During the summer of 2002 we spent a week riding in and around Glacier National Park in the US and Canadian Rockies. While we were there we climbed the spectacular Going-To-The-Sun road to Logan Pass. On the climb we would often stop in small parking spots by the side of the road to take pictures and admire the view. If there was a motorist there, they would invariably say “I can’t believe you’re climbing this mountain on a bicycle”. As we thought about trying to experience the incredible vistas of the Rocky Mountains through the small frame of a grimy car window while also navigating the vehicle along narrow winding mountain roads we thought “I can’t believe you’re doing this in a car!” Cyclists have a love/hate relationship with mountains and hills; they can be very hard but without them, a ride is usually boring and dull. There are many approaches to climbing and there are different things that riders at different stages of development may be trying to accomplish when climbing. Technique for a new rider trying to survive will be quite a bit different from that of a racer trying to tear the legs off the competition. The following are some of the basics that answer one of the questions we are often asked, “How do you do those climbs?”.
1. Cadence. Cadence means how fast your feet go around on the pedals and it lies at the heart of cycling whether on hills or flats. Most cycling computers measure cadence in revolutions per minute (rpm) although cyclists will often speak of cadences of 90 or 100 and leave out the “rpm”. There are two basic approaches to cadence: Spinning and mashing. Spinning means pedaling in a small (easy) gear at a high cadence while mashing is pedaling in a big (hard) gear at lower cadence. In very rough terms, spinning will generally build cardiovascular fitness and endurance while mashing will build strength and bulk. Mashing is also more likely to produce muscle and joint (especially knee) injuries. As a general strategy, spinning is usually better than mashing. The typical recommendation is to spin at cadences of 85 to105. This may be a difficult cadence for new riders to maintain but it is good to practice until you can comfortably ride in this range. When climbing, it is best to spin at a high cadence in a small gear.
2. Maintaining a steady effort. If there were one bit of advice that I would hold out as the holy grail of long-distance riding technique, this is it. The idea is to put forth the same amount of effort consistently throughout the ride. One way to do this is to maintain a steady cadence. You adjust for changes in gradient, road conditions, wind, fatigue etc by changing gears and keeping your legs going around at the same rate. This means that going downhill you gear up into bigger gears and accelerate; going uphill you gear down into smaller gears and decelerate. Many riders seem to try and maintain a constant speed rather than a constant effort going uphill. They tend to exhaust themselves on the steeper parts of the hill. They also tend to fall off on the flatter parts of the hill. On many hills the gradient will become a bit less steep for the last section before the crest. If you are trying to maintain a constant speed, you will put forth less effort as the hill flattens (and usually be happy to do so) and slow down. If you are maintaining a constant effort you will kick into a higher gear at this point and fly over the crest.
3. Gear shifting. This is perhaps the most difficult hill-climbing skill to develop. Because of the way the gears work, when there is load on the chain, such as when you’re climbing a hill, downshifting to an easier gear puts more strain on the chain and the shifting mechanism than shifting up to a higher gear. You’ll often need to downshift to an easier gear during a climb but if you don’t do it soon enough, there may be so much stress on the chain that you can’t make the shift and then you’re stopped dead in a gear that’s too big to get up the hill. On the other hand, if you downshift too soon, you lose your momentum which can turn an easy climb into a hard one in the blink of an eye. It’s all about timing. The trick is to relax your pedal stroke for a brief instant and shift a split second before you have to so that you can put forth the same effort throughout the climb. The only way to get good at this is to practice. There’s nothing like a perfect climb where each shift comes smoothly at precisely the right moment and you feel like you’ve just flown over the hill as if it wasn’t there.
