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As noted above, part of the ranking of a climb depends on its placement within a stage: usually, the ending climb of a stage gets "bumped up" by a category. You can see that in the plots below, which show climbs as categorized by the organizers of the Tour de France itself for the 2012, 2007, 2005, and 2004 editions of the Tour, and plotted by the length of ...
18
For someone who hasn't been riding much, this climb will be brutal. But you'll be surprised at how quickly you'll make progress. Even though you might fail the first time you go up, this ride seems like a great challenge.
Last year I coaxed a friend to start riding again. After a half dozen easier rides, we attempted a mountain climb similar to the ride you'...
13
Unfortunately, there is a fairly straight forward reason why you actually need to ride hills in order to get faster at them: crank inertial load.
We have two main types of skeletal muscles. (Skeletal muscles are responsible for our locomotion and movements, cardiac and smooth muscles make up the other muscle types in our the body). The two main skeletal ...
12
The spokes and gears are likely unrelated issues.
You have done 2000km on the bike - have you replaced the chain and rear cluster yet? At you weight and those hill climbs, I would not be surprised if they are just worn out. It is also possible that at your weight and that distance the spokes have come out of adjustment, and/or now have fatiguied to the ...
12
For grades beyond 10% having a gear that you can spin at the rate you can climb makes a big difference.
Only you can know exactly what gear that should be. If you can find a gear ratio tool that displays speeds for a given gear, wheel size and rpm. This one seems pretty good.
http://www.bikecalc.com/cadence_at_speed
Then think about your typical speeds ...
12
Generally, being light weight you probably have more of a deficit on the flats, which would point to an aero bike. That is your frontal area per watt per kg will be higher than a larger rider who is heavier, can turn out more watts and has a bigger frontal area but also has a a relatively lower frontal area per watt per kg. As such, an aero bike would ...
11
Presuming you are doing a standing start and coming to a complete stop at the top of the hill. The simple requirement is you need energy to move your from the bottom to the top. Most of the energy required will be to raise potential energy of the payload (you and the bike). Essentially you will be creating kinetic energy (moving the bike) by converting ...
10
The difficulty of any climb will depend on its length, steepness, wind speed and wind direction, the total weight of you and your bike, and, of course, your fitness and your intended speed.
Stephen Touset has thoughtfully provided a link that shows the elevation profile for the climb. The grade appears to be relatively even rather than a series of steeper ...
10
Move your weight further forward to keep the front wheel weighted. Shuffle forwards on your seat and bring your chest closer to the bars. Standing can help for the steepest parts, but can cause your rear wheel to slip on loose surfaces.
The front wheel is lifting as when your bike is on a slope the wheelbase is effectively shortened, bringing your weight ...
10
Honestly, as an amateur cyclist I would suggest focusing on learning how to pace a climb first over more finer details such as cadence. Many amateur typically go out too fast on a climb, go anaerobic, accumulate a lactate debt, then find themselves suffering terribly the remainder of the climb. This gives most the idea the climbs are harder than they could ...
9
As you have guessed, it is better to work harder on the uphill and rest on the downhill. And as others have mentioned, whatever works for you on the uphill in terms of balancing high cadence and mashing is best. However, there are a few guidelines that you can follow to approach each situation in the most efficient manner possible.
Downhill: Since wind ...
8
Basically whatever works.
If you're trying to conserve energy it's foolish to push yourself going downhill, since energy lost per mile to wind resistance increases with the square of speed -- just take advantage of the "free ride" on a reasonably steep hill.
Going uphill depends a lot on your physical condition and how steep the hill. You first need to ...
8
Mountain bikers regularly run these low cadences for very short periods, often at much higher power output. The issue with causing damage to knees is more about the duration of the climb and how strong your stabiliser muscles are. (Too much time mushing causes chronic overuse problems, while weak stabiliser muscles can allow injury to happen), however they ...
7
There are various web sites that might help.
I use one called http://ridewithgps.com. You need to register on it but you can get quite a lot from a free account.
Does your GPS device output GPX files? If so, I think Ride With GPS can suck them in. If not you might have to put your route into the site manually (but this is easy enough).
But what you do get ...
7
Understand that the concern is not generally things like a muscle or tendon tear that can occur with, eg, extreme weightlifting -- off-road bikers might be susceptible to that sort of injury, but not a road biker.
Rather, the concern is the injury that may be done to joint surfaces and structures due to repeated force, above some "tolerable" level, applied ...
