Climbing Tips for the Non-Climber
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.
Great advice, thanks! I’ll remember those sagely words as I drag my 95kg carcass up the granfondo Stelvio in June!!
First to post yeeha. I actually liked this article. Talking sense for a change, agreed the lighter you get the more awesome you feel dancing up the hill…and of the bike. Another tip for the non climber is just to hit them regularly whether you like them or not you’ll get used to them.
A solution: get yourself a climbing friend like Dino. I, a non climber, would always fall victim to Dino’s pathological lies about the length and steepness of upcoming climbs. “Just a short hill, no problem” would turn into some monster HC beast usually populated by angry dogs hellbent on eating your leg.
It never failed though, right at the worst part of the hill, it would suddenly get easy. There would be Dino with his hand on my back pushing me up the hill.
The world needs more Dino’s.
I remember something Wiggo said a while back about climbing – just look 10 metres ahead and keep spinning, if you look to the top of the climb, your will instantly feel worse!
Even as a climber (I suppose that’s what I am at 182 cm, 72 kg) As winter starts thinking about turning to spring (I’m going to kill the next groundhog I see), I’ve shed some of that holiday eating of which I partook. I’m stunned at the difference it has had on my climbing. All in all from the holiday eating I have shed 4.5 kg. Massive difference, for already being a decent climber.
It’s a bit of a motivating factor in itself now, and makes it easier to turn down the brownie, cookie or giant over priced calorie heavy latte….. “Hell no, not eating that! That shit will slow me down!!”
Great article! Reminds of dragging my 120k ass up the ventoux, allready lost 12 and aiming for 20! can’t wait to go back there again and see my new time! Rule #10
So far this (shitty) winter, I’ve kept my weight just about where I want it for my 1.85m frame – 82kgs. Looking forward to dropping around 4kg once the weather improves and the season gets going. We don’t have a lot of hills here in SE Wisconsin, but what we have are easier and my gear fits better if I’m lighter = win-win.
Even though I generally despise climbing, at 188 cm and 73 kg I’m pretty damn good at it. The big dudes who leave me in the dust on the flats end up looking at my skinny ass receding in the distance once we get to the hills.
@Darren H
Yeah, this is why long straight climbs always seem worse than ones with bends in the road where you can’t see the whole thing.
@Dfitz
You lucky bastid! It’s still on my dream list. Doing it with 5000 of my best Italian friends, that would be magnificent.
@Jon
“Talking sense for a change” yeah, don’t get used to it. It’s not our brand. Are you with me fellas?
Still, you are right, get on those hills, work on your weakness, not your strength.
Why consider losing some weight – if need be – when, instead, the answer is to buy more magic equipment that is lighter, more “aero”, “stiffer”, “faster”, “better”. Be a weight – aero – stiffness – carbon – shitmano weenie because face it, it’s never the rider, it’s only the equipment.
@Roderick
20kg lighter and you will be dancing not dragging. Or dragging at a much faster speed. The Ventoux, I should have that on the Big List but somehow it’s not there. What a slog-fest.
@Darren H
Or look at your stem like-a-Froome
@Derek
Indeed. I’m thinking of spending huge $$ on a couple of carbon bottle cages. That’ll definitely increase my climbing power and speed. Or maybe I’ll just take a piss before I ride and save the money and more weight . . .
@Derek
Good luck with that plan! I like new kit but I expect performance to come down to me, the miles I put in and to the V I lay down.
Oh and the carbon cages on my new lighter bike will make all the difference!
@wiscot
Selling an Elite Moro d’Elite Gloss Black White carbon fiber bottle cage 28 grams — 21.00 USD — free shipping
This was great. I feel I blow a ring every time I get on the hills down here. But you really only get better with practise.
Normally I have my arse handed to me a plate on a given race day. I end up in the fast handicap (I burgled one too many race), and the big boys surge. Repeatedly. I’m not the right amount of dumb to keep on at it, and I pop out the back.
Except on the hill races. Turns out those big boys spend ample time on the trainers, and minimal time on an up gradient. I just wish we had more hill races.
@wiscot Oooo dang. Remembered that I don’t sell cages as couples since I began mounting a single cage in 2010.
@titirangisi
Where did you race usually. Try Fork Shoals Road Race Championship SC — hilly.
Great advice, though the “lose weight” is maybe a little late for the trip I’ve just booked with a mate to Tenerife in April. Having only taken up cycling after moving to Cambridgeshire, a 2200m 6% climb is somewhat daunting. But enticing, nonetheless, which means I must have properly caught cycling madness.
@unversio
South Island, NZ. In saying that SC is not out of the realm of possibility. I’ll have to look it up.
@titirangisi The course is usually a 22 to 24 km circuit depending on how it is setup to finish. You would get to climb nice long hills repeatedly depending on your category.
I’m with you on the weight loss Gianni. I’m 183cm and started at 82kg when I got into this. Finished last season at 75kg and nabbed the club hill climb; this year I’m aiming for 70kg and some seriously hilly racing. Friends and family have started to comment that I’m looking ‘too thin’ so I reckon I must be getting towards proper racing weight – what do they know, eh?
A few guys from my club are doing the Mt Washington hillclimb. I am going to bang a cowbell and haggle them cross style.
I have also lost 8kg over the winter just because of the brutal climbs I found myself on last year.
I’m more or less a climber (188cm and 70-72kg, depending on season), but there is always a drive to lose more weight, despite the wife’s protestations. I mean, how good would it feel to be 68 kg?
Unfortunately, the racing around here is pretty flat, or peppered with 1-2 minute power climbs, and it would be way smarter to work solely on increasing power than losing weight. Still, it’s hard to beat the “lighter is better” out of my brain.
