Effective Climbing training

noamporat said:

Hello,
If my riding ‘events’ include hills of 50+ and 40+ minutes climb – I wonder what would be the best training for that:
Does it have to be necessarily a full-length climb ? or 20 minutes / 30 minutes climbs at max 'avg.-power' would be as effective ?
Thanks

I have been training for a couple of hilly (12,000+ feet) rides that are coming up. I live in relatively flat area. I have been training on a hill in Newport Beach. It's about 1 1/2 miles at 6%, then a half mile of almost flat, then about a mile at 8-9%, then flat for a quarter mile, and then about a quarter mile of 10%. I'm currently doing about 5 laps of this with a 45 minute warm-up and 45 minute cool-down. This hill is perfect for intervals, the small flatter sections are just enough to recover. I've been doing this every other Sunday, and the results are showing. My speed has improved and I can now climb most if in my 21, I was riding it in my 25 or 27 (I can't remember) when I started. The intervals break down to around 8-9 minutes at 88-92% mhr. The climbs I'm training for are sustained climbs 20 miles+, I guess I won't know until D-Day but I feel as though this is effective training for these climbs. I have also noticed an all around performance increase since starting this routine. It's very rigorous training and I can barley make it home afterwards, but your going to have to train hard to make it through the hour+ climbs. To answer your question simply, no I don't think you have to do full length climbs in your training.

Thank you !

noamporat said:

Thank you !

No problems, keep in mind I'm not coach or an expert, but I have found this works for me and from what I've read, it's one of the most suggested ways to train for climbs. Good Luck...

Intervals are the way to go. I train on a local route which is 7-8km (5 ml) and includes 5 climbs, each just under 1 mile long @ aroung 5-6%. By riding the course at speed, trying to keep my HR @ 78-83% of Max HR the benefits have been terrific. Depending on how much time I have, I'll either do 2 laps or 10 laps a few times week.

Using this route as a basis (plus a couple of serious training climbs) I recently rode a 125 ml event with 4 climbs totalling 12,800 ft ascent. This type of training made my recovery much more effective.

Thank yoy Walrus :-)