the hills are killing me

[cousi.hill]

Learn to love them. Hills are like life - a lot of it is in the mind. I'm with the others though - 3 weeks isn't long enough to customise yourself to cycling on the flat, never mind the hills. What gears do you actually have though? How many teeth on your smallest chainring at the front and how many on the largest cog at the back? Count them and get back to us.

 

[cousi.hill]

hi yer aberal front 39 rear 22

 

[numbnuts]

Learn to love them. Hills are like life - a lot of it is in the mind.

A lot of it is in the mind gears, MTB gearing on a road bike a very happy bunny

 

[endoman]

hi yer aberal front 39 rear 22

I know little, but that sounds like bloody hard work. I just got up my local 18% on 34, 27 tonight,

Rear 22 sounds very strange

 

[HLaB]

hi yer aberal front 39 rear 22

In addition to lack of practice (just 3 weeks) those gears won't be helping, fit a larger cassette on the back. My bianchi has 39 front but a 25 rear and with training it has got me up everything I've tried so far; the steepest I've been up so far is the castle hill at Dollar, its pretty short 1km, an average of 15% and 27% max. If I was struggling on hills though I'd change it for a 27 rear. Good Luck

 

[aberal]

hi yer aberal front 39 rear 22

OK, that's racing gearing which part explains your problem. The guys currently meandering round France will be using that gearing - which is waaaay too high for the rest of us mere mortals, especially those of us the wrong side of 50 and a tad rotund round the middle (I mean me by this btw). Replacing the front chainrings with a triple would also involve changing the gear shifters/brakes and also your bottom bracket and even the deraileurs themselves. ..

So you have a couple of options - but the best, cheapest option would be to simply replace your front chainset for a new "compact" chainset which will give you a big chainring of 50 and a small chainring of 34. This will instantly give you much lower gears and shouldn't affect the rest of your bike's setup. To help even more, replace your rear cogs to give you ideally a big cog of 28 or 25. Your local bike shop should be able to advise on this because not all deraileurs can handle a large cog of 28 (its complicated stuff this). But if you can get a small chainring at the front of 34 and a large cog at the rear of 25-28 you should be able to handle most hills.

All this costs money of course, but if you want to aim for bigger things and carry on cycling it would be worth it. I'd suggest having a look out for Sportives in your area and picking a big ride of say 50 or 60 miles and training for it. Having something to aim for concentrates the mind wonderfully.

 

[cousi.hill]

OK, that's racing gearing which part explains your problem. The guys currently meandering round France will be using that gearing - which is waaaay too high for the rest of us mere mortals, especially those of us the wrong side of 50 and a tad rotund round the middle (I mean me by this btw). Replacing the front chainrings with a triple would also involve changing the gear shifters/brakes and also your bottom bracket and even the deraileurs themselves. ..

So you have a couple of options - but the best, cheapest option would be to simply replace your front chainset for a new "compact" chainset which will give you a big chainring of 50 and a small chainring of 34. This will instantly give you much lower gears and shouldn't affect the rest of your bike's setup. To help even more, replace your rear cogs to give you ideally a big cog of 28 or 25. Your local bike shop should be able to advise on this because not all deraileurs can handle a large cog of 28 (its complicated stuff this). But if you can get a small chainring at the front of 34 and a large cog at the rear of 25-28 you should be able to handle most hills.

All this costs money of course, but if you want to aim for bigger things and carry on cycling it would be worth it. I'd suggest having a look out for Sportives in your area and picking a big ride of say 50 or 60 miles and training for it. Having something to aim for concentrates the mind wonderfully.

 

[cousi.hill]

thought it was bloody hard going you see the bike i have is a barracuda 16 speed nothing special but is very smooth and quiet it is my first i did a charity ride on it with a about 15 of us we did 93 miles in all to skegness about two weeks ago i change my mind about derby peaks bit too much but i will price up a compact if it fits straight in otherwise i might look for a new bike what's the new boardman like that's 20 speed would that do or could you recommend any else cheers

 

[Holy Warrior]

Learn to love them. Hills are like life - a lot of it is in the mind. I'm with the others though - 3 weeks isn't long enough to customise yourself to cycling on the flat, never mind the hills. What gears do you actually have though? How many teeth on your smallest chainring at the front and how many on the largest cog at the back? Count them and get back to us.

