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.
@frank
Exactly, once I switch over to Bonts, I will become more Maggie-like. And if he likes them, I will.
@frank
@Gianni
Thought you might appreciate this photo
@Al__S
Wheathampstead is a nice 1 in 8, which I used to commute every day.
@VeloSix sounds like a similar theory to a bloke who knew a thing or two about going uphill fast
@Mikael Liddy
I’m just saying, the dude is hard to kill and he attributes this to not eating cheese. Imagine him as a cyclist had he not gone down the music pathway.
He probably would still be doped to the gills just the same.
@Ccos
Keith would have his bike tuned to Open G. He would not ride fast, but he would be very casually deliberate.
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?”
@The Oracle
Close to my heart this one ! Same issue.
@Mikael Liddy Well yeah, that about sums it up…. Now I don’t why I took so much time explaining it.
@Gianni
No. I live in North Queensland. Just that Tas is my favourite place/state in Aus. Speaking of Rule #5, I’d live there in a heart beat if I could get work there….. and it wasn’t so freaking cold. As a skinny cyclists from the tropics… I struggle with it. At least it doesn’t stop me visiting.
@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 <35 meters. 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.
@frank
Orange Bonts – to match your next steed ??
http://australia.fujibikes.com/bike/details/sst-13
“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.
@frank
@Barracuda
@Nate
Clue: The guy in the photo does triathlons, wears Bonts and most certainly isn’t me.
@piwakawaka
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”
@andrew Indeed!
I am never pleased of my climbing speed because of my lack of climbing technics, but that Rule #5 hammering in my head always makes me fast enough to enjoy that LEFFE and a blueberry pie at the top of a HC… and then, work my tucking technic on the other side!
@ChrisO
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 (34×30) for much of the Stelvio ascent during the Raid Dolomites last summer and I’m not a bad climber (173cm, 63 kg).
@Chris
Ah cool, I won’t look out for you then. I’m looking forward to it but Its likely to be a slow crawl for me.
@frank
You are absolutely correct, and I never said that it did.If that is what you think our beer is, then my Wisconsin Velominati brethren and I have much to teach you.
What would be the beer equivalent to the Pedalwan?
@Fausto
Yes I think you should be. Of course it also depends what you’re doing – 5W/kg on the flat is less effective if you weigh 60kg, but devastating going uphill.
In our race today we had a short sharp hill we went over three times – and I was doing about 5.3W/kg up it for 2 minutes. That’s put me eighth overall on Strava for that segment (one second ahead of Oscar Pujol, a pro rider) and more importantly I was in the first two or three over the hill each time in the leading break.
Don’t forget values of 6W/kg are regarded as Tour de France level – admittedly that’s at threshold but 5W/kg is pretty good even for 5 minutes (probably best to avoid the cake therapy afterwards though). It’s not just my opinion – if you look at the power profiles of Andrew Coggan (Training Peaks) it’s well up there.
@TommyTubolare
I didn’t own a bike 10 years ago. It’s hard to be serious about something you don’t participate in.
I’ve never been one to subscribe to the “You can’t eat this or that” school of thought. All things in moderation, my friend.
Composure is my tip for fellow non-climbers. When I climb ok, or less badly than normal, its because I’ve managed to stay focused and mantain a certain amount of composure and form. This doesn’t mean going easy but you have to stay in control.
The worst thing you can do is panic, forget how to breathe and start flailing around on the bike.
Also if you are climbing slowly but are doing so in a casually deliberate style you can always make out that was your intention and you’re just training properly…
@norm It’s going to be a bit different from last year when the temperature hovered around zero for the whole ride and the snow was being blown horizontally on the higher ground. Probably more reminiscent of the the London Cogal.
Have a good one.
It’s easy to see Magnus has some Bonts on his feet. Can anyone identify his helmet? Is that one of the top-end Uvex helmets that Shimano and Kittel and Degenkolb are wearing this year? Looks pretty slick. (by which for helmets means, not terrible)
@norm
This.
@Chris
Can’t identify his helmet but can tell you he’s riding a hand-built WyndyMylla Massive Attack 62cm frameset which is currently for sale at their workshop in Surrey.
and that was clearly a reply from me to the wrong post.
@Ron – see my f’d up post above regarding Maggie’s helmet
@KW
Trans-fats in moderation? Added sugar in moderation? Heroin in moderation?
No thanks. All three will fuck your shit up, even if you’ll get arguments from some quarters.
Observations on today’s hills: Pushing a descent while you still feel like throwing up from the uphill you just finished is kind of exhilarating. Then misjudging a downhill hairpin bend in the wet, sliding on the muddy, leafy shoulder and ending up wedged against the barrier is significantly deflating. The bike’s ok, though!
@Marcus I fail to see what a triathlete who is not you and is wearing Bonts has to do with this article.
@Nate
I think he is taunting me because I like Magnus and Magnus is a triathlete. That is how Marcus shows love.
@andrew
Do you make everything you eat from scratch? I hope you haven’t eaten any processed food lately, or eaten in a restaurant, because I guarantee you’ve had trans fat and added sugar.
I’m not naive enough to think that it’s reasonable for me (I can only speak for myself) to completely eliminate ALL bad things from my diet. My goal is to limit them as much as I can.
And when did I mention anything about drugs? My comments were about food and drink.
@Gianni
Magnus is a triathlete now? Unwelcome development, this is.
@Mike_P
Hard to miss those, Mike! I know they are going for something new, but ouch, that font they use just isn’t workin’ for me.
@McTyke
Hell yes! If you are used to going fast, or going fast is one thing you love about cycling, long, steady gradients are definitely hell on Earth.
I have commented that if I ever run afoul of the law (or get caught, I should say) the worst punishment a judge could hand out is not to impound all my bikes or put me in jail or community service. It would be to make me ride around on my bikes at something like 5kmph.
I think this is why I don’t fancy long loaded touring – I don’t think I could handle slow climbs with four panniers. That said, I have done some light touring and absolutely dug it, so who knows…
@Ron yea I agree. Almost trying to be too edgy.
@KW
Essentially, yes, though I don’t mill my own grain. Minimal processed food (and when then traditional, organic processes), no food with added sugar (or HFCS etc) as an added ingredient; trans fats are easy to avoid (living in Europe helps), even in restaurants if you’re selective, and though they do like to add sugar to things, a little communication goes a long way.
I’d challenge anyone here to go 21 days without eating anything that lists any kind of sugar as an added ingredient, as well as avoiding alcohol. Buy raw food and switch any cow-dairy to goat or sheep milk (and cheese if you must). Changed my life, and I believe added sugar will be up there with cigarettes and trans-fats in 5-10 years.