Determining Max HR

(1) Your general approach. See #4. Will use 2 or 3 x 20 min intervals followed by sprints uphill next Spring.

(2) Terrain (long flat followed by short hill...) On the flat but next time will try it on a long hill.

(3) How you felt physically/mentally when you reached MHR? Like I was about to fall off the bike and puke.

(4) Was it during a normal training session, or did you set aside time specially? After a hard 3 hour ride early in the season when my HR was uncomfortably high. I think my average HR for that 3 hr ride was 86% of my previous MaxHR or something rediculous like that. Then did a sprint for all I was worth.

(5) Has anyone used a spinning/gym bike to determine MHR? I can't do that. The perceived effort is too high indoors. For what it's worth, I think some kind of threshold test (A.Coggan's, Friel's) may be more valuable and they can be done as a regular part of training.

1) Ramp steadily upward for at least 3 minutes, then go hard for ~2 min, then all-out for ~1 min.
2) Use a high cadence and find a long, slight incline. Higher cadences will produce higher HR's and you don't want cadence to bog down on a big hill.
3) Dizzy, disoriented, tunnel-vision, about to black out and fall off the bike.
4) Trying to beat my buddies at the end of a competitive group ride.
5) Nope. This is not an exercise that I recommend doing deliberately. It's better to estimate the value at first (by adding a few beats to the best you've seen in training), and then modify it as you set new personal highs during competition.