Very Steep Hills

Carrera said:

....at the steepest point, a weird thing happened: The wheel simply failed to grip the road and started to spin for a few seconds on its axle.

This tends to happen in mountain biking while standing up for a steep climb. You didn't mention whether you were seated or standing. If standing up for a steep climb, you have to find a body position forward enough to keep the front wheel on the ground, yet back far enough to keep some weight over the rear wheel to prevent spinning/slipping. Find a happy medium.

Don't know about the pulse measurement.

Well, that's right, I was standing up in a low gear when the wheel slipped. Never known it happen before. I guess it was the steepness of the road plus some oil that must have gotten onto my tyre.

Scotty_Dog said:

This tends to happen in mountain biking while standing up for a steep climb. You didn't mention whether you were seated or standing. If standing up for a steep climb, you have to find a body position forward enough to keep the front wheel on the ground, yet back far enough to keep some weight over the rear wheel to prevent spinning/slipping. Find a happy medium.

Don't know about the pulse measurement.

Carrera said:

Well, that's right, I was standing up in a low gear when the wheel slipped. Never known it happen before. I guess it was the steepness of the road plus some oil that must have gotten onto my tyre.

I bet it was just the steepness, you put out so much power going up that hill you can spin your rear tire. you better ck your chain, rims, frame, bars etc. then go sign up for the TDF. you tell some of the best climbing stories lol.

Yes I've had ther rear wheel slip on very steep hills particularly when there is moisture, loose gravel or leaves etc on the road. Shifting the weight back more over the rear wheel and smoothing out your pedaling helps.

It's great training to exhaust yourself on very steep hills for a few minutes at a time, so long as you are up to it health wise. I suspect it does stress the bike more and I broke a chain once doing a steep grade.

Pat

If I worked up to do the entire hill once a week or so, do you think it would harm my knees or harm the bike? Do you think the pros do horrendous hills and what benefit would there be in slogging your guts out so hard? Would it push my fitness levels up?

pod said:

Yes I've had ther rear wheel slip on very steep hills particularly when there is moisture, loose gravel or leaves etc on the road. Shifting the weight back more over the rear wheel and smoothing out your pedaling helps.

It's great training to exhaust yourself on very steep hills for a few minutes at a time, so long as you are up to it health wise. I suspect it does stress the bike more and I broke a chain once doing a steep grade.

Pat

Just think about how easy a moderate hill will feel after riding an extreamly steep hill. You'll be able to glide up the smaller ones.

Carrera said:

Is there any advantage in climbing very steep hills? I did one today that could only be described as an absolute b-----d and, to be honest, I cheated since I still haven't done the full climb.
What happened was I was way out in the country and hit a descent that just went down and down for ages (mind-bogglingly steep in parts). At some point I decided to try and climb my way back up, although there was still more descent ahead so the overall climb must be staggeringly tough.
At any rate, I got into my lowest gear and after some 10 minutes of fighting my way upward, I started to breathe very hard and, at the steepest point, a weird thing happened: The wheel simply failed to grip the road and started to spin for a few seconds on its axle.
I arrived at the top in a sorry state, totally knackered and pulse-rate through the roof.
But I worry slightly whether I should be doing hills as steep as this. First of all, I'm concerned about stress on the knees, above all, but I also wondered whether my bike might be far more prone to mechanical problems due to the stresses placed on the chain-set during these very steep climbs.
I'm also wondering if it's O.K. to take your pulse up so high?

Never have the wheel slip unless I am off pavement but have many hills here where the front wheel comes up off the ground.
If nothing else it is the satisfaction that you are doing something that flatlanders only dream of.
Count your blessings,some people only have flat straight roads,how boring!

Carrera said:

If I worked up to do the entire hill once a week or so, do you think it would harm my knees or harm the bike? Do you think the pros do horrendous hills and what benefit would there be in slogging your guts out so hard? Would it push my fitness levels up?

I think it would be great training to improve fitness and I don't think it will hurt the bike. Knees are another matter. If they are a weakness or do get sore under the increased load then perhaps something less steep would be better. You can achieve exactly the same training effect pedaling up a less steep hill faster. The beauty of a very steep hill is that you have to work hard just to make it to the top and can't slack off like you can on normal hills. You also get a better sense of achievement conquering the monster hills.

Well, I still have to climb the totality of the hill I referred to. Yesterday I did a percentage of it in a very small gear. What I noticed was my breathing became very intense. Even my hands and wrists started to get numb through pressure holding so hard onto the bars.
It's a strange way to ride, though, since with hills as steep as that you only average about 6 mph. I just hope I don't ruin my chain or grind down the cogs with so much pressure.

pod said:

I think it would be great training to improve fitness and I don't think it will hurt the bike. Knees are another matter. If they are a weakness or do get sore under the increased load then perhaps something less steep would be better. You can achieve exactly the same training effect pedaling up a less steep hill faster. The beauty of a very steep hill is that you have to work hard just to make it to the top and can't slack off like you can on normal hills. You also get a better sense of achievement conquering the monster hills.

