Hill Climbing 101

From Vancouver Area Cycling Coalition - North Shore

By Greg Robinson, Capilano University

Right, you want to ride your bike to work and whatnot, but those darned hills just make it – what’s the word we’re looking for here – impossible? Well, maybe not quite impossible, but certainly a drag, and definitely de-motivating. Okay, it never gets easy, but it can get a whole lot easier if you make a few changes to how you ride, and maybe also what you ride. Here are 10 tips to make your climb up the steep and daunting hill that much more – what’s the word we’re looking for here – possible?

1. Make sure your saddle and handle-bar heights are correct. Sitting too low is a knee killer, and having handle-bars too high can rob you of lots of power. The seat height should be such that there is only a bend of about 15 degrees in your knee when seated with the pedal at the bottom of the pedal stroke (6 o’clock position). This means you will be on tippy-toes if you try to put your feet on the ground while sitting on your saddle. For those of you who want to have feet flat on the ground while seated, your saddle is too low and you are damaging your knees! Stop that! Handlebars should be positioned so that your torso and arms form an isosceles triangle when seated. Your handle-bar might also be the wrong width. Your hands should sit about as wide as your shoulders. If you need a narrower handle-bar, have your local bike mechanic saw a few inches off.
2. Inflate those tires darn it. Many of us haven't inflated our tires lately. If they're a bit soft, you are working much harder than you need to. Get them topped up so they're nice and hard (Inflation maximums marked on tire sidewalls - do not over-inflate.)
3. Speaking of tires. Are you riding knobbies? Those are standard mountain bike tires, with aggressive treads for traction on soft surfaces. If you do a lot of off-roading that's great, but if you ride mostly roads and smoother trails, those knobbies are the wrong tires for you. The knobs are creating extra rolling resistance, and they probably don’t inflate to a very high pressure. Get yourself some street tires with a slick or semi-slick tread, and make sure they inflate to somewhere between 60 and 100 pounds per square inch. Obviously harder tires will provide less cushioning, so do what feels good, but unless you ride on very rough surfaces, you shouldn’t be bothered too much by high pressure tires.
4. Most of us are in the habit of pedaling too slowly. You have it in a tough gear and push hard, right? This bad habit may arise from the misconception that working harder is good for the body, mind and soul. While this principle may apply in most career pursuits, it is not so with cycling. Gentle, gentle! Pedaling cadence (number of full pedal rotations per minute) should be between 70 and 90 revolutions per minute. If your feet aren't spinning faster than one full revolution per second, you need to put the bike into a lower gear. Try to gear down before you have to. Shifting gears when the pedals are under a lot of strain is hard on the equipment, so down-shift gears as you approach the climb, not once you’re on it and experiencing the sluggish pull of gravity. If you do shift while climbing, you should be going fast enough to do so without straining your drivetrain, so speed up a bit first, then shift down.
5. Think twice about suspension. I know they’re cool and make you look like you might be an off-road pro, but suspension forks will siphon energy from every single pedal stroke as you bob up and down with your exertions. If your bike has a suspension fork, you should "lock it out" if possible (that is, flip a switch to make it a rigid fork with no travel at all). If that's not possible, try to maximize the tension so it's as stiff as it will go. Maybe you should just get rid of it and replace it with a lighter and much more efficient rigid fork if you don't ride much off-road. It will make your bike lighter and less attractive to thieves!
6. Seriously consider clip-in pedals and cycling shoes. Yeah, I know the fear: I'll fall over and won't be able to get my foot out in time. Well, that can happen, but the benefits of actually being clipped in to your pedals are so huge that riding without them is something many of us can no longer imagine. What, ride up a hill without being clipped in? Are you serious? Clipped in means your foot is positioned in the perfect spot on the pedal at all times and won’t slip off. A cycling shoe also has a harder sole, and that means that a lot less of your energy is being wasted flexing the sole of your soft running shoe and is being directed into forward motion.
7. Stay seated and keep a calm bike. Standing up while climbing is fine if you are really being aggressive about the climb, but it will wear you out more quickly than staying in your seat. Think tortoise, not hare. Focus on riding as straight as possible, spin those legs in nice, smooth circles (remember: 70-90 rpms), stay in the saddle and relax your arms, hands, shoulders, neck. Think light thoughts.
8. Clean and lube your drive train. That doesn't just mean throw more oil on a dirty, rusty chain. It is a heck of a dirty job (rubber gloves are a good idea), but you'll eventually need to give it a thorough cleaning, and that is probably a whole tutorial unto itself. Use a bike-friendly degreaser (WD40 and similar industrial products are too harsh) and cloth rags. A chain cleaning tool is a big step in the right direction, and better bike shops will sell you one of those, a bottle of degreaser and some chain lube for, um, more than you want to pay. Pay it.
9. Tune that bike! True those wheels! Is it time for your spring overhaul? Okay then, the bike shop awaits. (Another tip: bike mechanics won’t want to clean your bike for you. Deliver a clean bike to the shop so they can get right down to the important work of tuning it up, unencumbered by years of gook and gunge.)
10. Be positive. Think about how great this is for your health. Don't fixate on the top of the hill, but instead take note of the beautiful flowers and trees that line the way upwards! And smile! This might sound like some sort of new-age hoo-hah, but wearing a smile – even a forced one – actually does relax the body, and makes it harder to be nervous or tense. Don’t believe me? Try it.

Alright, there is one way to make hill‐climbing easy: ride an electric‐assist bicycle. My partner had knee surgery recently and in order to make bicycle travel a viable option during her lengthy recovery, we invested in a lovely electric motor kit that makes hills seem flat and flats seem like downhills. Warning: can make getting back on a non‐motorized bike seem a bit dreary.