Flat routes improving my hill work ?.....strange

[Doyleyburger]

Having just come back from a 4 day London to Paris adventure, me and my mate were discussing the effects the trip has had on our cycling abilities. We live in a very hilly area where as the French trip was generally flat. Being a flat route meant that free wheeling was hard to come by and constant peddling was what we had to do. Anyway since we came back about 2 weeks ago, we both feel extremely sluggish on our rides now, especially on the hills. However the results say different and the average speed and PR's are coming up thick and fast. Obviously not complaining about it but I wouldn't have thought that cycling on flat roads for a few days would have improved my hill work ??

 

[Big_Dave]

Yes it does, on the flat you keep a good constant cadence going, once you hit a hill your legs seam to want to keep that same cadence going

 

[GrasB]

Do you usually do those sorts of miles in that sort of period? If not then simply you've got fitter. If you're fitter you can make more watts for the same weight. The more watts you make for the same weight the faster you can climb. This process continues up util you reach a very high standard of cycling performance.

It's only at the very highest levels of performance (maybe top 10% at a guess) that you start seeing differences between the type of endurance training you do. Riders who mainly train on the flat will tend to develop towards out right power production, those who are climb a lot will tend towards less absolute power but a higher power per kg of body mass.