Carrera said:

Well, I still have to climb the totality of the hill I referred to. Yesterday I did a percentage of it in a very small gear. What I noticed was my breathing became very intense. Even my hands and wrists started to get numb through pressure holding so hard onto the bars.
It's a strange way to ride, though, since with hills as steep as that you only average about 6 mph. I just hope I don't ruin my chain or grind down the cogs with so much pressure.

What size is your rear cassette? You may save your knees by getting some bigger gears. I ride around 6-8 mph on 12-14% grades and I'm using a 27 in the back. You probably wont feel like your stressing your bike as much. As far as the heaving breathing goes, that's how it works🙂. Just work on keeping your breathing in a rhythm, there's a big difference in heaving gasping breathing and heavy controlled breathing.

Carrera said:

Is there any advantage in climbing very steep hills? I did one today that could only be described as an absolute b-----d and, to be honest, I cheated since I still haven't done the full climb.
What happened was I was way out in the country and hit a descent that just went down and down for ages (mind-bogglingly steep in parts). At some point I decided to try and climb my way back up, although there was still more descent ahead so the overall climb must be staggeringly tough.
At any rate, I got into my lowest gear and after some 10 minutes of fighting my way upward, I started to breathe very hard and, at the steepest point, a weird thing happened: The wheel simply failed to grip the road and started to spin for a few seconds on its axle.
I arrived at the top in a sorry state, totally knackered and pulse-rate through the roof.
But I worry slightly whether I should be doing hills as steep as this. First of all, I'm concerned about stress on the knees, above all, but I also wondered whether my bike might be far more prone to mechanical problems due to the stresses placed on the chain-set during these very steep climbs.
I'm also wondering if it's O.K. to take your pulse up so high?

I wouldn't worry in the least about your bike. If you were strong enough to bend it, you wouldn't be suffering on the hill. Nor would I worry about the danger of your pulse rate being too high. Trust your bike and your body. But it sounds like you have inadequate gears and maybe inadequate conditioning for the hill you attempted. Make sure you have the gearing you need, and keep trying. That will eventually solve the conditioning issue if there is one. Nothing like steep hills to get you fit........ other than steep, long hills. Also, work on keeping your upper body and your handgrip relaxed.

I already changed my cassette so I have quite a large cog. If you guys think it's O.K. to push these hills then guess I'll just have to follow the consensus.
At a guess (and I'm no expert) I would say this hill must be around 14 - 20 per cent minimum for quite a distance. It's a standing job all the way with your butt out of the seat for maybe 20 minutes of hard effort. So, it's a killer, basically. I haven't done all of it yet either but nothing tried nothing gained.
But isn't it true that cyclists don't normally ride so hard as this? Don't you get fit riding at lower intensity for longer periods? What advantages will I gain, do you think, from very intense climbing and do you think Verinque would do this kind of stuff?

mikekalish said:

I wouldn't worry in the least about your bike. If you were strong enough to bend it, you wouldn't be suffering on the hill. Nor would I worry about the danger of your pulse rate being too high. Trust your bike and your body. But it sounds like you have inadequate gears and maybe inadequate conditioning for the hill you attempted. Make sure you have the gearing you need, and keep trying. That will eventually solve the conditioning issue if there is one. Nothing like steep hills to get you fit........ other than steep, long hills. Also, work on keeping your upper body and your handgrip relaxed.

Carrera said:

I already changed my cassette so I have quite a large cog. If you guys think it's O.K. to push these hills then guess I'll just have to follow the consensus.
At a guess (and I'm no expert) I would say this hill must be around 14 - 20 per cent minimum for quite a distance. It's a standing job all the way with your butt out of the seat for maybe 20 minutes of hard effort. So, it's a killer, basically. I haven't done all of it yet either but nothing tried nothing gained.
But isn't it true that cyclists don't normally ride so hard as this? Don't you get fit riding at lower intensity for longer periods? What advantages will I gain, do you think, from very intense climbing and do you think Verinque would do this kind of stuff?

You'll probably get lots of different opinions. Mine is that you have to train at high intensity, which means hills, intervals, high resistance indoor workouts, and more hills. Long hills and short, steep hills. The hill you describe might be tougher than necessary. I'm not sure there's a need to do hills that are so tough you have to stand the whole way, but the training will definitely pay off if you can stand it mentally. The "advantage" is that you will be a better hill climber, if that is of value to you. Hills are what make riding fun for me. I'll frequently go out for a ride with the plan that I'm not coming home until I have 5000' of climbing. I haven't broken a bike yet, or even a chain. Nor have I damaged my heart, that I know of.

