Newbie with Hill problems

[black'n'yellow]

Throw all your climbing techniques out the window - power and weight are the key factors in hill climbing. Climbing is about your weight (plus bike), plus whatever power you can put through the pedals for the duration of the climb. You can lose weight, which will help - or you can improve fitness, which will also help. Both would be ideal.

The good news is that anyone can improve their fitness and anyone can lose weight, if they have excess to lose - the bad news is that going faster uphill is not a quick fix like a lot of these 'climbing techniques' might suggest.

 

[Nebulous]

A month is a very short time. I saw someone on here say that if you want to go fast on a bike you need a 3 year plan.

You could possibly get away with a 28 tooth wheel on the back. Last year was my first cycling and I had two big fails on hills. I moved to a 11-28, which appeared like a fix, but actually turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. So I went out and practiced on hills. Finding a steady rhythm that works for the hill is good and you need to keep at it. I often climb hills standing up and have a feel for what works for me.

This year I moved back to a 12-25. I can still struggle and feel the pain, but I'm faster than last year and haven't had to give up on anything for months.

 

[MattHB]

The only way to get better at hills is to keep riding up em.
As a side benefit you also get better at sweating, swearing and breathing through every available orifice.

At some point you may come to actually enjoy the climbs......allegedly

I still have yet to reach this point.

 

[Pistol]

Throw all your climbing techniques out the window - power and weight are the key factors in hill climbing. Climbing is about your weight (plus bike), plus whatever power you can put through the pedals for the duration of the climb. You can lose weight, which will help - or you can improve fitness, which will also help. Both would be ideal.

The good news is that anyone can improve their fitness and anyone can lose weight, if they have excess to lose - the bad news is that going faster uphill is not a quick fix like a lot of these 'climbing techniques' might suggest.

I am hoping that its more of a case of it being 17 years since I last rode a bike properly and my legs arent used to that type of movement and strain. It is a completely different feeling to running, whilst running the fatigue is general tiredness in the legs and aerobic pain puffing and panting, but never really feel like cramping whilst running no matter what aerobic effort I'm putting in, even running up hills. Whereas cycling up hills feels like someone is just pouring lactic acid into my quads, once over the top of the summit it recovers quite quickly, which again is different to running as once you've blown up running it's very difficult to come back. Hopefully the body will adjust to the new muscle requirements eventually.

 

[black'n'yellow]

I am hoping that its more of a case of it being 17 years since I last rode a bike properly and my legs arent used to that type of movement and strain.....

That's the same as 'fitness' - that's all you are lacking. If you haven't ridden for 17 years, of course you don't have it. You will get it, but it takes a little while, and like I say, there is no quick fix unfortunately, despite what you may be told on here.

 

[Pistol]

That's the same as 'fitness' - that's all you are lacking. If you haven't ridden for 17 years, of course you don't have it. You will get it, but it takes a little while, and like I say, there is no quick fix unfortunately, despite what you may be told on here.

Yes but its more cycling specific fitness, its only after cycling you realise it makes different demands on the body that other exercises.

 

[MattHB]

A year ago I was in the same boat more miles and not avoiding the hills (I used to) is the only way. Thing is though, hills always hurt, you just go up them faster.

 

[Pistol]

Yeah, I was just really surprised how hard it was to get up the steeper hills full stop, never mind at a fast pace. Wasnt expecting to be so inadequate, I had visions of bouncing along on the pedals in a middle gear leaving cars in my wake. Not to be!! The Tour De France will have to wait until 2014 at the least i think

 

[black'n'yellow]

Yes but its more cycling specific fitness,.

what other kind of fitness were you expecting to need..?

 

[Pistol]

what other kind of fitness were you expecting to need..?

I thought my general fitness would stand me in better stead than it has in reality.

 

[Andrew_Culture]

I'm the last person whose advice you should listen to, but 'relax, pedal more' works for me.

 

[black'n'yellow]

I thought my general fitness would stand me in better stead than it has in reality.

'general fitness' is great for walking down the street or kicking a ball about with the kids - but for anything more than that, you need to specialise...

 

[byegad]

The part about routinely climbing 20-30% climbs, whilst admiring the view, I assume is a joke I would get up about 50 metres at 20% in the lowest gear before I started rolling backwards back down again. Regarding technique- is there not an argument that you should get some momentum up before the hill and try and maintain speed as long as possible until you're forced to start flying down the gears? That has been my strategy anyway, doesn't seem to working. My fear about starting in a low gear is that your spinning hard and not going anywhere straight away and if you get knackered you're already at the lowest gears, so there is nowhere else to go.

No not a joke, drop to bottom gear and winch away, my trikes run bottom gears of 14, 15 and 12". Even a recumbent trike, which can do silly speeds down hill, swiftly runs out of momentum on 20% and steeper. You end u[ in bottom and up you (slowly) go.

 

[Nearly there]

How fit are you and how do you keep fit as you say you thought you had a decent level of fitness?
I work with a bloke who runs 3-4 times a week between 30-40 miles and he's 9 stone wet through however in june he started doing a bit of cycling to mix things up and commented on how tough he is finding it compared to running,last week he told me of a big hill that he had to walk up I asked which one when he said I nearly laughed as I find this hill easy(now) but i didnt as 8 months ago I walked up that same hill.
Even now regular hills i do im fine but give me a new one to tackle and I can still get it wrong,stick in and it does get easier

 

[lavoisier]

As has been said it gets easier.
What I tend to do is to go as far as I can up a hill I can't quite manage then just stop and wait until I get my breath back, then carry on cycling up a bit more. This way you don't walk the hill but achieve it even though it's taken a couple of efforts. Next time on the same hill I aim to go just a bit further up than previously.
This way also tends to give me a psychological boost too.
Hope this helps and that hills don't take away your cycling pleasure.

Paul