Training for mountains in a flat country

[Pera71]

On this forum there are a lot of threads about how to train your climbing speed. Most of them involve suggestions about your behavior when tackling the local hills.

Unfortunately, I live in a flat area and I have to drive 350 km to reach some serious hills.

Does anybody know any training suggestions to improve your climbing power when there are no hills to climb ?

I'm in reasonable shape which means that 200 km on the plain is no problem and even with a touring bike with heavy loaded panniers in the mountains I manage 80-100 km a day on holiday. Whenever there is a hill, my travel companions have to wait for me at the top, so climbing is my weak point. I will eventually get up most mountains but I would like to get faster to the top. Anybody got good ideas?

 

[Pureshot78]

On this forum there are a lot of threads about how to train your climbing speed. Most of them involve suggestions about your behavior when tackling the local hills.

Unfortunately, I live in a flat area and I have to drive 350 km to reach some serious hills.

Does anybody know any training suggestions to improve your climbing power when there are no hills to climb ?

I'm in reasonable shape which means that 200 km on the plain is no problem and even with a touring bike with heavy loaded panniers in the mountains I manage 80-100 km a day on holiday. Whenever there is a hill, my travel companions have to wait for me at the top, so climbing is my weak point. I will eventually get up most mountains but I would like to get faster to the top. Anybody got good ideas?

Since you don't have gravity to help you, you'll have to use wind as your resistance. This shouldn't be a problem, provided you can find stretches of road where there aren't stoplights or uncontrolled intersections.

Since climbing is all about sustainable power, just treat it like a time trial.

 

[NomadVW]

Power is power. Better climbing means better power to weight ratio. You don't need a hill to give you better power to weight ratio.

Find out the distance of the hills you need/want to be able to climb. How long will it take you to get up those hills? Train yourself at higher power over those time frames. Experiment with cadence. If you like to spin @ 90 rpm, but you'll have an 11x21 cassette on the bike for 10% climbs, you'll probably need to train your body to handle lower cadences in the climb. Shift appropriately to get that cadence while doing your "simulated hill training" on the flats.

 

[Roadie_scum]

Power is power. Better climbing means better power to weight ratio. You don't need a hill to give you better power to weight ratio.

Second that. It depends what length and gradient hill you want to tackle, but if it's more than a pimple you'll want to improve your FTP to weight ratio. This means dropping weight (if this makes sense for you - not if it will be unhealthy) and doing a good amount of sustained aerobic work. You can do this on a flat pretty well, though if you're targeting a particular event it doesn't hurt to scope out the climbs a few days before just so you know them, know you can ride them and know your gearing makes sense.

Find out the distance of the hills you need/want to be able to climb. How long will it take you to get up those hills? Train yourself at higher power over those time frames. Experiment with cadence. If you like to spin @ 90 rpm, but you'll have an 11x21 cassette on the bike for 10% climbs, you'll probably need to train your body to handle lower cadences in the climb. Shift appropriately to get that cadence while doing your "simulated hill training" on the flats.

Spot on, though if you have an 11X21 for a 10% climb, consider changing your cassette! If you spin a lot on the flat I'd suggest running a 12-27 or considering a compact crank if you are going to hit sustained steep climbs.