Carrera said:

I already changed my cassette so I have quite a large cog. If you guys think it's O.K. to push these hills then guess I'll just have to follow the consensus.
At a guess (and I'm no expert) I would say this hill must be around 14 - 20 per cent minimum for quite a distance. It's a standing job all the way with your butt out of the seat for maybe 20 minutes of hard effort. So, it's a killer, basically. I haven't done all of it yet either but nothing tried nothing gained.
But isn't it true that cyclists don't normally ride so hard as this? Don't you get fit riding at lower intensity for longer periods? What advantages will I gain, do you think, from very intense climbing and do you think Verinque would do this kind of stuff?

Is this about getting more fit or conquering a goal? Don't we climb hills and ride ridiculous amounts of miles so that as soon as we think we found our limits, we dig in and crush them? It's obvious that you want to do the whole hill, so go for and get your bragging rights. As far as fitness goes, doing hills like that will help build your lactate threshold and will make the smaller hills seem like nothin. BTW, I doubt it's near 20%, while it does sound steep, 12-15% will get your ass out of the saddle and breathing up a storm. At 20% it'd be like going up stairs. None the less, I'm sure it felt like 25%😄

Carrera said:

I already changed my cassette so I have quite a large cog. If you guys think it's O.K. to push these hills then guess I'll just have to follow the consensus.
At a guess (and I'm no expert) I would say this hill must be around 14 - 20 per cent minimum for quite a distance. It's a standing job all the way with your butt out of the seat for maybe 20 minutes of hard effort. So, it's a killer, basically. I haven't done all of it yet either but nothing tried nothing gained.
But isn't it true that cyclists don't normally ride so hard as this? Don't you get fit riding at lower intensity for longer periods? What advantages will I gain, do you think, from very intense climbing and do you think Verinque would do this kind of stuff?

Hey Carrera.

Regarding the bike, those kinds of effort will stretch the chain faster then the flats. But that's cheap so personally it wouldn't keep me from doing so. If, however you chain is wearing, you will also get added wear on your chainrings/cogs. However, if you're shifting while putting in that kind of effort, that is much harder on the shifting components. Last year I seriously bent a chainring by shifting down a chainring during a small steep climb. Of course I completely deserved it since I waited so long to shift when I knew it was inevitable.

Regarding your pulse, those kind of efforts are good for someone that's already fairly fit. I was swimming once a week and would be gasping for air in a lot less then 10 minutes. I'd breath so hard my chest felt sore. I too would spike my pulse huge and, with one such effort a week, in about a month to two my cardio system was soaring. My training buddies have also reported the exact same thing.

Your knees, however, are completely different. Since you already have knee issues, I can say that bad knees hate significant increases in effort. They like increases to be very gradual. Hence, be careful on that one because those knee thingys are pretty important to supporting this great hobby of ours. 🙂

Cheers.

Carrera said:

I already changed my cassette so I have quite a large cog. If you guys think it's O.K. to push these hills then guess I'll just have to follow the consensus.
At a guess (and I'm no expert) I would say this hill must be around 14 - 20 per cent minimum for quite a distance. It's a standing job all the way with your butt out of the seat for maybe 20 minutes of hard effort. So, it's a killer, basically. I haven't done all of it yet either but nothing tried nothing gained.
But isn't it true that cyclists don't normally ride so hard as this? Don't you get fit riding at lower intensity for longer periods? What advantages will I gain, do you think, from very intense climbing and do you think Verinque would do this kind of stuff?

Well my take on training specifically for hill climbing is that you need to increase the sustainable (aerobic) power output that you can maintain for the length of the hill (say 20 minutes). To do this you benefit from stressing your aerobic system by working at higher levels of intensity (than you could sustain for 20 minutes) for say 5 to 10 minute intervals. The body adapts to this stress and your sustainable power output raises. If you keep working on part of the hill (or on shorter hills) you will improve and eventually be able to do the whole hill.

That said, you sound like you have a high level of fitness already. 6 mph on a 14 - 20% grade is awesome. I can't manage more than about 6 kph on a longish 12.5% grade. You would make the whole distance if you just slowed down a bit and went at say 4-5 mph. Standing up you can pedal at very slow speeds up almost any grade (so long as the wheels dont slip) but I don't think you will improve so much at the lower speeds/intensities.

