Hill Strategy for race this weekend

I won't tell you how to ride it, but I would ride it by attacking hard going up, and pedaling, but not all out, going down.

Ride up steady and hard, upshift at the top and get your speed back up before soft peddling or resting on the way down. You can make up some serious time if you give that last push after cresting a hill when the person behind you just drifts over the top.

In general for most triathlon courses you want to spin the hills and attack the downhills/flats. The caveat is the distance of the course and your cycling/run fitness level; a shorter course (sprint/Oly) you can attack a bit more the hills since you'll be exerting yourself for shorter periods of time. Also the greater your cycling/run fitness the more agressive you can be.

Thanks for the insights.  The course is 15 mi.  I was trying to get a rule of thumb on is it generally more effecient to attack the up hills and pedal/recover down or spin up and attack down.
 

I guess given my fitness level (or lack there of), is there a guideline to maximize my speed/effeciency by doing it one way or another......

I totally agree with this.

What I write below isn't all that applicable to your course as it's only 384' over 15.29 miles but the climbing is generally all in one hill so that makes it harder than rollers. Anyway...

IMO, the most important part of riding hills is gear selection. You want to predict which gears you'll need and move to them IMMEDIATELY BEFORE you need them. Don't let your cadence bog down while climbing unless you're about to come off the saddle so the bog down was planned.

As long as you have a decent bike that will shift well under the force of climbing, don't be afraid to shift all over the place (front and back) to find the perfectly correct gear that allows you to have remaining low gears for what the hill appears it'll require. And shift often if you need to to find that perfect effort level.

If you ride out-of-the-saddle a lot like I do, that introduces a new complexity into gear selection which is an art that climbers learn.

In terms of effort, expect to be out-of-breath at the first of the climb but know that will pass and then get into a mindless sustainable rythym. Don't concern yourself one bit with how much hill is left just turn the pedals at an effort you can maintain for the entire hill and which you'll be recovered from after the descent. keep in mind that looking up to find the top of a hill is exactly like an attacker being caught by the group looking back to see how close the group is, he's dunzo.

Don't rest at the crest but instead INCREASE your effort. Either spin faster or jump out of the saddle and get the bike moving. If I'm going to stay seated, I usually concentrate on pulling the pedals up to get them spinning faster. You're about to get to rest plenty and getting up to speed quickly is important for average MPH. Don't coast the downhill unless you run out of gears. Push the downhill very hard because even at that effort you'll be recovering (how recovered will depend on your fitness). Think of the downhill as how much distance you're putting on people and how much time it will take them to make up that distance on the flats. (It doesn't work like that exactly but it helps me push the downhills hard).

Looking at the elevation chart, I'd attack that hill to almost my max potential and then pedal the rest out in a big gear.  IMO, hills are what separates many competitors.  It looks like the last three miles are mostly downhill which you should be able to pedal and recover on.  Or that's how I would look at it.    

If it's a short race, I tend to attack the hills more (get out of the saddle, stay in a big gear, etc) whereas a longer race, I will tend to save my energy and spin more in a lower gear and maybe even recover a bit on the downhill (easy peddling).

However, that's sort of a given, right?  In general, a shorter race would require more of an attack on the s/b/r where the longer race require more pacing.


Or you can look at it as a more simplistic approach.  Attack them as  hard as you can and still leave something for the run.

I would obviously love to go as hard for an HIM or IM as I can for a sprint, but I'm not that fit.

Think you are both spot on in the approach to the hill and what is said below is not mutually exclusive.  As tehy said, spinning as much as possible up the hill will save your legs.

One thing in the advice prescribed that I would tinker with, however, is fiddling with the front chainring too much.  Since you are new I would preseume that you do not have a lot of miles in your legs.  I'd shift to the bottom chainring when you feel like your cadence is dropping and then stay there until the top.  Lots of shifting in the front might lead to a dropped chain. 

You can still shift up and down your rear cassette when ascending the hill to find the optimal gearing.  As you crest the hill then shift into your big chainring (front) and attack the downhill ... pedaling downhill is "free speed" and time off the clock!

Yeah, you're right. I was writing in the context of the hills that I'm used to riding and didn't look at the actual course until after I'd written the meat of my post.

Thanks all for the advice.  I will post my race results after this weekend.  Appreciate it.

breck, I just wanted to say thank you for your post up there (and brian, your synopsis is awesome!). I'm having a huge mental block at the amount of shifting I do (a lot...no, a lot), but given that you and I ride in somewhat similar terrain, if at VASTLY different speeds, I'm really appreciating your advice.

I'm still learning how to attack over the hill. I seem to burn through too many matches every time I try that, and end up having nothing left for the flat or even the downhill except a super soft pedal. Fitness? Attacking too soon?

brian, looking forward to your RR!