Comments on: What is your uphill cycling strategy?

By: joe smith

joe smith — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 07:46:35 +0000

that might be tricky as ventoux is in the alps and la tourlmalet is in the pyranees and madeleine is back in the alps…

geography FAIL!

By: MontyzL1V

MontyzL1V — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:34:30 +0000

Having revived my old Record Sprint and now six months into regular rides [again] a came across Goldings Hill in Loughton Essex. Wow. I got about 50m along and ground to a halt. Tried again another day and same result. urns out that my old faithful doesn’t have enough gears which was good to hear [i'm not a wimp after all ]. Have now upgraded from 6-gear cog to 7-gear [MEGA] as this is the maximum my poor old frame can handle. gonna put a good weeks training in and then try it again next week – Wish me luck!

By: Oneten

Oneten — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 19:38:38 +0000

I have only just found the Londoncyclist site and think it’s great. I’ve also enjoyed these useful comments about hill – climbing techniques.

Whereas my son will sprint up most hills to ‘get them over with’, I must admit this tires me out too early and so I remain seated and spin in a low gear. If I can see the hill is relatively short I will stand up and try to keep up momentum in a higher gear but more often than not take it at a slower pace rather than become exhausted too soon.

Living in Kent about 15 miles the North Downs, there are some challenging long climbs nearby. My pet technique is to avoid looking too far ahead instead focusing on little signs of progress. On the hill near Wye I try to ride over one of the small pieces of chalk landfall from the roadside banks which then produces a nice white spot on the front tyre and provides something to concentrate upon – I don’t know why; maybe there’s some deep psychological purpose to this but I suppose I just find it reassuring to see that the wheels are actually going round and forward progress is still being made!

By: D. Joshi

D. Joshi — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 14:55:37 +0000

One day sir, that new saddle will be yours, your time is coming Brother.

By: Snaggy

Snaggy — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 20:06:09 +0000

I live and cycle – about four times a week – on the north Cornish coast, there’s no shortage of cliff-contoured hills here.

Only been doing this since last May or June and, like others, initially I’d either jump off (caught between vomiting, fainting and coronary) or choose flatter routes. I ride an old, heavy, second hand Dawes tourer and, perverse as it sounds, I ride for pleasure, mental health and fitness, so I’ve made my peace with being passed at light-speed by ninjaboys on feather-bikes.

I’m also in the habit, mostly, of standing when I climb. I’m not bothered it’s less efficient than otherwise because I’m keener to burn energy than be streamlined or efficient. (I’ve lost two and a half stone in the last nine or so months.) Now I find that when I’ve not enough time for a decent ride round a looping route, I purposely go to a local T junction, whose left and right turns both lead up (to me) killer hills. I go left in 2/5, standing, then back down it and up the right one, sitting, in lower (easier) gear. This way the hills hurt in subtly different ways. I do both hills twice.

I realise cycling’s probably more fun because I work at home and most days I go out – when I choose – there are few cars and sea-views, but regardless of all that, I’ve definitely been bitten by the endorphin bug and by the change to my body and fitness (I’m 48 and had high blood pressure and an ‘Obese’ BMI when I began …)

All I need to do now is keep resisting the bike shops and those sleek machines promising more speed over greater distances. Luckily, I can’t even afford a new saddle at the moment.

By: Phil Russell

Phil Russell — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:26:41 +0000

On hills, I alternate between “honking”, (old racing term for getting up off the saddle), and “twiddling”, (old racing term for fast low-gear pedalling), but it’s important to remember to slide yourself towards the back of the seat a bit, which takes a little weight off your front wheel (the non-drive wheel), and puts more traction onto the wheel that’s powering you along…..of course the technique doesn’t work while you’re honking, and it’s not much use on flat roads, but it does seem to have helped me over the years—–and over the hills!
P.R.

By: Yossarian

Yossarian — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:01:07 +0000

Only been cycling 6 months or so and where I live (Southgate / Oakwood, North London) there are hills everywhere. When I began I was always (shamefully) walking up them, but after only a few months I’ve come to love the challenge and never walk up anymore. The key for me is, steady as you go, each time I go up a hill, I try for a tougher gear, building stamina and muscle. The real riders (the ones in all-over-lycra) always whizz past me, but I don’t care because I know I keep on getting better. I never realised cycling was so addictive.

My hill strategy, keep doing more and more, then they get easier and easier. Which completely agrees with Ruth Roadnight.

By: Ruth Roadnight

Ruth Roadnight — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 12:52:05 +0000

Hey, my cousin had “liked” this on facebook so i thought i’d check it out. Some good advice on these pages and some fairly funny posts!!
You should come to Edinburgh (where i live and cycle). More than enough hills to practice on! In fact i think the only properly flat road is Princess street!
Not sure if i have a strategy..? I guess start where i’m at and start changing down the gears. Gears definately help. Should probably try not to hold onto the handle bars so tightly cos that probably doesn’t help! Oh and you just have to think “i will not roll backwards, i will not roll backwards!” when your cycling up hills like Dundas street (steep hill near Princess street), the first time you do it you don’t think you’ll make it but it gets easier, all hills get easier with practice.

happy cycling!

By: SarfLahndahnCycle-abuser

SarfLahndahnCycle-abuser — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 07:02:39 +0000

My strategy is to cycle reasonably hard into the hill to build up momentum, then keep a medium-low gear (low as in large cog) but as high as I can manage to maintain cadence. If you get tired like that, you can always drop a gear or two as a last resort when the hill gets steep. Try between Tufnell Park and Highgate, this is fairly aerobic:

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=highgate&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hl=en&sll=51.567167,-0.14147&sspn=0.003114,0.010568&rq=1&ev=zi&split=1&radius=0.27&hq=highgate&hnear=&ll=51.5658,-0.141256&spn=0.003115,0.010568&t=h&z=17

By: pgbee66

pgbee66 — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:08:38 +0000

After trying what was labelled as an “average difficulty” ride in the Austrian Alps the other day and being overtaken by an 81 year old man with a walking stick I decided that my best strategy was to get the cable car to the top Hey, at least I tried and the views and downhill run were fantastic!