Categories: Technique

Climbing Tips for the Non-Climber

Non-Climber Magnus Bäckstedt, 195cm, 90kg

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.

 

Gianni

Gianni has left the building.

View Comments

  • "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."

    Shoot, I wish I could edit posts here...the above refers to a different ride entirely than that century.

  • @piwakawaka

    I like the mantra when riding I use two.

    "you're probably not riding hard enough"

    and courtesy @frank and Johan Museeuw

    "why would you want to slow down?"

    For me it's "Catch that carnt" and "Hold that wheel, hold that wheel, hold that wheel.." repeated to take mind off breathing and pain...

  • 1 mètre 59, 52 kilos, est-ce que cela fait de moi un bon grimpeur?

    je n'ai pas vraiment eu cette sensation lors de ma dernière montée de "La Madeleine" au milieu d'une boucle de 130 bornes!

  • @ltraq Tout le monde souffre. Certains sont simplement plus rapide.

    At 1.88m and 67-68kg, I know it's not really my weight holding me back, just as-yet insufficient heart-lung training.  But I'm always a little surprised that despite feeling like I'm dying on hills and  that butterflies must surely be able to rest happily on my spokes, I do ok compared to others who ride around here.

  • Here is a saying I heard again the other day that has helped me get over alpine passes:

    "if you are going through hell, keep going"

  • @ChrisO

    @Fausto

    @ChrisO

    5W/kg is fine, it just depends how long you're expected to keep it there for!

    Obviously.

    But the suggestion was to hold it while other people are attacking so as not to be far behind, which means sustaining it for some time on a climb of a decent length.

    5W/kg for even 5 minutes is very good Cat 2 territory and 10 minutes would be Cat 1.

    It's just meaningless advice - someone who can do 5W/kg isn't getting dropped in the first place unless they are competing at a pretty high level.

    It's like telling someone the way to run faster is to buy a stopwatch and do a sub 3 hour marathon.

    Should I be happy that I'm putting out 5W/kg+ for 5 mins as a 3rd Cat then? Roll on the hilly races this year! (I still think I'm going to get my arse handed to me, but that's just me being pessimistic until proven otherwise)

    I know it's meaningless, it was meant more as a dig at the original comments lack of qualification for power vs time. Faustina can put out 5W/kg , but it doesn't last long and she normally needs extensive cake therapy to recover.

  • The most important attribute for climbing well up significant mountains like the Stelvio, assuming you're in reasonable physical shape, is MENTAL STRENGTH. You've got to accept that you'll be going up an 8% gradient (+/- a few percent) with no respite for two to three hours. That's a long time! So, you've got to settle in for the duration, enjoy the constantly changing views as you slowly progress up the mountain, and relax as much as possible. One of the most common problems people have is developing knee pain from pushing too high a gear. I used my lowest gear (34x30) for much of the Stelvio ascent during the Raid Dolomites last summer and I'm not a bad climber (173cm, 63 kg).

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