Questions tagged [climbing]
Questions referring to the art and practice of riding up inclines.
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How are the categories for climbs decided?
In cycle racing, there are five grades or categories for climbs - Category 4, 3, 2, 1 & Hors (Above Category or HC). How do they decide what is category 1 and what makes it so hard it is a HC?
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How should I approach hills?
I've been biking to work 2-3 times/week this summer and I enjoy it for the most part. My big problem is that my ride is mostly downhill on the way in to work and mostly uphill on the way home. These ...
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What exercise should I do in the gym to assist with hill-climbing?
I have a few events coming up this year which have a fair amount of climbing (one is over a hundred miles with about 6500ft of ascent - that's an average of just over 1% for the entire distance). ...
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Looking for Techniques for Riding Uphill on a Single Speed
I commute on a Single Speed (SS) bike about 13mi round trip. Going home is not a problem as the gradients are low and I can climb them. However, going in to work the gradients are much steeper and I ...
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What is most important for making biking uphill easy?
I learned how to ride a bike 6 years ago but the only bike I’ve had is a city one which I use for commuting 3km every day to work but also to go to lakes ~20-25km away one-way on Weekends which is the ...
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Is it best to attack the flat before a hill?
...or is the extra energy used to overcome the exponentially increased air resistance on the flat best saved for overcoming gravity on the hill, when the air resistance penalty is much lower? Does ...
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Should I climb out of the saddle?
I'm sure a question like this must have been asked before but I can't seem to find it.
Should one learn to climb out of the saddle? I have heard that if the climb is steep enough, then at some point ...
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How hard is a category 2 climb?
I am moving to Ojen Spain for work for 3 months and will be biking to marbella and back.
I have put the ride into mapmyride.com and it says that the ride is a cat 2.
Climb Start End Length ...
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How can I prevent or mitigate the front wheel coming off the ground when climbing steep hills?
On one of my bicycles (a 2012 Trek Madone 4.7), when climbing very steep hills, I have had problems with the front wheel coming off the ground. This creates an extremely dangerous situation because ...
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Extra power needed uphill for weight increase
How much does weight mean when going uphill?
Let's say I'm going up a mountain with 1000 m of elevation and it's quite steep: 10%. Let's also say I can maintain 250 watts. If I add 1 kg of weight to ...
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What is the most efficient way to ride up or down hills, and into or away from wind?
I'm trying to work out how hard I should push myself when riding up or down a hill. Similarly, how hard should I push myself when riding into, or away from, or perpendicular to wind?
My aim is to ...
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What's the lowest safe cadence on a climb?
I recently installed a power meter and just used it to get up some rather steep 15%+ climbs.
At my weight and lowest gearing (34f 30r) at a sustainable power level for my fitness (225w) this ...
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Low heart rate on climb
After trying the local "Hill" I was surprised to see my heart rate dropped substantially despite subjectively putting in a lot of effort. How can I maintain constant cardiovascular effort to all the ...
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Is it harmful to shift RD while climbing standing?
I'm just learning to climb standing, and I find I'm often guessing wrong about which gear to use; plus there are times where I'm accelerating up the hill and just need to shift up. Upshifts under ...
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Does a spinning class fixed wheel bike affect real world form?
I just had my first spinning class and hadn't realised it was going to be a fixed gear bike, when the instructor was asking us to get out of the saddle (or half out) the necessary technique felt very ...
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Can I fit a cassette with a larger range with my Shimano Tiagra 10-speed ( GS-4600) derailleur?
I'm currently running a 2x10 shimano tiagra 10-speed drivetrain with a 50/34 compact crankset, a 12-30 rear cassette, and a Shimano Tiagra GS-4600 derailleur (that's medium cage aka road long cage) on ...
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What makes a bike good or bad for climbing?
For example, is this a good climbing bike?
Can I have your general thoughts about the bike geometry? I know it is an aero frame but do you think it would be also good for climbing?
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Evaluate hill gradient
I mostly commute and have never had trouble climbing a hill sometimes by using my lowest speeds (or close to them).
How do I evaluate even roughly what grave %age I climbed?
What I mean is that I ...
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Switching to Lower Gears for Climbing
Right now, I've got a SRAM 11/26 cassette. I just moved to San Francisco, and some of the climbs out here (e.g., Mt. Tamalpais) are pretty brutal with over an hour of climbing. My cadence over some of ...
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Resources to find climbs by gradient [closed]
We're planning to try two variants of a bike¹ for prolonged test rides, and would like to seek out some climbs to determine which variant we will buy. The questions we want to answer in those test ...
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Is 11- 34 rear cassette necessary?
I have a road bike with a compact crank and 11-25 rear cassette(9 rings) at the moment. And my local climb is 35k long with an incline between 10- 30%. I really struggle with it. I have to stop like 5-...
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What cadence saves power when climbing?
I'm doing some amateur climbing with a hybrid bike up on a road and I have the following question:
How am I going to save more power - having a lower gear but spinning faster in order to maintain ...
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Advice needed to upgrade my groupset to make climbing easier
I have a Canyon Ultimate CF SL 8.0 Ultegra Di2 2020 with a rear 11/30 cassette and a 52/36 chain ring. It has a short cage rear derailleur (Ultegra Di2 R8050 SS short cage). I do long distance cycling ...
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Uphill riding hard for me
New to riding what is the best way to ride going uphill? I live on a hill going down is fine but I have a hill to get to the main road.
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What help can the domestiques provide on mountain climbs?
Why is Primož Roglič reported to have assisted Jonas Vingegaard in gaining three minutes over Tadej Pogačar during yesterday’s Tour de France 2022 Stage 11, and why would Pogačar
ask for the help of ...
