I can give you my little story and you can see what it is worth for you.
I used to do most of my hills seated and switch to a lower gear and burn out the cadence but I like many others did not have the capacity to recover over the hill and on long hills I would burn out.
I experimented last week and I think you should as everyone is different but I find that as I approach the hill and begin to climb I do not shift gears but instead stay in a the higher gear, no seat movement but move heel down with more force as if you are trying to scrape the ground with your heel. As I feel the cadence drop I move back on the seat and more on the hoods of the bike, grab hard the hoods and begin to use upper body muscles but the moving back on the bike gives me a better angle to apply more force through the heels to the pedals. Last when hitting the very top if I feel cadence drop again I get full out of seat, upper body swinging and move body and knees foward right over pedals and only at this time I may shift down the gears if too much for me to maintain.
I have found that while may cadence is not that high because I am in a high gear, I maintain good speed. But the other product is that I do not get that feeling of out of breath and can come over the hill and keep accelerating.
This weekend another rider was using me as a fox to catch up a series of hills I was doing a tempo ride and each time we approached a hill, he would fall off and than wait till I was mid hill and than chase me up the hill. Well I decided what is good for him is good for me, I used a low gear higher cadence and he caught me each time. But when I stood in my high gear and used the method above...bye bye baby, see you on the next hill. He caught me on one but right after he ran out of the park...
Last night a really strong rider was doing a really nice paced tempo ride and she was ride the same bike as me. So again the same results...when lower gear and high cadence, very hard to catch but when high gear and method above, caught her every time. Yes she was a woman and she was one damn good rider...I have met my share of woman who can hold a pace better than most of the guys out there...
-Js
mogse said:
i've been experimenting with my hill training lately being new to cycling.
i use a fairly steep hill 11% at a guess to train its about half a mile in length. i normaly ride up this hill standing up on the pedal outof the saddle. Recently instead I kept my bum on the seat and powered up the hill and managed a slightly faster time. I had more of a burn in the quads indicating to me i was getting a better work out.
do any of you train on hill by staying in the saddle as long as possible to work the quads more? or is this a bad technique for getting up hills fast.
it worked for me once but might of been just a fluke