"I hate to climb"

[luliski]

like lulski

I'm too fat

Hey! How did you know?

 

[Philpug]

I am taking it that this thread was attributed to my comment in the e-bike thread that where I said I hate to climb. I will say @epic's post had some great tips and I think they will help a lot. My situation kinda reminds me of "I am an expert skier but I don't ski bumps" or as @ScotsSkier might put it, "I am an expert skier but I choose not to ski bumps" There is also the difference between "a skier" and "someone who skis" Well, I am not "a mountain biker" but I am "someone who mountain bikes" and I choose not to climb.

I am inherently lazy, I do it in my bootfitting in that I start someone in the boot that needs the least amount of work, I put a round peg into a round hole. I don't like hiking when I am skiing when there is a perfectly good lift. I have hiked A-Basin's East wall but I can also ski underneath it for three runs in the time and effort it takes to hike it. If someone wants to hike it, power to them, enjoy it and I will see them back at the Lenawee lift or the parking lot later in the day. In my cooking, if a dish needs more than (roughly) five ingredients, chances are it is overly complicated. In my mountain biking, I like cross country trails, I enjoying going down hill (but not full armor downhill) and I really don't enjoy the grueling part of a climb, sorry, I don't get satisfaction of it, some might, power to you, I don't.

 

[tball]

I'll echo the suggestions of staying out of the red zone, and add that a heart rate monitor is great for keeping an eye on your effort climbing.

I use heart rate just like @Tony S uses "breathing gears" by learning what HR I can maintain over different periods of time.

It's different for everyone and changes with fitness, but I'll try to keep my HR below 145 or 150 on a long climb, for example. Similarly, I know if I get above 160 bpm for long I'll pay for it later.

A chest strap heart rate monitor is better than the watch based sensors. They are fairly cheap and can be recorded with a phone app or a GPS device. A power meter is even better than a heart rate monitor, but pricey.

 

[Tony S]

I think that was @Philpug's longest post ever. Season must be over.

 

[Johnny V.]

Gotta admire your honesty Phil-after all this supposed to be FUN!

 

[Tony S]

Gotta admire your honesty Phil-after all this supposed to be FUN!

Climbing is fun. It's just Type II fun.

 

[Tony S]

 

[Crank]

I have no great love for climbing though my main reason for cycling and mountain biking is fitness so I suppose I should at least welcome some climbing?

A zen mountain biking master once told me to rest as you climb. Hmmm. This kicks in for me on steeper climbs. I get into granny gear and just slowly grind up, concentrating on conserving energy so I have something in the tank to spin faster for those crux moves like clearing logs or ledges or just techy sections on the way up.

 

[Erik Timmerman]

"Don't buy upgrades, ride up grades" - Tony S.

 

[cantunamunch]

Some themed questions - bear in mind that most of our climbs are 200-800foot punchers and definitely not something that goes on for miles and miles of grade.

Well, as I said before, scrape mud off your shoes at the bottom of the stroke. .

- Do any of you actually focus on hamstring snap up /after/ the mud scrape? There's something very *mogulskiing* about the action. If I can't do it properly, is also the first sign that I'm on too tall a frame - evident long before any back of knee pain.

On the mountain bike, keep the arms loose, and on the steep techies climbs, keep the forearms parallel to the top tube. That will keep you from pulling the front wheel off the ground.

Anyone else notice that when their upper body is totally relaxed there is more activation in the adductors? It feels almost like pumpkin-squeezing up a climb?

3 - Stand more. Learn to pedi standing more often. Not saying to do it all the time, but it will rest some muscles and let you use other ones. The more you do it, the easier (or less hard) it gets.

Herself has a massive problem standing to climb on the MTB. Crankset is a 2x (38/24). She's - I won't say OK but- better on the roadie. Has anyone here been Q-angled out of climbing standing (feet too wide)? Anyone know of some pedals with 5-8mm shorter spindles than ATACs have?

There are many people that climb better than I do and I know that I will never be good at it. But riding is so much better if you stop hating it. How can you do it?

Well Nietzsche sez you can't - it's a type-fact So maybe do some reaction formation and love the hatred?

 

[Philpug]

View attachment 47881

That is a beautiful road, a road that I would love to take..in my Miata.

 

[Erik Timmerman]

Herself has a massive problem standing to climb on the MTB. Crankset is a 2x (38/24). She's - I won't say OK but- better on the roadie. Has anyone here been Q-angled out of climbing standing (feet too wide)? Anyone know of some pedals with 5-8mm shorter spindles than ATACs have?

What is the problem standing? Is it a power thing or more like a balance thing? I found that switching to an oval chainring really changed how I pedal standing. With the oval you take away the dead spot in the pedal stroke. I think that it is natural to lean against that dead spot. When you take it away you have to balance over your feet. You have to as Phil Ligget would say "dance on the pedals". Don't know about Q-factor, but I feel that on the narrow roadie cranks I use the insides of my thighs more. Maybe it is working the other way around for herself. I've been thinking about buying the wider stance DA pedals for the roadie, but I don't ride it enough to bother. Also, I think footbeds could help a lot of us.

