Training for long hill climbs

Bike-206 said:

I plan on doing a ride that is 150 miles long with 10,000 ft of climbing. (2 5000 ft climbs) What type of training should I be doing to increase my ability on these long climbs, and how often? I have been doing once a week hill climbing intervals, consisting of 4 intervals of 3-4 min, at 92-95% MHR. There isn't any other longer hills close to my house. I would like to be able to stay with some of the faster riders on the long climbs. Thanks.

Keep up the work with your hill intervals. The once-a-week hill training is fine as well. Work your way from 4 intervals of 3-4 mins to 5-6+ intervals. If you have a hill that only allows you to climb for 3-4 minutes at a time, just focus on climbing it more and eventually get the recovery down to as little as possible to simulate continuous climbing as much as you can.
Also, look at doing some tempo rides where you would ride for 30-40 minutes in a nice large gear while maintaining a relatively high cadence. Keep this gearing on any rolling hills as much as possible (except for maybe your hill repeat hill). For tempo rides, you should definitely be below your lactate threshold, but well above your intensity for a general endurance ride. It's hard for me to give you an exact % of MHR without knowing more, but I think you get the idea. Something that you can just maintain for those 30-40 minutes.
Good luck with the ride! Sounds like fun. What's the name of that 150 miler by the way? cyclingforums.comsmile.gifOpen ↗

The ride is called RAMROD (Ride Around Mt. Rainier in One Day) I did it last year in my first year of riding and made it through, but suffered quite a bit. The first climb comes after 65 miles of flats and rollers. Thanks for the advice!

Bike-206 said:

The ride is called RAMROD (Ride Around Mt. Rainier in One Day) I did it last year in my first year of riding and made it through, but suffered quite a bit. The first climb comes after 65 miles of flats and rollers. Thanks for the advice!

Wow, that sounds like a great ride! Good luck with it!

Good god, that's quite a mouthful you've chosen to chew. I'd say just doing long solo rides (over 150 km) at pretty much maximum power on whatever terrain you've got will help. Good luck with your race.

-Bikeguy

Bike-206 said:

I plan on doing a ride that is 150 miles long with 10,000 ft of climbing. (2 5000 ft climbs) What type of training should I be doing to increase my ability on these long climbs, and how often? I have been doing once a week hill climbing intervals, consisting of 4 intervals of 3-4 min, at 92-95% MHR. There isn't any other longer hills close to my house. I would like to be able to stay with some of the faster riders on the long climbs. Thanks.

As you get closer to the event day, you should be trying to get in a long ride consisting of about 70% of distance and 70% of climbing. It's optimal to be able to get 2 or 3 of these done in the couple of weeks before the event. The hill intervals are helpful, but on the ride you will need to keep HR around 75-85%. I just did a ride last Sat, 115 miles with 12,000"+ of climbing, I tried to stick to what I've suggested to you. It's hard when there are not any long climbs near by. I trained on a hill that was about 2.5 miles long with 1000' of climbing, I would do repeats until I couldn't go any further. You might want to consider checking out Arnie Baker's web site, he has an ebook titled "Altitude Climbing Endurance". It has some very useful information. Also, make sure you have proper gearing (at least 39x27). Good Luck[img]cyclingforums.comsmile.gifOpen ↗[/img]

Thanks for the advice! I have worked up to 5 hill repeats of 3-4 min, at 92-93% MHR. I plan on adding 1 a week until I'm up to 7-8 repeats. Is this too much, or should I cap it a 6? Also, is this too high of a heartrate for training, since you said I need to keep my HR at 80-85%?

Bike-206 said:

Thanks for the advice! I have worked up to 5 hill repeats of 3-4 min, at 92-93% MHR. I plan on adding 1 a week until I'm up to 7-8 repeats. Is this too much, or should I cap it a 6? Also, is this too high of a heartrate for training, since you said I need to keep my HR at 80-85%?

I don't think it's too high of a heart rate to train with, I do my hill repeats around 90-95%. I would work up to as many repeats as you can. I would try to find a longer hill if possible, something that's 10 minutes or more to climb. The hill I train the most on starts with about 1.5 miles at 6%, then goes to about 2% for a half mile, then back to 7-12% for about 3/4 of a mile, flattens out for about a 1/4 mile and then back to about 8% for a 1/4 mile and then back down. Total climbing is 1000' per lap, each lap is about 7 miles and takes me about 32 minutes. The hill intervals you are doing are very good training, but I think you may need to start training yourself mentally and physically for the long sustained efforts that you will need to put in on your ride. Last Saturday on Breathless Agony, we had one stretch that was about 20 miles of climbing without any places to recover, that was about 2.5 hours of climbing. One other thing I did in my training, was to train in was to climb in higher gears, I did most of my repeats in a 39x21 (except the 10-12% portions I used 39x25). For the big ride, I put on a 12/27 cassette and I really liked having that extra gear. Since you've done this before, I guess you know what your in for. Good luck in making a faster one🙂

Bike-206 said:

I plan on doing a ride that is 150 miles long with 10,000 ft of climbing. (2 5000 ft climbs) What type of training should I be doing to increase my ability on these long climbs, and how often? I have been doing once a week hill climbing intervals, consisting of 4 intervals of 3-4 min, at 92-95% MHR. There isn't any other longer hills close to my house. I would like to be able to stay with some of the faster riders on the long climbs. Thanks.

If you can't find a long hill to climb around your area. Try doing big gear hill repeats. With limited riding time due to my schedule, I do a 2 mile 7% climb 3X. Th first one I try to get my HR high enough to tax my aerobic capacity. The next two climbs will be 39x17 of just grinding it all the way.