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.

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  • @ChrisO

    5W/kg is fine, it just depends how long you're expected to keep it there for! I've seen it mentioned a few times that it's easier to put out higher power values on climbs than on the flat. I've certainly found that my best figure are on climbs, but I suspect this is because you can put in constant effort, whereas the slightest dip or change in wind conditions on a flat road gives you a dip in power making it difficult to sustain max effort.

  • @Shatterhand

    Great post! Being a 106kg 186cm ex rugby player suffering from an unexpected love affair with cycling and climbing (paired with a looming mid-life-crisis), I can relate.

    I was going to post that I'd regained my Slith like figure (intentional pun on Silth) from my Rugby days (weight wise anyway - some of the distribution is not quite so effective as my Rugby days).  Then I thought who/what was Silth anyway?

    "I must be surrounded by beauty!" - Silth

    Silth was a Marlfox and High Queen of Castle Marl. She was the mother of seven axe-wielding children:MokkanLanturZiralGelltorPredakVannan, and Ascrod. Silth killed her husband seasons previously when he wanted to become king. She was very old and vain.

    Silth prefered to be carried around on a curtained palanquin and demanded that her children steal treasures and pretty objects to decorate her chamber, saying that death could not visit where beauty reigned. Towards the end of her days, she was driven mad by the antics of her youngest daughter, Lantur, who along with Wilce tortured her into thinking she was haunted by a ghost. Silth was eventually poisoned by Lantur so that she could become queen. Wilce told others that Silth was slain by the ghost of her former mate.

    Silth was the third Marlfox to die.

    So on balance I think maybe Slith-like is no so bad - though he didn't last too long either.

  • @Teocalli Don't you mean sylph as in syphlike?

    Sylph (also called sylphid) is a mythological spirit of the air.[1] The term originates in Paracelsus, who describes sylphs as invisible beings of the air, his elementals of air.

    Which might be equally inappropriate for you as:

    sylphlike: adjective /ˈsɪlf.laɪk/ (of a woman or girl) attractively thin and delicate

  • @Chris

    @Teocalli Don't you mean sylph as in syphlike?

    Sylph (also called sylphid) is a mythological spirit of the air.[1] The term originates in Paracelsus, who describes sylphs as invisible beings of the air, his elementals of air.

    Which might be equally inappropriate for you as:

    sylphlike: adjective /ˈsɪlf.laɪk/ (of a woman or girl) attractively thin and delicate

    Possibly - not sure which is worse, a batch of axe wielding offspring or being invisible!  No votes for the second thanks.  However, yup I did mean sylphlike but there's a whole bunch of letters there that can get mighty confused and definitely should not end in ....litic

  • @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.

  • I'm positive I posted something meaningless in this thread last night, but I can't find it now.

    Anyway, my weight has been on a yo-yo this winter, anywhere from 74 to 78kg.  I'm looking for suggestions on how to trim that down to a consistent 72 without sacrificing frozen pizza's or IPA's.  Maybe, only eat every other day?

  • I find that it is my love hate relationship with the perfect amount of dumb that keeps bringing me back to  my climbing routes three and four days a week.  There's something about suffering at the  five & dime  with the "V" meter dialed in to that sweet spot.  Like @ChrisO pointed out find your number and hold it.

  • @Shatterhand  Yes, cursing is essential to sports and life. I'll have to learn those good swedish ones. We all need a mantra, it might as well be a fun one.

    @Chris 

    Slack jawed and empty headed is the way to go. Any sort of brain function is liable to be diverted to subversive thoughts along the lines of "who the fuck did you think you were kidding, fat boy" and "you're well and truly out of your comfort zone here...

    Beautiful. I'm in your camp. My brain function goes to zero on bad climbs. Just maintaining the hull and machinery. My wife, who is tall and thin and a good climber, she is singing and processing crazy ideas the whole climb...not me. Nothing.

    "you're well and truly out of your comfort zone here..." would also be a good t-shirt.

  • Seems like there are quite  few around who played other sports, before Following. Me too and though my body has changed a lot since I've been mainly a cyclist for a solid decade, I'll never be a reed thin climber. Oh well, I think the determination and fight learned in those other sports helps me hang in during climbs quite well.

    And, I'm Medium-Sized, so says Gianni. Not Backstedtian.

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