Cycling Hill Training – Help!

it may seem odd, but after 2 months of doing stadium steps I had noticeable gains in my hill performance - both on bike and on foot

bike harder.

its crazy, but biking hard on flat ground will get your ready for a hilly course , might not be ready for mountain climbs, but hills yes.

I'm in the same boat, living in pancake flat southern ontario.

My suggestion, is big ring work into the wind if possible. I ride 5min at normal cadence, then 5 min as hard as I can in the biggest ring I have. Then repeat as many times as you can. It can be a killer, but my legs feel just like they do when I'm on a hilly course.

FishHog

+2 on working the big ring. When I'm climbing I'm constantly trying to push high gears with a harder than normal effort. I want to push harder up the hills because I will automatically rest on the downhill side. And so to push higher average power over a ride I must push harder up the hills. When I can no longer handle a gear, I shift down. I keep track of which gears I require to make each climb (wind dependent of course) and my goal has always been to try to make it up climbs using higher and higher gears. Over the years, it's been amazing how I can make the same climbs in much higher gears.

Since every ride I do has significant climbing I'd actually prefer some flats to train on some. But if I were to try to replicate part of how I climb if I only had flats, here's what I'd do:

* Shift up into a huge gear and get up out of the saddle and get your cadence up to your normal out-of-saddle cadence. This should require a hard effort to keep the cadence up and don't be afraid to shift up higher to get the right gear.
* Hold that cadence in that huge gear for some period, whatever you are able to do whether it's 10 seconds or two minutes.
* Then sit down and try to hold that gear for a few seconds, then shift down one and try to hold that next lower gear as long as you can, etc.
* When you get down to the gear where you started, do the whole thing over again.

If you were to do that sequence for say an hour, I think you'd be training yourself pretty well for that type of climbing technique of alternating out-of-the-saddle and then trying to hold higher gears up the hill. If you did this often, I think you'd find that you'll be able to hold those higher gears for longer and longer periods, and IMO that will translate perfectly to real climbing.

And before there's a mass of "you should say in the saddle when climbing" posts. (which I'm sure there will be anyway). Keep in mind, that while that may certainly be a good strategy for some people, and it may be good for triathletes who are trying to save energy for a run, watch the Tour tomorrow and see how many of the pro climbers are out of the saddle while climbing.

On long climbs, alternating in/out of the saddle uses slightly different muscles. When I sit down after 30 seconds or so out of the saddle, I'm slightly (but obviously) rested for turning a gear in the saddle.

ETA: In terms of being aero, I can ride out of the saddle on the drops (I train on a road bike mostly) and my face is closer to the bars than when I'm on my clip-on aero bars. I can do the same thing on the hoods with bent elbows.

Edited by breckview 2009-07-09 10:04 AM