7
Get the biggest.
The down side is some bigger spacings.
If money is an issue consider used.
You have the option to not use a gear you do have.
But you can't use a gear you don't have.
Cassettes wear out. If you find yourself rarely using the 34 and/or 32 then get tighter for the next. Start with the biggest for a data point. If that is not ...
7
Every rider has a different optimal cadence. You need to find yours. This will depend to some extent how you are feeling on the day ('Ohh that hurts' vs 'pain, what pain').
Most novice riders pedal too slowly, as they are not trained it feels 'wrong' and are not efficient at high cadence. If this is you, you optimal cadence may be faster than your most ...
6
For Strava climbs there is an objective categorization that is length in meters times grade in percent, with this categories:
score = length(m) * grade(%)
Cat 3: score > 16000
Cat 2: score > 32000
Cat 1: score > 64000
Cat HC: score > 80000
For example Alpe d'Huez has a length of 13800m and average gradient of 8.1% (according to Wikipedia), giving a score ...
6
I have cycled to Holland from London and to Ireland and am about to cycle again to Holland, through Belgium and into France.
I agree strongly with Frank. Conditioning is what it's all about. The only thing I would add is;
Going up hills on a SS - keep your breathing constant and powerful - work the lungs.
Push hard into the climb and then stand when you ...
6
One thing that may help a lot is shifting some load weight forwards. In other situations I've found that a surprisingly small amount of weight shifted from behind the back axle to the front forks improves handling a lot. For example rather than mounting a D lock behind a child seat, I put it on the front forks. That's something like 1% of the total weight, ...
6
Basically the only real way to get better at going up hills is to get fitter - which you can do by repeatedly riding the hill :-)
Some tips:
Stay sitting down
Use low gears and a fairly high pedaling cadence
Use good gear management, shift down progressively as you start the hill and keep pedaling cadence up.
The main point is you want to avoid using ...
5
If I on one ride add 1 kg of weight to the bike, how much slower (in time) will I be?
Assuming that you and your bike mass 100kg (in round numbers), an extra 1kg causes a 1% increase in weight, i.e. a 1% increase in the potential energy associated with climbing the hill.
If your power output is constant, that implies a 1% increase in time.
However some of ...
5
I prefer the cycling lore that it was decided by which gear of a Citroen 2CV you needed to be in to drive up the hill/mountain. For HC climbs you had to go up them in reverse.
Scientific? Not so much. Perceived Gallic? Mais oui!
5
A cadence of 70 RPM while climbing is not unusually low, so switching to a lower gear may just encourage you to slow down instead of making you more efficient. But the only way to know for sure is to try it and measure the difference.
There isn't necessarily a right cadence. The article Technique - Pedal like a pro reports that seven pro cyclists (a small ...
5
With the b-screw tightened all the way on the medium cage GS-4600 tiagra derailleur I was able to install the 11-32 cassette. It was obvious from the appearance that I wouldn't be able to squeeze any larger of a cassette on the rear wheel without switching to a long cage mountain or touring derailleur.
There were no issues when shifting with the 34t front ...
5
Get a Sky Mounti inclinometer:
Not terribly accurate, and not much use on rough pavement, but it gives you an immediate readout that doesn't "smooth over" the ups and downs the way that maps will.
(I should state that it has a problem on level ground -- the faster you go (especially on rough pavement) the higher it reads. But get on a grade over 4-5% and ...
5
With regard to the shifting, you do need to understand proper shifting procedure.
First off, with any derailleur-style bike the chain and sprockets need to be moving when you shift. (You're no doubt aware of this, but it bears mentioning.)
Prior to the advent of "indexed" shifters, it was not possible to shift "under load" at all. To shift you had to ...
5
I would suggest that your bike is not set up correctly and your centre of gravity is too far back.
The first thing to consider is what is the predominant terrain you are riding?
If its mostly flat consider using a technique such as alex has
suggested in his answer to cover pinch climbs and small hills.
If your doing a lot of climbing (sitting on the front ...
5
You can work on a pedal stroke that applies pressure for a larger portion of the rotation of the pedals. That will reduce the peak force that is causing the wheel to lift.
5
The general advice is that we should aim at 90 for an average cadence, and pushing slower than that can produce knee pain and injuries, and back pain and injuries.
However, everyone has their own best cadence. For example, I have not raced and find 110rpm is good for me on a flat-ish ride. My brother who has raced stays at around 120rpm on the same terrain. ...
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