4. Remain seated while you climb. Standing is terrific for short bursts of power or for a change in muscle use (and hence a bit of muscle recovery) on a very long climb. However, it is less efficient than sitting and will tire you out faster in the long run. You will be stronger at the end of the ride if you climb sitting at the beginning. Less efficient to begin with, standing becomes much more inefficient if technique is not good and good standing technique is harder than it looks. Many riders weave back and forth across the road when standing and climbing and thrash back and forth twisting at the hips. This wastes a lot of energy (which you will wish you had 40 miles down the road) and is hard on the lower back possibly leading to back soreness or tightening on long rides.
5. Pedal in a circle. Once when riding in the Washington DC AidsRide (340 miles in 4 days to raise money to help those suffering from HIV/AIDS) I was helping some inexperienced cyclists climb one of the longer hills and suggested they pedal in circle. As he struggled to keep going one of them incredulously said “Isn’t that what we’re doing?” Surprisingly, the answer was “no”; his feet were going around in a circle but like most inexperienced cyclists he wasn’t applying force to the pedals all the way around the circle. As much as possible try and exert force all the way around the pedaling arc, not just on the downward push. Push down, pull back at the bottom, lift up and pull through at the top. This is not as easy as it sounds and it is a skill that takes a long time to master. However, climbing is difficult enough without trying to do it with only part of the available muscle power you have. You’ve got a whole leg and 360 degrees of arc to move it through. Use the whole thing. Pedaling in a circle will be harder to do with toe clips and is a good reason to use clipless pedals.
6. Drop your heels. Keeping the heels low brings more of the hamstrings (the muscles in the back of the thigh) and glutes (the muscles in the butt) into play. These are very powerful muscle groups – use them to get you over the hill. Many riders tend to point the toes downward which puts less stress on hams and glutes and more on calves (frequent calf cramping is a good indicator you’re pointing your toes down). The tendency can be accentuated by the use of toeclips. If you’re doing this, try to break the habit and drop your heels. Again, this is much easier to do with clipless pedals.
7. Keep a loose, relaxed grip on the handlebars. As you strain up the hill it’s easy to grip harder and harder. This can lead to numbness in the hands. More importantly, the tension in the hands will spread up the arms to the neck, shoulders and chest. Tightness in the chest will restrict breathing which will reduce oxygen consumption. Oxygen is necessary to remove lactic acid from working muscles. (That burning feeling you get in your legs is produced by lactic acid buildup.) Your legs will tire more quickly and you’ll have a harder time finishing the climb if you are not breathing freely.
8. Change working muscle groups. As you labor up the hill the muscles you are using will become exhausted as lactic acid produced as a waste product accumulates faster than it can be carried away in the bloodstream. It doesn’t take long to clear this lactic acid if you can make less use of the muscles for a moment. You can’t coast on a climb, however, or you’ll lose your momentum or come to a dead stop. The solution is to briefly work different sets of muscles throughout the climb to give particular muscle groups time to recover. There are several ways to do this. If you typically ride with toes pointed down or feet flat, drop your heels for a bit to bring your hamstrings and glutes more into play and give your quadriceps (the muscles on the front of the thigh) time to recover. Likewise, if you usually ride with your heels dropped, raise them so your feet are flat or point your toes down. Shift forward and back on the seat. Sitting on the front of the seat accentuates the quads, sitting on the back accentuates the glutes. Stand up for a brief interval and then sit back down. Just before you stand, shift into a bigger gear and then shift back to the smaller gear when you sit down. You will have more power when you stand and if you stay in the smaller gear you will lose momentum. Use these techniques for 10 to 30 pedal strokes periodically throughout the climb to buy recovery time.
9. Make use of the preceding downhill on rolling hills. This will come naturally if you successfully maintain a constant effort as you will be accelerating throughout the downhill. If you want to put out extra effort, squeeze every last bit of speed you can on the downhill where it’s relatively easy so you don’t have to work so hard on the following uphill.
10. Practice on every hill no matter how small. There is a lot here to try and put together and it’s easier to be successful on the small hills than the big ones. Also, success on the small hills today will lead to success on the big ones tomorrow.
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