Cheers for your comments. However, it may be the case I'm not going at 6 mph at the steepest parts of the grade so don't take me too literally. I may have been doing 6 mph in areas where the gradient isn't quite so acute. I guess my speed would vary.
As this was a new hill I opted to climb on my very lowest gears and stand out of the seat. I certainly noticed the drain around my wrists from the force of gripping the bars and there were times I felt I was going to have a major problem holding my grip.
The factor with these very very steep hills is you're close to max effort all the way up. This is why heavy breathing kicks in pretty early on and then you have to sustain the effort throughout. I can tell you, when I finally got to the top I just stopped the bike and breathed and sucked in air, waiting for my system to calm down. This is one hell of a climb and heavens knows how much more there remains for me to do. What happened is I discovered it through a very long descent that was so steep I walked downhill in parts as I was too nervous of freewheeling and aware that if I used my breaks, I'd probably burn a lot of brake rubber in the process. I got so far down and thought that would be about my limit, just to try and get back to the top from that point on. The first part starts off fairly shallow but you tend to crawl along out of fear that as soon as you turn the bend you know you're in for a terrible ordeal. That's when it turns into a virtual wall.
My knees semmed O.K. the following day, maybe due to the fact I climbed in a very low gear and stood up.
At some point I'll photograph the hill for you all to look at.

pod said:

Well my take on training specifically for hill climbing is that you need to increase the sustainable (aerobic) power output that you can maintain for the length of the hill (say 20 minutes). To do this you benefit from stressing your aerobic system by working at higher levels of intensity (than you could sustain for 20 minutes) for say 5 to 10 minute intervals. The body adapts to this stress and your sustainable power output raises. If you keep working on part of the hill (or on shorter hills) you will improve and eventually be able to do the whole hill.

That said, you sound like you have a high level of fitness already. 6 mph on a 14 - 20% grade is awesome. I can't manage more than about 6 kph on a longish 12.5% grade. You would make the whole distance if you just slowed down a bit and went at say 4-5 mph. Standing up you can pedal at very slow speeds up almost any grade (so long as the wheels dont slip) but I don't think you will improve so much at the lower speeds/intensities.

I had one hell of a hard climbing session today.
I rode out into the country and prepared myself to climb another mind-bogglingly steep hill. This particular sucker consisted of an awesomely steep initial stretch followed by a slight drop in the gradient where you have about 3 minutes to sit down and suck in some air. Then you have yet another blockbuster of a stretch ahead, followed by a long, steady, more shallow ascent.
I started off by attacking the first, very steep part of the climb with everything I had and noticed my speed was around 7 mph in a very low gear. By the time I cleared that section, I was breathing very hard but sat back down in the seat briefly to prepare for the next ordeal - the second ascent at (I would guess) around 20 per cent. At one point my speed dropped very briefly to 5 mph at a point where I felt I couldn't go on any longer.
Finally I cleared the major part of the climb but simply had to stop for some 3 minutes to hang over the bars and gasp in some air, while trying to get my heart rate back down. Had I continued to climb the shallower, remaining sections, I think I'd still have been stuck in a very low gear as I had nothing left in me at all.
This was the hardest training I've done in years but I was quite satisfied by my efforts today. My next task will be to try and push on without resting at all at any point during the climb.
But I forgot to add that I possibly haven't started this climb from the beginning. Plus I was wretching at the top and a bit nauseous.
There is more downhill from the point I began the climb and if some of that evens out at 20 per cent as well, then I've got real trouble ahead. But something about me loves a challenge and at least the effort involved leaves you with a natural high.

Carrera said:

I had one hell of a hard climbing session today.
I rode out into the country and prepared myself to climb another mind-bogglingly steep hill. This particular sucker consisted of an awesomely steep initial stretch followed by a slight drop in the gradient where you have about 3 minutes to sit down and suck in some air. Then you have yet another blockbuster of a stretch ahead, followed by a long, steady, more shallow ascent.
I started off by attacking the first, very steep part of the climb with everything I had and noticed my speed was around 7 mph in a very low gear. By the time I cleared that section, I was breathing very hard but sat back down in the seat briefly to prepare for the next ordeal - the second ascent at (I would guess) around 20 per cent. At one point my speed dropped very briefly to 5 mph at a point where I felt I couldn't go on any longer.
Finally I cleared the major part of the climb but simply had to stop for some 3 minutes to hang over the bars and gasp in some air, while trying to get my heart rate back down. Had I continued to climb the shallower, remaining sections, I think I'd still have been stuck in a very low gear as I had nothing left in me at all.
This was the hardest training I've done in years but I was quite satisfied by my efforts today. My next task will be to try and push on without resting at all at any point during the climb.
But I forgot to add that I possibly haven't started this climb from the beginning. Plus I was wretching at the top and a bit nauseous.
There is more downhill from the point I began the climb and if some of that evens out at 20 per cent as well, then I've got real trouble ahead. But something about me loves a challenge and at least the effort involved leaves you with a natural high.

Don't get me wrong ,I am neither bragging or complaining, but there is practically nothing here in my area but climbing.
I was wondering if you know how much you climb in say...16 km. I have an altimeter in my computer and find it interesting to see how many meters I climb in a ride.
No big deal ,just curious.