Struggling with hills

[Dan B]

And what do you do when the pedal reaches the bottom of its stroke?

 

[garrilla]

Force is required to shift the mass to enable forward propulsion from the stationary position. While no muscle power may be used as a direct force on the pedal, there is a secondary force from the initial shift of mass from one side of the cycle to the other. There is no free energy from mass.

 

[jimboalee]

And what do you do when the pedal reaches the bottom of its stroke?

Clip in and put your weight on the front pedal.

When that pedal has reached the bottom of it's stroke, you put your weight on the other.

Do this repeatedly and you're CYCLING !!!

 

[Dan B]

And tell me, how do you shift your weight from one pedal to the other? I cannot think of any way which does not involve using leg muscles

 

[jimboalee]

And tell me, how do you shift your weight from one pedal to the other? I cannot think of any way which does not involve using leg muscles

This becomes a strange situation because when you think "I'm fed up of standing up all the time" you sit down and then use more energy than when you were stood up transferring your weight from pedal to pedal.

Before you shout, consider how the best riders accelerate or climb up a short shallow hill without shifting down gear. They stand up on the pedals. It's called "honking". They can get more forward propulsion for the same muscular effort.

 

[jimboalee]

Here. Try this.

Go to the gym. Get on the upright bike and get pedaling to generate 350W. Note your heartrate.
Now stand up off the seat. Spend a few minutes simply transfering weight from pedal to pedal keeping the 350W. Note your heartrate again.

????? Lower? I know mine does.

 

[Dan B]

I find that very unlikely. I am not one of "the best riders", but I am no slouch on an uphill, and I find that honking allows me to get more forward propulsion because it permits greater muscular effort. That's why I usually jump up
a couple of cogs to honk.

And heartrate is basically useless for measuring anaerobic activity, so your gym experiment is worthless. If you don't think honking is anaerobic, where does the lactate come from?

 

[jimboalee]

I find that very unlikely. I am not one of "the best riders", but I am no slouch on an uphill, and I find that honking allows me to get more forward propulsion because it permits greater muscular effort. That's why I usually jump up
a couple of cogs to honk.

And heartrate is basically useless for measuring anaerobic activity, so your gym experiment is worthless. If you don't think honking is anaerobic, where does the lactate come from?

There is NO definite dividing line between aerobic/seated and anaerobic/honking.
Each riding situation demands adaptation to acheive success.

A rider can honk aerobically. A rider can perform anaerobically while seated.

Many riders merrily honk up a slow long incline talking amongst each other as they climb. That's not anaerobic, I'm sure.

Where did you get the impression 'honking' involves ultimate effort? It is sometimes used to reduce the burden and keep the same speed.

I think the phrase applicable to your idea is "Burying yourself".

 

[Dan B]

You really haven't a clue, have you? Two pages of bluster about water bottles, fixed vs moving weight, honking to accelerate on shallow hills (goalposts now moved to "honking gently up a long slow incline" I note) and crank length, and you still haven't addressed the fundamental point that your "weight doesn't matter" garbage directly contravenes the well-known law of Conservation of Energy.

 

[Bigtwin]

This is, of course, utter nonsense.

On a 1% incline, start from a stationary position with one foot on the pedal and one foot on the kerb.
To ride away when the lights turn green, simply transfer your bodyweight from the kerb to the foot which is clipped into the forward pedal and you will ride up the 1% hill on bodyweight alone with NO muscular effort.

You are talking total and utter rot.

What you are talking about is using - once - the potential energy of a suspended weight.

You lift it up, it will fall. And push the pedal down.

Then YOU lift it up again, and repeat. And repeat. And the more weight you are lifting up and down, the more energy is required. And you are also moving the weight forward against gravity up the hill. So, the weight is better on the bike than you, as then you only have to move it in one direction - up the hill, as opposed to lifting it up and down to push the pedals AND up the hill as well.

GCSE level physics.

 

[ComedyPilot]

Don't you all think we're getting a bit too serious here? The thread is for a noob asking advice about hills, and we're dissecting Isaac Newton's theory of gravity?

Just reassure the noob it will be hard work at first, keep up the effort, and they'll be mountain goats before they know it.

Chill.

 

[Bigtwin]

Don't you all think we're getting a bit too serious here? The thread is for a noob asking advice about hills, and we're dissecting Isaac Newton's theory of gravity?

Just reassure the noob it will be hard work at first, keep up the effort, and they'll be mountain goats before they know it.

Chill.

Did that post No.2

Since when he's got to change bike/sprockets/drivechain/rings/pockets/fill them full of lead shot/fiddle with small boys and lord knows all what.

 

[dhague]

well now you've sucessfully hijacked Rich's thread

Guilty as charged.

I would suggest you do what the rest of us do and look through the components of the big online stores instead of asking us to do it for you.
Try SJS Cycles under the chainring section

Of course, I tried that first - but it seems that a 33 tooth chainring is the smallest you can get on a 110 BCD (not really worth it, coming from a 34). That's why (as a relative noob) I was asking what the practical implications were - it looks like I'd need new cranks as a minimum, to work with a smaller BCD. I was wondering if anyone had done this before, and what the minimum set of changed components was.

There is some relevance to the OP's question here - if the short-term answer is to gear lower, then he and I have the same question of how best to achieve this, given a Shimano compact groupset as a starting point. Going from 34 to 33 up front, and 27 to 28 on the rear, gets the equivalent of about 1 lower gear and then it seems to be time for major componentry changes.

- Darren

 

[jimboalee]

A kg mass has a vertical force in N.
Raise it 1 meter in 1 second and that is in W.
The energy spent can be in kCals.

This is how Garmin calculates an adjustment for hills in the 'Calories' count on my Edge 605.

The only thing that will make a hill easier is to drink your drink and have a p155 before you start climbing the hill.

Now it's coffee time.

 

[Sittingduck]

/thread ends