Hill training

RdBiker said:

Hi! I come from an area where there aren't too many long hills but a lot of shorter (and sometimes steeper) ones.
I've read a lot about training for long mountain races but that isn't possible or even necessary here in Finland.

So I was pondering what kind of training sessions would take benefit of hills that take about 1-3min to ride and how could I train to take the most out of them.
I mean that would it be best to ride them fast with high BPM, with big gears and low BPM, etc.

I would really appreciate if someone could answer my questions even partly.

Well, from my own perspective, last year I was struggling terribly with hillclimbing. Although I wasn't doing it totally consciously, or intentionally, I was turning too big a gear with quite low cadence.

Typically that plan doesn't work well. My partner was disappearing into the distance on every hill.

This year I have a 50 34 chainring on the bike I am using mostly, and either because of that, or a change of heart, I have been spinning in a lower gear at quite a bit quicker cadence.

That does work.

So the only advice I can suggest, is try to spin and don't fall into the trap of 'horsing' big gears. And, the best practice for riding hills, is riding a hill. Whatever kind of hill you can get to, again, and again, and again ...

here in Holland it is totally flat, and the recognized only way of training for a hill is riding in a big gear into the brutal headwinds we get here.

Fortunately I am well blessed with mountains and itis not an issue here. I can choose to climb for over an hour if I fell like it.
Endurance training will always benefit you in climbing by strengthening the cadio but with the absence of hills I would suggest doing some high resistance training on a trainer to help build power. 10- 20 min sessions at 85-90% max effort.

1-3 minutes is an anaerobic pace. Whether you're going up hill or on the flats is the same, except there is no drafting going up hill. So your speed is directly related to your power/weight ratio. I would concentrate on short intervals of up to 5 minutes in length, as well as the 20 minute intervals. Something like 2 sets of 5x3/3 rest. 5 min rest between sets. And I try to get 90 rpm during the 'on' intervals.

Check out TiMan's posts regarding these kind of intervals.

jhuskey said:

Fortunately I am well blessed with mountains and itis not an issue here. I can choose to climb for over an hour if I fell like it.
Endurance training will always benefit you in climbing by strengthening the cadio but with the absence of hills I would suggest doing some high resistance training on a trainer to help build power. 10- 20 min sessions at 85-90% max effort.

I can just say that you're lucky 🙂
What kind of gears would you use on the trainer? And do you mean the 85-90% from my max heart rate or my max gears used?

RdBiker said:

I can just say that you're lucky 🙂
What kind of gears would you use on the trainer? And do you mean the 85-90% from my max heart rate or my max gears used?

Different rainers have different resistance levels, so the gear choice would depend on the trainer you have.

If you're not using a power meter, use the web page cyclingpeakssoftware.comlevels.aspOpen ↗ to gauge how hard the efforts should be. 20 minutes is L4 - hard enough to not allow conversation but you can still drink water. 3-5 min. hill repeats are L5/6. I end up choking and gagging if I drink during these. The key is to train at your levels so you can increase the power at those levels. In retrospect, when I started out riding, before power training, I was dropped because my L6 was equivalent to other peoples' L4. It is important to be able to repeatedly go above your aerobic range with limited recovery. The reason HR is not useful during L5/6 is that my HR usually lags 1 minute behind the start of the effort. Which usually results in working too hard to bring the HR up to the target zone, then backing off too much, and end up cycling through a negative feedback control loop.

RdBiker said:

Hi! I come from an area where there aren't too many long hills but a lot of shorter (and sometimes steeper) ones.
I've read a lot about training for long mountain races but that isn't possible or even necessary here in Finland.

So I was pondering what kind of training sessions would take benefit of hills that take about 1-3min to ride and how could I train to take the most out of them.
I mean that would it be best to ride them fast with high BPM, with big gears and low BPM, etc.

I would really appreciate if someone could answer my questions even partly.

Here are some things to consider:

• use the heaviest tire that will fit in your frame ... put some SLIME tubes in your rear wheel, too, to add rotational weight
  
• tow something -- a BOB trailer or a "kiddie" trailer (add weight)
  
• decrease your aerodynamics by wearing loose clothing
  
• climb in "one" cog size smaller than you normally would
  

Don't rest on the turn-arounds (at the bottom of "descents"😉 ... turn around and start heading up right away ...

If there is an area where you can RUN about five 50-meter wind sprints in quick succession before "ascents" in your the climbing training (yes, you'll probably have to carry extra shoes in a bag on your bike OR in the trailer you're towing), that might help, a little ... or, not!?!

FWIW. I don't know how long the climbs are that you will encounter, but the shortest climb that I encounter (in the Rockies ... "recreational" riding ... starting at 6500 feet elevation) is about 6 miles.

I think there are two things you'll need to work.

1. Do hill intervals.

For these, start in the biggest front chainring and the smallest rear cog. So if you have a front 34-50 and the rear is 11-25, your first interval is 50-11. After each interval, rest for approximately 1-2 minutes (including the time back down the hill), then move over one cog in the rear and do the next one until you've done all 8-10 cogs. So you'd have something like:

50-11
50-12
50-13
...etc.
50-25 (assuming there's no cross-gearing problem)

When you get good enough at that, go back the other direction (so move to smaller and smaller cogs every interval ) for a total of 16-20 intervals.

2. Sustained power

The problem with doing short hill intervals is that while they build your power and climbing ability, they don't prepare you for long, sustained climbs. So you need to be able to handle riding at your lactate threshold (LT) for an hour or more. If you don't know your lactate threshold (look it up online and there's tons of easy tests you can do to determine it), you can estimate it as 85-90% of your max heart rate. "Most" people fall in that range.

Start with 25 minutes of riding at your lactate threshold without even 10 seconds of falling below the range (so if your LT is 90%, you need to give yourself a range so make it 85-90% of your MHR). Each week, add 5 minutes until you're doing a full hour straight. If you don't have a good loop (with no stop lights) where you can do this, find a road where you can ride 5 minutes without any stops and just go back and forth on it.

Hope this helps!

NOTE: The above should be coupled with a long, slow ride as well to keep up your aerobic capacity. So each week you'd do 1 hill interval ride, one sustained power and one long ride. In between you can add recovery rides too (if you have the time).