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1 mile of elevation gain over 20 miles. This takes me 4 hours. It takes the pros 1.5 hours.

We're riding at roughly the same cadence (if anything I'm a bit faster), but they're turning over a much heavier gear.

(I know these things because I did this route on the day of a race)

I'm on a repurposed mountain bike, so I have a proper granny gear.

If I want to get faster at this climb, should I ride at the cadence that feels right (granny gear), or should I limit myself to using my middle ring of my triple, closer to the gear that the pros use?

(Not sure if this changes anything, but my bike weighs about 35 pounds, 20 more than a race-grade road bike)

BSO rider
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    Don't jump from the "ideal" cadence to the "ideal" gear in one go. Take the smallest step possible in gearing above your "normal" gear, then work at that gear until you get your cadence back up. Then do it again, as many times as needed to achieve the leg strength needed to tackle the hill in the higher gear without struggling. And don't expect to ever beat the other guys -- your "victory" is in increasing your own strength and endurance, not beating someone else. – Daniel R Hicks Nov 30 '15 at 02:31
  • I agree that's this is a duplicate (and that the answers to that question are excellent). Don't underestimate the benefit of hauling 9kg less up the hill, or of reducing your losses by running skinny high pressure road tires. I'd bet you would soon be climbing that 1600m in 3 hours. The rest depends on innate capacity and training. But check out the answers in the duplicate. – andy256 Nov 30 '15 at 02:40
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    You riding solo on a re-purposed MTB - don't be and concerned you are doing 1/3 the speed of pros, be happy you are. – mattnz Nov 30 '15 at 02:41

1 Answers1

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Basically what you want to do is to get stronger – you want to be able to ride in a higher gear at the same cadence. There are a number of ways to work on this, one is to push yourself hard(er) on hills.

What has worked for me is to find a hill that feels relatively easy in a low gear (for me this means that I can comfortably ride the hill at around 80 rpm). Then I'll try the hill in a higher gear (a cog or two higher in the rear, still using the small ring in front), pushing myself to keep my cadence up. I'll do this until my legs and/or lungs hurt, then I'll coast down the hill and recover. Then I'll do it again. Maybe four or five times. Then I'll go for a nice ride :-)

I think the formal name for it is something like interval training or hill repeats. The idea is to work yourself hard enough to get your heart rate high and trigger release of growth hormone. The growth hormone tells your body that it needs more muscle. It must figure out somehow that the tired muscles are the ones to grow…

The weight of your bike, is a mixed blessing – for absolute performance it definitely hurts – it's more weight that you have to carry up the hill, but on the other hand that same extra weight is helping you get stronger. I'm sure someone knows how to do the calculations, but my gut sense is that it is not a huge difference.

dlu
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    I have an empirical data point. I rode mountainbikes a bit, and logged some strava times. Both bikes weighed around 15-20 kilos and had 26" wheels. My times on Dyers Pass were 11 minutes. When I changed to an aluminium road bike weighing 8-10 kilos with 700c wheels, my time dropped to 8 minutes 15 for the same stretch. It didn't feel any easier, in fact it felt slower but it was 20% faster. So absolutely the lighter bike climbs better. However cost/benefit says diminishing returns. – Criggie Nov 30 '15 at 03:18