hills...

Congratulations brother - you're on the right path.

There is only one way to get better riding hills...

...go out and do them, all the time.

But, don't think that you have to hammer yourself on every hill - our training group rides most climbs at a moderate tempo pace...having fun with it.

You just have to ride hills, a lot. There is no other way to get around it. You'll be finding that you're body is going to make HUGE jumps in fitness over the coming months. Revel in them - but just remember - the fun doesn't really begin for another couple years. Keep at it.

Good luck!

michael

Mattmor, I was in the exact same position as you are now in, two
years ago.
I started back in to the sport - my weight was 225 lbs.
(I had given up competitive cycling many years ago - concentrated
on career to the detriment of my health).
Like you, I was fine on the flat and small inclines but when I hit the hills, I died : weight just worked against me.
I embarked on a regime of sticking to the flat for approx 3 months.
Cycled 4 times per week : minimum 2 hrs sessions each.
I kept a high cadence (not less than 90rpms) and avoided hills
completely.
Why ?
Because I realised that I had to get fit for the flat before I could get fit for the hills.
Over that three month period, I lost 24 lbs.
After I lost that weight, I moved on to the hills and then managed to lose another 18 lbs over the following six months.
The point being that if I had tried to lose weight through hill climbing initially in the first three months, I wouldn't have succeeded because I wouldn't have been light enough to climb at all.
Having lost the weight initially, I was able to approach the hills a little bit more confidently.
You're on the right road and fair paly to you for making the effort !

These guys are right on, to climb you have to climb. YOU were right in that the weight is not helping you.

Now, ideally, you would focus on doing hills while seated which will help you build core strength. Try and do these in a specified HR zone... so you dont blow up and get used to your relative rate of percieved exertion.... as your strength and fitness increase, so will your ability to climb faster at the same perceived level of exertion, and experience will enable you to use different tactics to avoid blowing up.

Now, this is just a general statement to riders. You need structure. You can use any plan, some of the more popular are Friel and Carmicheal. Both seem to extoll the aspects of periodization, and largely it would give you a structured mechanism to train and eliminate your weakpoints, which in this case is climbing. Both try and begin with the end in mind... what do you want to do. It is hard to specify "climbing better or faster"...

With all due respect to the other suggestions posted for this topic, I really do feel that you need to improve your fitness before one can decide to try to improve hill climbing.
No disrespect intended - I was in the same boat - but weighing
over 200 lbs or more makes climbing difficult :
If you can clear time to improve your fitness ie lose weight, you will see your ability to climb improve.
It's not easy to improve fitness - it's tough and it takes a lot of time and sacrfice and you can take that from someone who was in the position that you're now in.
If you're married - it means getting your wife on side to allow you to go training even though there are other priorities in life as well !
But like me, you too can get there too.
Best of luck !

I think you are ALL right on certain points.

As long as you are overweight and riding with more fit riders, you will get dropped on the hills. Even if you aren't overweight, larger riders with inherently more body mass are going to have a harder time getting up hills than those little wirey guys that are 167cm with <5% body fat and lots of power.

Your climbing will improve as you drop weight, guaranteed, but you should keep climbing in your workouts (50% or less of your workouts). Exclusively climbing may improve your climbing ability somewhat, but it doesn't allow for recovery time (climbing is hard on the back and the knees). You should also have work outs on the flats to build power (sprints, etc.) and some easy spinning after your hardest days.

As funknuggets suggested, seated climbing is probably the best way to strengthen your core muscles. I don't have a HR monitor, but one climbing work out I have used involves increasing resistance for brief periods on a climb:

1) Start the climb in a low gear, spinning at around 85-95 rpm
2) After 2 min. shift to a higher gear w/o standing up w/ cadence around 50-60 rpm; maintain for 2 minutes
3) Shift down to your starting gear and cadence, assuming a constant grade, and maintain for 2 minutes.
4) repeat 2 and 3 until your climb is finished.

The higher gear-lower rpm phase builds power, and the lower gear-higher rpm helps you focus on your pedal stroke and recover.

I've heard Lance Armstrong uses a similar climbing workout (friend of a friend told me this, so it may be [censored]). But I've used it with improvement evident.

I'm sure there are some other workouts out there that are just as good, but hope this helps.

Regards

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by mattmor
I just got back into cycling recently about 150 miles ago.

Yeah, hmm..give it about 1000 miles more. Then worry about a specific workout 😄 I say ride, get dropped, breath hard, feel that heart race, and keep on a ridin. There isn't going to be any magic potion that will get you up those hills. Don't get me wrong, if you wanna do specific workouts and focus on something go for it, but have fun for now! I'm just starting back after 4 years off too, and I even took my computer off. I'm riding for the sheer bliss of the experience until I feel good on the bike. (you know that feeling when you sit on your bike and it just feels like you're supposed to be there? It's almost more natural than walking). Go find you a big ole hill and grin at it and take it on. When you love the feel of the burning muscles and heaving chest...THEN it's time to buckle down and focus on training! Don't worry about getting dropped until then. Heck, use that weight while you have it and catch em on the flip side 😉. Once the weight drops be sure to heckel them as you pass em up on the incline because of the extra muscle mass you've aquired hauling around 30 extra pounds.

Well, that's me anyway. I'm a loon and just enjoy riding so much I have a hard time seeing it as work even when it's nothing BUT work. So take it as you will
Christopher