I have never understood this, what do the numbers mean? For me it is 36/26. Is that good or bad for flat riding or for hills? What would be ideal numbers for equal flat riding and hill riding? Probably depends on the hills and things too.

 

[albion]

For me its 28/34 and has been for a few years now.Its an ideal bail out gear, especially so when the lungs refuse to co-operate.

 

[cyberknight]

thought it was bloody hard going you see the bike i have is a barracuda 16 speed nothing special but is very smooth and quiet it is my first i did a charity ride on it with a about 15 of us we did 93 miles in all to skegness about two weeks ago i change my mind about derby peaks bit too much but i will price up a compact if it fits straight in otherwise i might look for a new bike what's the new boardman like that's 20 speed would that do or could you recommend any else cheers

The Boardman road comp 2011 is a dream to ride

Lightweight, the carbon forks and curved seat stays soak up vibration and the best bit...

Sram Apex groupset !

This gives you a 11-32 cassette on the back with a compact chainset on the front so you can practically pedal up walls and still have a gear to hammer downhill

Personally i am going to change the rear cassette in the future as i do not need such a low ratio.

As for number of gears it is not how many you have, as long as you have a top and bottom range you can push with a gears in between then you have enough.
My commuter has 16 speeds but i only really use half of them , on the comp it is similar even with another 4 to choose from.

 

[gavroche]

Hills are always difficult no matter who you are. Ask TDF riders. We are all different and deal with them in our own way. I still get a good feeling every time I get to the top of one. There are still plenty of them round my way that I will probably never be able to do. So what?
I enjoy my cycling with or without the hills.

 

[gavroche]

In addition to lack of practice (just 3 weeks) those gears won't be helping, fit a larger cassette on the back. My bianchi has 39 front but a 25 rear and with training it has got me up everything I've tried so far; the steepest I've been up so far is the castle hill at Dollar, its pretty short 1km, an average of 15% and 27% max. If I was struggling on hills though I'd change it for a 27 rear. Good Luck

where do you get you radient from? 27% sounds very steep to me as in the TDF the maximum those climbs are is 10% and most struggle to do it, as professionals!!
Is there a sign that actually tells you 27% or are you just guessing?

 

[lulubel]

where do you get you radient from? 27% sounds very steep to me as in the TDF the maximum those climbs are is 10% and most struggle to do it, as professionals!!
Is there a sign that actually tells you 27% or are you just guessing?

27% is just a tiny bit steeper than 1 in 4 (which is 25%), and there are certainly plenty of those around the UK. There was no shortage of them where I used to live in Devon.

Mountains are generally longer, less steep climbs, as I found out when I moved to a mountainous part of Spain, but the 10% stated for TdF climbs will still be the average over the climb, not the steepest part. It wouldn't surprise me if the inside of the hairpins on some of those climbs is 25% or steeper. The reason they find those climbs hard is because they're long climbs, and they're also racing up them. I'm sure if they could take their time, use some lower gears and stop to take some photos halfway up, they'd arrive at the top barely out of breath.

 

[HLaB]

where do you get you radient from? 27% sounds very steep to me as in the TDF the maximum those climbs are is 10% and most struggle to do it, as professionals!!
Is there a sign that actually tells you 27% or are you just guessing?

I'm taking it from my GPS, mapping sites and other say Gloom Hill maxes @30% but I don't believe that my 39,25 bianchi got up it. Its an average of just 15% and its pretty short (under a km).

The blokes in the TdF will do a lot steeper than 10%, different event but in the Vuelta a few years back the average for the last 1km was 21%, with a max of 24% and that was after x hundred kilometres! 10% may be an average on some routes but they'll max at twice that or more. I think the often used Mt Ventoux route is only (aye only ) 7.5% average but its 21.5km long and there are a lot of sections far steeper, around 11-12%.