Heart rate skyrocketing?

Hi all, I'm just wondering if anyone could shed some light on this problem (?).

Basically I started riding last year.. I was reallly unfit... Since then Ive ridden a fair bit and got completely hooked on the sport and now ride about 5-6 times week for either 30km (hills) or about 80-120km cruising. I'm starting to average high 20's km/h and overall loving it. I've noticed though, my heart rate can happily sit at 180plus if im pushing myself moderately. Is this normal ( I understand that is THE most subjective question) - I'm just worried I'll cark it half way up a hill or something... Also I find once I've warmed up a fair bit my heart rate settles down to perhaps 170 when im pushing myself. I'm 27 years old, 84'ish kilos.

In case there are any locals here, some of the hills I'm referring to are at Yarra Blvd (Melbourne).

Thanks in advance

Heart rate isn't very accurate especially if you zing it up above threshold it tends to hang up there for a while and is less effected by lowering your intensity. For me using my polar S150 a 1hour TT gives me an average of 162bpm so threshold is aproxamately 163bpm if I make 163 the High limit and pace myself during the first 20 minutes I have a fairly accurate measure of intensity for most of my ride sliding the limit up to 165 during that time. If I have anything left during the last 20 minutes I push it above threshold and keep it there as long as I can and it is fairly accurate at recording time above zone for my heart but thats about all that time may be all low L5 or a mix of L3,4,5,6 and 7.

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when i started out i did the same thing.

180bpm i could handle fine for 1.5 hrs. but i wasnt getting that much faster.

you need to ride in a much lower hr zone some of the time. if you ride in 180 all the time, you will never recovery and not get faster. after a hard day you need to do the next day easy around like 150bpm. this is just for an idea, theres some more specifics to it and a lot of info about training online. basically dont ride at 180+ bmp all the time. riding a little slower will actually make you faster.

Will do - It's just that the hills here are SOOO much fun I can't resist it and living right next to it all doesn't help. On that note I did some mtb'ing on the weekend... it absolutely killed me - I dont think my heart rate dropped under 170 for almost 2 hours!!! Need to find some nice peaceful routes in my area...

Thanks for the advice both of you