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What's the proper technique for starting uphill?
I am a beginner cyclist, having not learned how ride a bike as a kid, I've started riding from scratch 3 months ago. Local "bike buddies" have helped a lot.
I'd like to ride my bike to work, which is ...
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What should I plan for on a sea-to-summit ride on Mauna Kea, Hawaii?
I've driven up to the visitor station but not up to the summit - what are the road conditions like beyond the visitor station, where can you refill water, and should I prepare for anything beyond a ...
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3
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Fastest way to get faster up hill
There's a 2.4km, fairly gentle hill near me which I want to get quite a bit faster on.
The traditional answer to my question is likely to be 'Go up the hill more often', but I also have a turbo ...
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Preparing for Alpine riding
The general question: What should a reasonably fit cyclist do to prepare for alpine riding, and what adjustments should be made in route planning?
In my case I can do rides of 250 km+ with 3000&...
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1
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Climbing or aero bike for a light rider?
What is the better choice for a lightweight rider (173cm - 48 kg), lightweight climbing bike to get even bigger edge when climbing, or an aero bike to catch up the speed in the flat road?
Obviously I ...
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will increasing cadence ability hurt my climbing strength?
I tend to spin rather slow when I am riding. 50rpm is a comfortable rate for me to spin for as long as I want to ride. 90rpm seems to be the rate at which I expend maximum power... I can't spin this ...
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Can a lightweight cyclist climb better than the heavier one by producing less power?
I guess it's possible because on the climbs you need to beat gravity more than the wind resistance but is there a formula to calculate how much the weight of the rider affect the climbing performance?
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Climbing techique with panniers and cleats
In the last year I started using cleats (2 bolts SPD) on my touring bike, which I often use with rear panniers on biking holiday (travelled about 2000 km with this set up).
The struggle I have is ...
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Is it possible to avoid anaerobic 'burn' on ascents?
As a total noob to cycling the thing that really kills me is hills steep enough I get into anaerobic territory. My general fitness lets me cycle for hours without really getting tired even working ...
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How do I train for climbing in a relatively flat area?
How do you best train for climbs in a flat area? I am aiming to tackle some UK climbs in N. Yorks and the Lakes come autumn but I only have access to the flat local countryside at the moment. I don’...
user12879
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Which rear cog should I remove if I want to add a 26 for climbing?
I have an old road bike with 53-39 rings and 13-23 cassette. Although it's generally flat in my area, I like to get to the top of these hills where they put the radio antennas (without dying). Max ...
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How should a competitive cyclist approach hills?
In this answer Daniel wrote,
Mostly what ChrisW said. If you want to become a competitive cyclist you might want to do it differently, but if your goal is simply to enjoy your cycling while ...
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Should I have a spare cassette or a spare wheel?
I have a road bike that I use for triathlons as well as club rides in the evenings and on weekends. I don't have the bike in front of me, but the range of the cassette is on the low side. I'm more ...
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5
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Does weight and climbing cause strain on bike?
I‘m a heavy (260 pound) male rider using my 2011 NORCO 24 gear hybrid to commute to and from work. It’s a 6 mile trip each way with a +450 foot climb in the last 2-3 miles coming home. The ride is all ...
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What is the best way to improve my cycling distance over mountainous terrain?
So for years I've been doing long distance biking from my home on my mountain bike, and recently I've been trying to push north into the Hudson Valley. However, even though I'm pretty decent at ...
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How accurate are altimeters in bike computers?
I bought a bike computer with a pressure-based altimeter (Sigma 14.16 STS). It gives gradient of current hill with 1% resolution, current altitude with 1 meter resolution, and total climbed amount ...
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One Month to Build Endurance
I've got a seven day cycling session in the Alps coming up in about a month. Unfortunately, I've not been great about getting on the bike in the past month (or even the past year, to be honest). From ...
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Grand Tours - Total Ascent (By stage, particularly the giro)
I'm looking for information on stages of grand tours, particularly the upcoming Giro.
I can find details of total distance by stage, and the amount of ascent on the key climbs of a stage, but I'm ...
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Are there any route planning/mapping apps or websites that can show a chart of cumulative ascent?
Strava and Ride With GPS both show elevation charts, but they show elevation at any particular point in the ride, i.e. on a circular route with 2000m of climbing the charts will go up and down but ...
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Maximum cassette size for 24 inch wheel and 20 inch wheel
I think 42 teeth is the maximum cassette size for a 20” bike. I built my son a 20” bike with 2.125” tyres and an 11-42T cassette driven by a Box 4 derailleur and 32 tooth chainring, and it works ...
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Best handlebars for long steep hills?
I am looking for the best handlebars for climbing long steep hills (around 22km).
As part of the challenge I will be riding a fixed gear so drop bars with hoods are not an option.
I can't find ...
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Gear Inches Optimal For Steep Hill Climbs
As I've gotten more into road biking, I've realized I really like climbing mountains. These climbs vary between 6-15% gradient usually and go for anywhere between 5-20 miles. I am wondering if I ...
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Replacing 42/52 crankset to 39/52 - will it make a difference?
I have several questions that arise from the fact that the current drivetrain on my old Peugeot road bike is pretty tough to ride when climbing up some steep hills: so I've got a 42/52 up front and 6 ...
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Improve my riding experience [closed]
I'm new to cycling and I've got a borrowed, older, road bike. I believe it's a 10 speed, with 700 series tires. From what I've been told it was a very expensive bike in the 90's. I'm training for my ...
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How to improve climbing speed [duplicate]
new cyclist here. I've recently started riding and have worked my way up to a 50K in 2 hours 24 minutes, averaging 21 km/h. I noticed that I really wasn't able to carry my speed through climbs and ...
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