 

[scott43]

Herself has a massive problem standing to climb on the MTB. Crankset is a 2x (38/24). She's - I won't say OK but- better on the roadie. Has anyone here been Q-angled out of climbing standing (feet too wide)? Anyone know of some pedals with 5-8mm shorter spindles than ATACs have?

Q-factor has always been a non-thing for me. I've read about it, seen people who claim problems, fixed some for people..but I personally haven't noticed it being a big deal. Having said that, as I get older and my lingering hip issue remains, I can see that q-factor might be an issue in my future. I kinda am sensing that feeling at certain times. It does FEEL different as far as climbing goes but not, to me, in a painful or problematic way, just different position means different dynamics.

 

[Primoz]

I hate to climb

Oh come on There's nothing nicer then some nice climb Ok I admit, my background is in xc skiing, where people say "real skier also ski uphill" so I'm used to climb with my own power from little kid on. But I'm serious... for me going up is just as nice as going down, most of time it's actually nicer. No matter how it sounds, there's very few thing that are nicer then getting mtb out, and climb some 1000+m of ascend in single first 5km of your ride, knowing there another 2 or 3 hills waiting until you finish that ride So climbing is fun
I admit I'm weird

 

[cantunamunch]

Q-factor has always been a non-thing for me. I've read about it, seen people who claim problems, fixed some for people..but I personally haven't noticed it being a big deal. Having said that, as I get older and my lingering hip issue remains, I can see that q-factor might be an issue in my future. I kinda am sensing that feeling at certain times. It does FEEL different as far as climbing goes but not, to me, in a painful or problematic way, just different position means different dynamics.

She's got issues in both hips - that's a problem. Otherwise I can't really tell if it's a power or a balance thing.

She deffo can't do 90rpm out of the saddle on either bike, so I'm tempted to think it's a power thing.

 

[KevinF]

I've always liked Marco Pantani's comment of "I climb quickly so that my suffering ends sooner".

I used to think I was a reasonably decent climber (on a road bike at least), but I've been humbled enough times by enough people to know that my climbing is basically one level about "total suckage". I still enjoy it though... I find keeping my upper body relaxed, and focused on the breathing, etc. helps. Once you start wondering "Where is the top of this thing???" or thinking about the ache in your legs... it's over.

 

[martyg]

Think about the upcoming, well-deserved descent.

My simple rule for climbing is that if I can't have a conversation, I'm overworked and need to take a break. I don't like to have conversations while climbing but if you are too breathless to talk, you are pushing yourself too hard and will soon bonk. Recovery from pre-bonk is a lot easier than actual-bonk.

That would never work for our Tuesday Night World Championship. Everyone but occasionally Ned and Howard are breathing like race horses on climbs.

It helps to train for climbing as well. We have an awesome sports physiologist in Durango who will do a one day, super complete lab work-up: VO2 max, AT, lactate numbers for corresponding watt output, etc. He'll send you out the door with a training program that will get you to the next level.

My mental imagery that I play with - I think light. I think effortless. I imagine myself being a butterfly riding a thermal wave up the hill instead on being a fat old man.

 

[Erik Timmerman]

I think light. I think effortless. I imagine myself being a butterfly riding a thermal wave up the hill

Oh if only.

Hey Phil, remember riding Perry Hill in Waterbury? I went down there this morning. I hate climbing.

But the downhills there are worth it.

 

[TexasStout]

I never hated climbing, i just always realized it was a weakness in my cycling and decided to try and get better. There were a few things i did to improve, some rather obvious.
1) lose weight - power to weight ratio is the real deal!
2) spinning an easier gear is much less taxing on quads
3) practice climbing more often trains the muscles in the angle to be applied. More often i climb the easier it gets or faster up it i go.
4) sit farther back on saddle on a steep climb
5) embrace the challenge! To me, conquering the mountain is what it's all about. Like those that want to climb 14ers, reaching the top and taking pics to have evidence makes it worthwhile. I won; the mountain did not. Now each hill climbed is not photo worthy, but each helps boost my confidence that i can climb.
<-----

 

[firebanex]

Climbing sucks. I unfortunately have 800ft of climbing on my commute home, the painful part of it is a couple gravel 10%-16% 1/3mile long grades. 36x32 is my low gear on my cross bike and I still end up walking the 16% section most days cause its literally the last bit to the top of the ridge I live on. After a ride in and full day of working on my feet, I simply don't have the legs to climb that at the very end of my ride home. The Strava elevation profile on my phone for my commute home looks very similar to an exponential growth rate graph..

What I try to enjoy most about climbs is repeating climbs over a couple weeks and gradually getting into a higher gear for the climb or watching my heart rate not peg out.