I'll be focusing on time trials/road races this year (no tris), and I'd be interested to hear what everyone's thoughts are on using long hill climbs on a road bike (10-15 min intervals climbing on an HC/Cat 1/2/3 climb) for time trial specific training.

My thought is that on climbs of that length/grade, it's much easier for me to put out consistent watts with no coasting/breaks. I would think this would be ideal for tt training, since it's consistent power (no surges in power and/or coasting), and the steep grade means there's no real limit to the number of watts I could put out before I spin out the cranks. I can put out plenty of watts on flat ground, but I often find it's much harder to consistently put out those watts on the flats because of downhill sections and/or the general tendency to coast.

I know that on climbs, you're not really in a tt position if using a road bike (and you probably don't want to do climbs of that length/grade in a tt position anyways), so you're not doing yourself much good by climbing hills if the tt position is something you need to practice. That being said, I would still imagine that there would be plenty of gains to be had for tt fitness by doing this type of training.

Thoughts?