I will be doing a hilly race with bunch of short steep climbs, but I do live in “Flatland” USA. I do need some spin bike workouts ( I have no indoor trainer, no power meter but I go to the gym and use the spin bike that has a power meter ) that will help me be successful in that race.
Thanks!
I would just do some hard 1 to 5 minutes efforts, NO COASTING, on the flats, in a slightly bigger than usual gear, to lower your cadence a bit, as you will often be forced to a lower cadence on steep climbs.
Remember, climbs are just a place where you go slower, they are not actually harder.
Think about that in your head saves you a lot of stress.
do some low gear out of the saddle riding also.
When you say hard effort, what HR zone (ex; zone 4,5) or power zone do you recommend?
When you say hard effort, what HR zone (ex; zone 4,5) or power zone do you recommend?
Whatever you plan to do up those hills I suppose.
Ideally you should raise your power a bit on steep hills, but not tons. So say you are going to be at mid zone 3 average during the race, bump up to low zone 4 for the uphills or so.
Maybe do some zone 5 too if they are REALLY steep and short.
I do simulated hill training on windy days. Wait for windy days and then ride as close to straight into the wind as I can. It doesn’t exactly replicate it, but I at least convince myself that it helps.
+1
I even do intervals (maybe 1 to 2 minutes) of a pretty high gear at ~60rpm for my cadence. Definitely helped me when I raced Syracuse this past year. I was able to really move up those hills and I don’t really have hills here to train on and I’m pretty large for a “natural climber.”
When you say hard effort, what HR zone (ex; zone 4,5) or power zone do you recommend?
Whatever you plan to do up those hills I suppose.
Ideally you should raise your power a bit on steep hills, but not tons. So say you are going to be at mid zone 3 average during the race, bump up to low zone 4 for the uphills or so.
Maybe do some zone 5 too if they are REALLY steep and short.
For short course racing, I regularly coach athletes to use 150-200% of FTP for short periods up steep bumps. Going 12mph is to be avoided at all costs. The weaker they are, the more they need to vary their efforts.
To the OP, train hard, gear correctly and make your mind your ally. Inclines do not change the laws of physics and riding up them requires no unique “hill fitness”.
As others have said, and I come at this living in an area where we barely even have bridges/overpasses to do “hill repeats” on, riding up a hill is essentially the same thing as riding normal, except slower. However, you may find that you quickly run out of gearing to keep your ideal cadence. Do some overgear work. Keep the same effort level you’d expect to do on the hills, but select a gear where you may only be pedaling 50-60 rpm…because depending on the gradient, that’s very possible even in your easiest gear. It takes a little getting used to,
what hasn’t been mentioned as much is that on a hill you can’t recover. Because you said they are short hills, you shouldn’t really crack, but understand by the last hill it may become substantially harder and there is no recovering on a uphill.
With that being said, I’d train at a higher wattage on the hills (spin bike) in training than you are planning to use for the race. That way you have the mental confidence that you can handle it.
Is it true that in order to train for hills in an indoor trainer, you need to raise the bike’s front wheel to really work the climbing muscles?
from personal experience, if you can go out on windy days and power through the headwinds. that makes a huge dent in helping
“Dutch HIlls”
Point your nose into the wind and ride like hell until you pop.
Turn around and coast “downhill”
Repeat as necessary.