you. Currently my favourite hills are the easy ones but I'm working on that . Given a reasonable state of fitness and the right gears, hill rides are heaps more interesting and enjoyable than boring old flats, IMO, and the more you ride, the better it gets.

[OakLeaf]

My favourite hills always used to be the long winding roads where you could only ever see a couple of hundred metres ahead of you. Nothing worse than looking up at miles of hill ahead of you.

..... nothing worse, except being sure that the top of the hill is around the next bend... you can see the sky through the trees... but you get around the bend and it keeps going UP! and UP!

THAT's the worst.

[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!

[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

[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.

[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!!!

[jdubble]

this was good to read in preparation for climbing Larch Mountain tomorrow. i'm so NOT a climber. why did i suggest doing this ride to my husband? and it's how we're celebrating our 10th anniversary? why didn't i suggest going out for a nice kid-free dinner or something sane?

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I hated all hills with a passion. I avoided them if possible, which is mostly impossible to do where I live. Plus, we live at the top of a very steep hill, so that is waiting at the end of EVERY bike ride I do, no matter how tired I am when we get close to home.

Now, after three years of regular riding....i still hate hills. But it's a strange sort of hate now- more like a love/hate relationship. I feel a sense of satisfaction now after a hill that I didn't used to feel. Used to be I hated every hill before, and during, and after I rode it. Now I have a strange masochistic attraction to a hill before, then hate it while I'm climbing it, then love it when I'm done with it. Go figure.

I find myself planning rides that I know have some nasty hills in them, thinking how good a workout my legs will get. I know deep down that doing the dreaded hills is the only thing that will eventually make them less difficult and less dreaded. I know that the more hills I tackle, the sooner will come the day when they are no big deal. I have resigned myself to the fact that I simply cannot avoid the hills...they are lying in wait for me in all directions from my house! What's that they say about 'Keep your friends close but your enemies closer'? I am learning to pull the hills closer in to me and embrace my enemies.