Safe Speed Forums

CW has some good pieces this week and Michael Hutchinson writes the climbing hills effectively is not just about honking yourself to the top...

His Golden rules are





As he says - there is a certain satisfaction in climbing an Alpine monster and the thrill of the descent...

Idf with a group - stick with them - keep up with them.. I note when I ride with my local club or even with the Swiss mob - they ease up over the top of the hill to get a rest. If you are wiht a group and you drop off - you end up struggling to catch. (Wildy has this problem )

Mike Hutchinson mentions a COAST skil



Sound familiar .. in your car ..

A certain chap who lives in the Lakes ... certain Mad Doc .. did this to me ,,, in a race we gotr talked into couple of years back.... Grrrrr.. I'd have won.... but for that....



See -... COAST .. told ya!


Hutchinson debates how hard we should ride up hill - you need the stamina to ride up quickly and Hutchinson advises us to put in the effort where we get the most return. He advises not going above your threshold as this will reduce your powere for the rest of the ride... making you slow on the descents. So .. he advocates a relaxed pace, controlled with an acceleration over the top and in a race situation - he makes up the time over the descents and flats.

He could be describing a journey in a car behind a lorry across the A66 to the Mad Cats here

He also says that for safety's sake - you plan your journey or race beforehand and if a race - drive over it and even ride it beforehand

He also advises finally that training is the key ..



I see some parallels: motor racing techniques spill over into normal driving - and practices adopted by our racing stars - ciommuter cyclists can also learn from their expertise.

So - to our cyclists on board .... your tips for riding on the ups .... and what do you eat to keep up the stamina?

By the way ... speed matters - epecially a safe speed!!

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

I don't have any racing experience, but like to think of myself as a good hill climber, having spent much of my teenage years cycling round a particularly hilly part of West Yorkshire. I think a lot of people are slightly defeated by the psychological aspect of a hill looming in front of them. Some seem almost to slow / change down gears in preparation for the hill (I reckon my girlfriend is guilty of this though she denies it :) . To deal with a shortish hill, accelerate into it, put a bit of effort in, and often you can be over it with little speed lost. Obviously on a longer hill you will need to settle down to a sustainable pace and an optimum gear to leave bit of gas in the tank for when you reach the top. But by accelerating into it, you can still reduce the amount of slow climbing you need to do.

I can certainly agree with this bit plus also agreeing to points 1-4 of Michael Hutchinson.

On a short climb it is usually a lot less hassle to get out of the saddle in a suitable gear than change down and then back up again. An interesting point is that standing on the pedals requires you to select a gear at least one higher than you would use sitting down on the same climb - scientists, please explain!!

A time when you don't want to stand on the pedals is if the climb has patches of wet mud (you know - after Farmer Palmer has been up there) as you'll spin the back wheel to a stand.

Well I think the explanation is each down stroke allows you to use your bodyweight as well as legs, so you can push a higher gear. In a lower gear there's not much benefit to doing this. I used to stand up all the time to go up very steep hills (don't know how I'd deal with them these days as I live in Cheshire where there's no such thing!). But the reason may have been I was riding a drop handle, which didn't have very low gears. It probably is true that it's generally less efficient. But it can ease the burn in your legs a bit by recruiting some of your upper body.