What’s the best way to get a hill workout in on the bike when you live in an area with no actual hills? Is a trainer workout going to do the trick (Spinervals or something like that)? Is it better to just ride my normal rides but supplement with a wall climber or stair step runs or something like that?
What’s different about hills than riding fast on the flats?
More power output at a lower cadence with less air to cool you down.
Simulate on road, use a big gear that gets your cadence down to 65 rpm and push a lot of watts. Make intervals 3 to 8 minutes with 2 to 4 minutes of rest. Start at 5 shorter intervals and work yourself up.
Simulate on Trainer and do the same thing, keep session near 1 hour with a warm up and cool down.
jaretj
How about a small drogue chute off the back of the bike?
Put a phone book or two under your front wheel while on the trainer. I do that and the Charmichael climbing video now and then during the winter.
“What’s different about hills than riding fast on the flats?”
Lots of things that might not be solved by just pounding a big gear at a low cadence. For one thing, I’d prefer to climb at a higher cadence. For another, your body position for climbing is different at grade than it is flat. Are these intervals going to make help with those? I’m not saying they won’t, I’m just asking.
"How about a small drogue chute off the back of the bike? "
I’ve already got the equivalent with the heavy South Texas winds.
Maybe just riding out with the wind and then doing intervals back into the wind will do the trick? Just for reference, it’s a medium windy day here today. Winds are only 25kts.
I personally don’t think that training with the wind is the same as climbing, yeah, the physical effort is similar however with the wind you are training yourself to be able to breathe in easily large amounts of fresh air if you need to: climbing with dead still air or (worse) a tailwind is a lot different breathing-wise, not to mention the different position on the bike. I also don’t think a trainer is even remotely similar, because on a steep uphill as soon as you remotely trim your power you immediately slow down, lose cadence and have to increase torque significantly to get back up, on a trainer there is enough inertia going on due to the flywheel that it’s just not the same either. And let’s not talk about the fact how you need to have pretty good handling under low speed/high torque, which you can’t simulate while being locked in either…
On the other hand what exactly about hills is it that you want to simulate? the whole experience? the high wattage workout component? something else? and how steep the hills in your simulation? 5%? 10%? 20%? My uneducated advice would be to go on small rollers with no flywheel and do high/low cadence (low/high torque) workouts on them as well as steady state high wattage to simulate a long steady climb.
Please take everything with a grain of salt, I am not qualified to coach anybody, but given that I suck at hills I think I am qualified about giving advice of what kind of workouts for me suck in a similar way
No matter what anyone says, the winds are not like hills… I live in Corpus too and can ride into the 20-30mph wind all day long but hills (and the associated gravity) in the Hill Country are much harder for me. I posted the same question years ago and Paulo gave some good advice… you might do a search.
Since the maximum elevation in Corpus is around 30 feet, we ride the parking garages downtown like intervals… recovering descending floors.
"On the other hand what exactly about hills is it that you want to simulate? the whole experience? the high wattage workout component? something else? and how steep the hills in your simulation? 5%? 10%? 20%? My uneducated advice would be to go on small rollers with no flywheel and do high/low cadence (low/high torque) workouts on them as well as steady state high wattage to simulate a long steady climb. "
Problem is, there are no rollers here, small or otherwise, and I’m doing a race in the fall that is (relative to here) fairly hilly. I’m just trying to do something that will keep me from getting caught out altogether during the race.
A lot of options.
- Resistance on a trainer
- Wind on flat courses
- Computrainer hill courses
But none of these will prepeare you for the mental part of climbing a 12 mile steady hill that disappears in the horizon.
Come visit me in Vail, Colorado…all we have here is hills…actually mountains…I would kill for a nice hill or two! Heck I struggle to try and find some flat roads to ride every now and then!
One thing I think would help is to do some high cadence high resistance on a trainer. Do the couple of phone books under the front tire thing and drop your chain into a hard gear (something like big ring and 14-16 cog). Then do high cadence intervals. Drop into your 11 or 12 and do some standing grinds and then back down to the 14-16 and keep your cadence high. Do 2 or 3 minutes on and 1-2 minutes of recovery. Try 4-6 sets.
This is one of the drills I do in winter when the snow is blowing.
Yes they will help but go ahead and dismiss what I said, I live in a flat area too.
Good luck with your endeavor on the hills.
jaretj
road trip?
I live in the flats and needed to train for the hills. I have found great results from one weekend a month riding the mountains a few hours north of here. It’s been great to get away and just ride. Is that an option for you?
Hills are more about the mental aspect of conquering or letting it conquer you, as you people that ride in high winds should know well. If you ask me, the best way to train for hills is to look at them as being flat and stay in your target exertion range. That’s it…pretty simple.
"road trip? "
Maybe. I’ll have to look around. I don’t want to turn a 2-3 hour ride into an 8 hour excursion just to get some hills in. Good idea though. I’ll have to see what’s close.
I’m not looking for mountain training, just enough to make sure I’m not trying to ride Ingleside TX flat when I go to Austin in October. Maybe I should just head up to Austin once a month and ride up there over the weekend.
Yea, the point I was trying to make is that I’ve seen huge gains in my overall strength and climbing ability by just being on the steep stuff once a month. If you can get on something steep just a few times it’ll make your race seem a lot “flatter.”
Sounds like a plan. I guess I’ll try some of the other stuff a little and find a hilly place to travel to once a month or so.
Coming from someone who has put in most of their hours on the bike in the mountains in the past several years…
Putting out big power with the wind at my back feels like it does while climbing. Putting out big power heading into the wind feels like trying to do the same while descending.
**Problem is, there are no rollers here, small or otherwise, and I’m doing a race in the fall that is (relative to here) fairly hilly. I’m just trying to do something that will keep me from getting caught out altogether during the race. **
Get into the terrain you’ll race on. Last year, a couple friends and I went to Madison a few times, plus I rode in the St. Louis area when visiting family (hilly on the west end of town). It did the trick- IMOO was hard, of course, but I was OK in the hills, and the biggest hill in my home county is an overpass over train tracks.
Get to San Antonio- there’s a shopping place called La Cantera at 1604 and I-10. Park there and go northwest- very hilly, I got up that way this last weekend, but just barely into the hills. I want to do some decent riding over the 4th of July weekend, so if you’ll be up this way, PM me.
PT said it was a good bet I’d be up to the Longhorn HIM and San Antonio marathon, so time to quit the weights and get back to work!
i’m in florida so things are pretty much flat. so most of my base milage is being accomplished on flat roads. for hills you might do a little research to see if there are any bridges in your area with a suitable grade. it gets a little tedious but the causeways in my area allow me to get some hill climbing repeats in… back and forth a dozen or more times.