I’m a non-climber who enjoys climbing. I’d enjoy it more if I was good at it. And “enjoy” might be too strong a word, “tolerate” might be better. But dragging 89 kilos up a volcano gives one time to contemplate the cycling life .
Let us define non-climber. It’s someone either too fat, too big (gravitationally challenged) or a fast- twitching sprinter. Not liking to suffer does not make you a non-climber. As the moto camera drifts down the peloton on the Ventoux, it’s still the guys at the back who are dying the worst. Finishing within the time limit for the non-climber requires a trip deep into the cave-o-pain.
For the cyclist, the power-to-weight ratio (watts generated/body weight in kg) is king, especially when the road goes up. A large improvement in the power side of the formula is tough, we have already chosen our damn parents and cursed inheriting their vestigial hearts and lungs. Yes, this number should be honed to its finest edge, it can be nudged up but not a lot.
The weight side of the equation is completely changeable and under our control.
Lose some weight, you fat bastards. Yes, I’m talking to you. The most important thing to improve climbing, by far, is to lose some weight. Do you need dramatic proof? Put a known weight (2 liter bottles of water) into a knapsack and do a regular route. The hills will be bad, very bad. Now imagine losing that same two or four kilos. The difference can be just as impressive. When I’m at a decent riding weight, climbing out of the saddle for extended periods is not a problem. I’m still slow but gravity is not demanding I put my ass on the saddle. Losing body weight is free; one looks better on and off the bike. Your friends will hate you. What is the down side? Oh right, it takes self-control and not drinking as much alcohol as life requires.
Don’t carry extra weight on the bike. If you really don’t need a second large bidon, don’t carry that 0.8kg. That’s more than the difference between super-light climbing wheels and regular road wheels. For reasons I’ll never understand, a bike that is one kilo lighter seems noticeably faster than the one kilo saved from a bidon. So yes, N+1 can be invoked but it’s much cheaper to just leave that second bottle at home.
LeMan said the key to climbing was to relax…easy for him to say when he had the heart and lungs of three Velominati. But Rule #10 is Rule #10 so meditate on relaxing while dancing uphill. Find a little rhythm. Click up into a longer gear, pop out of the saddle, shift back down, park it back in the saddle.
Find a gear you can turn over comfortably. As we all know, Dr Ferrari was the one to get Lance to spin up climbs. It’s tough to know where the EPO stopped and the spinning started but it did seem to work for him. While some may argue for climbing in the big chainring, for us non-climbers, climbing in the saddle and spinning a gear will get us up faster and with less collateral damage.
The best part of climbing as a non-climber is that we are out there, doing it. The Stelvio, hell yeah, it’s going to take a little longer to get up there but we will do it. We don’t stop, we don’t put a foot down. We suffer like you-know-who on you-know-what but we still do it with a stupid smiles on our faces.
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@ChrisO
I've been triaining for nearly three months for the Scody 3 Peaks Challenge. That's 235km and something like 4000m of climbing, for me, in under 10hrs. Now here is the thing; have I been doing hill repearts? Nope. My Coach has had me doing shit loads of high power endurance efforts aimed at increasing my FTP.
My thoughts are if cadence is the same, and pedal torque is the same ( and so power is the same), it makes no difference whether the road is flat, 5% or 20%. All that varies is the speed as a function of the first two. I think folks can hold higher power numbers up hill because they are forced to do so. To take it to the other side of things, riding down hill at high power is difficult. Its too easy to let things slip a little on the flats. Up hill, dropping cadence or pedal torque slightly is obvious. No so much on the flats.
@johnthughes
My advice, don't leave The Stelvio until the last day. You will want to do it more than once for sure. It's so spectacular, up a valley, tunnels, switchbacks. I remember watching the pros go up there in a recent Giro and they had to take a wide line on the corners because of the speed they were carrying. I've racked my brain but can't remember having the same problem. On the way back down we saw some Katusha boys going up, going fast and casually chatting!
@Ccos
@Frank
What? No no no no. "Revise - reread work done previously to improve one's knowledge of a subject". Go remind yourself of the rule, not change it! Shit, i'm the right amount of dumb, not insane enough to suggest rule #10 needs revision.
@Marcus
Just wait for my fucking orange Bonts. Just you fucking wait.
@Puffy
Revision and iteration is for software and philosophy, not religion. The Rules will not be changed.
@Marcus should we know who that is?
No one has mentioned Krabbe yet. As usual he has some excellent suggestions:
let your mind become a small, featureless black ball.
Battawoogreek-greek.
@Chris
Ah the soggy plain. Tell me, is Friar Tuck a good climber??
I have noted much debate about the best drummers on this site and there have been some valid opinions. However this guy is (cue Jeremy Clarkson voice) The Best in the World.
Just imagine the panache on display if he rode a bike!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9kPfelTEds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9kPfelTEds
@norm
That's not flat. Not far from where I live in south Louisiana, I rode a century (160 km) with a total elevation change of That's flat. I had to do an hour and a half of hill repeats to get 1,000 meters of climbing, and that's in what's considered hilly country around here.