That made me smile.
Great article. Yeah, stop drinking so much. Great article. Thanks a lot.
@sthilzy
While dry humping a light bulb like a spider
@sthilzy
Froomantula
@Gianni
How do you write an article for Velominati.com on climbing for the non climber and not mention Rule #5?
@Ccos
Revise Rule #10
We have a climb here that is 5.5km long, 660m at between 12-16%. Reps on that baby is perfect for building both physical and mental strength! I love it. Actually I hate it when I am doing it… but once at the top…. WOOT!
First time I did it, a buddy told me; “When you get to the rock wall, you are just about there”. I nearly died getting there and the road flattened out by the wall. I was jubilent I was nearly there. The road started up again and corner after corner I exected to see the top. Nope, the freaking wall is only half way. Bastard!! Still, thinking the finish was around the next corner was what kept me going so I should thank him really.
Gianni, I’m going to pay you the biggest compliment you’ve ever been paid:
When I glanced at the cover shot, I assumed it was you.
Also, notice how small his frame is, and he’s as big as you and as heavy as me.
On a multi-day ride around Tasmania the “buffet stalkers” were sick of being dropped up hills. They decided to have a race with “The skinnies” but to level the playing field we had to carry a backpack with several Kg in it. Needless to say we lost to the stalkers who proudly proclaimed “We are better climbers”. Maybe, but since the skinnies suffer daily for their low weight whilst the buffet stalkers indulge their lack of selfcontrol, I think it’s only fair they get flogged on every hill. You sow, and you reap. I proposed for the remainder of the tour the stalkers eat nothing but rice and then on ration. Then in a few days we’ll do another race with the stalkers having lost weight competing against the skinnies sans handicap. The idea didn’t go down well. I’m not sure if it was the being beaten that pissed me off, or the fact that they tried to used it to trivialize the sacrifices I make at every meal and snack time.
@Al__S
6% is very do-able no matter how long it goes. Haleakala averages around that at 3300m, it all depends how fast you go at it. Even I can do it at slog speed.
@Fausto
That’s it. When people think you are sick, you are well. Go figure.
@Weldertron
And you are not going to do it too? It is the worst as I stated here before. Really, the worst thing a non-climber can do is enter that race. I had to do it a few times…perfect amount of dumb.
@PeakInTwoYears
The weird thing about not drinking as much is you still get as high as necessary just on less of it. It’s magic I say! Adaptation all around. Or my liver is shot.
@Puffy
Rule #5 is implied, for everything.
“buffet stalkers” fantastic description. Beautiful. You live in Tassi? It must me a great cycling place, it keeps turning out great cyclists.
@frank
Sniff…that’s the nicest thing anyone has every said to me…sniff, sniff. Grazie.
Yeah, he has moved way down on frame size. His Paris-Roubaix Ti Bianchi looked like it would fit me. I think this means I need another bike, a smaller bike. Like Magnus.
Starting out on the bike about 3 years ago at 183cm & 95kgs definitely had me in non climber category, after 3 years of chasing the guys below around the local hills I’m nearly 20 kilos lighter but as you can see I’m still fighting well above their weight category!
I’m still no fucking chance of keeping up with them when the road points up, but it’s the kind of training that means that when I’m riding with someone my own size I’m more than capable of holding my own.
@Mikael Liddy
20kg is fucking fabulous. Chapeau.
@Gianni
Alright. I’m listening. Scowling, but listening.
@PeakInTwoYears yeah it’s ridiculous. We had to work out how much our 9mth old weighed at the doctors the other night so they got me to stand on the scales with him. Our combined weight at that point (83kg) was a figure I would have been pretty happy to see myself record last year!
Admittedly this was being done a few hours after the Fleurieu Peninsula Cogal, so I was likely missing 90% of the fluid in my body through sweat loss…
@Mikael Liddy
Dehydration aside, that must’ve felt really good. Nice work!
Nothing like seeing 75kg’s on the scales, but I’m 183cm so seems like I could still drop 5kg going by the posts above, I love beer so my solution is to drink at least 7% craft beer so I don’t drink as many! exponential benefits to dropping weight from the body, love it when I get called scrawny!
@Dfitz A mate from SD went from 150kg down to 75kg eating a high carb vegan diet. His cycling performance boost has been incredible. Less weight, more red blood cells from all the high carb fuel in his blood at all times. He doesnt even have a road bike, just a giant hybrid with flat pedals but can out climb guys on 6kg Lightweights. Pretty amazing what getting healthier can do for a cyclist at any level.
@Mikael Liddy get an Ultegra Stages and try and hold 5 watts per kg when the lads attack. The gap will between you’s will be a lot less than it is now. Also I know a climber around 90kg (Anthony Brooks) that can out climb me on long climbs like greenhill. Woodland’s way no but long steady climbs yes.
@sthilzy
It’s just another way of breaking it down – no different to looking a few metres ahead, or at the wheel in front, rather than staring at the summit.
I climb well for my size at 190cm and 77kg but I can’t beat the 65kg guys up the steep climbs. I would need another 10% power I reckon(working on it).
What I can do is sit on a power number depending on the length of the climb and by doing it at my own pace I’m usually not that far behind the mountain goats. It takes out a whole load of variables and it works.
@Mikael Liddy
I certainly hope you dropped the guy to the left of you.
@durianrider
5W/kg… WTF are you talking about. That’s nearly domestic pro level and certainly Elite amateur level.
If he can do that, he should be the one making the attacks.
@Gianni
I’m laying off the wine and spirits.
Beer does make you lean though;
@titirangisi not likely, while he may look unassuming, when he feels like it (generally when the road points upwards) he goes like a spider up a drainpipe!