SST on rolling hills?

bing181 said:

Hi

Just moved house, and my flat 50 km loop is a thing of the past. I now have lots of rolling hills ... not all that long, or even steep, but hills nontheless. Which means, less flat, more up and more importantly, more down.

I would appreciated advice/suggestions on how best to get in my SST and 2 x 20 minute FT sessions.

Thanks.

B

Go out and ride 'em and see what Normalised Power you get.

bing181 said:

Hi

Just moved house, and my flat 50 km loop is a thing of the past. I now have lots of rolling hills ... not all that long, or even steep, but hills nontheless. Which means, less flat, more up and more importantly, more down.

I live where there are no flats -- only steep hills of varying lengths with the longest in the 8 minute range. Alls I can do is ride them as hard as I can for SST sessions, which seems to work pretty well. My SST rides are essentially 1 -- 3 hour fartleks. As someone has pointed out in a slightly different context, "alls you can do is alls you can do."

bing181 said:

Hi

Just moved house, and my flat 50 km loop is a thing of the past. I now have lots of rolling hills ... not all that long, or even steep, but hills nontheless. Which means, less flat, more up and more importantly, more down.

I would appreciated advice/suggestions on how best to get in my SST and 2 x 20 minute FT sessions.

Thanks.

B

Welcome to my world, Southeast PA, land of rolling hills. IMHO you can't beat rolling hills for SST work. Seriously, I have half a dozen East African world class marathon runners that train nearby in hilly VFNP, so there must be something to it. You get into a rythym of these rolling loops; and you learn how to hammer a descent to keep your power up. Watch "burning matches" on the climbs, you will see L5 levels briefly but be careful you don't start to really get into L6 territory and then you will work to keep your descents as close to low SST as you can. I do have an option, there is a river cycling-rails to-trails trail at the bottom of the valley where I live (Valley Forge), which is long and flat for 30 plus miles, 60 for an up and back. Even with this choice, I always choose to do my SST work on the rolling hills. Your average works out pretty close regardless of the route. We have a much hillier course, and even there, I am always amazed that my power starts to average out. Time goes much quicker on this type of course, you stand a bit, you're always shifting, you have the next hill to motivate you, your cadences vary. We see elevation changes of close to 4000 feet +/-on our 2 hour loop, and none of the hills are any longer than 8 minutes. (We do have hillier longer loops where we see 6000 ft changes. Provided you're not fighting traffic, which does suck on a narrow steep hilly section, you're describing "god's country for cyclists. When I ride down the flat Jersey shore, I always miss the terrain. Consider yourself lucky.

Alex Simmons said:

Go out and ride 'em and see what Normalised Power you get.

Riding 'em is OK, but not having a Power Meter, difficult to say what NP might show ...

bing181 said:

Riding 'em is OK, but not having a Power Meter, difficult to say what NP might show ...

Yeah that does make it tricky....

Concentrate on steady pedal pressure and use all the gears on your bike instead of automatically coasting or soft pedaling the descents. Don't kill yourself on the uphills with big out of the saddle efforts but try to stay seated and apply steady pressure to crest the rollers and then carry that momentum over the top as you shift up through your gears. Try to focus on deep steady breathing but it shouldn't be killing you or be at your limit either.

I have a couple of regular rides that are great Tempo/SST courses that involve some rollers, one has a short 40+ mph descent along the way but it's straight and rolls right onto flats. I work up through all my gears as I hit that descent and have no problem keeping my power in the SST range or even up in pure L4 if I'm motivated. It takes a bit of leg speed to keep the power up even in the 12 but it's one way to stretch an interval on a course that isn't flat.

That wouldn't work if the descent was twisty and technical or had traffic interruptions but rolling courses that don't force you to brake or stop can still be ridden with focus and quality. You have to be on top of it mentally and not fall into the easy habit of coasting or resting on the descents and you shouldn't try to kill the climbs either but it can be done.

Good luck,
-Dave

Thanks all for the guidelines and suggestions.

Ride it 3 hours as hard as you can. Guaranteed you'll end up having done an SST workout.