Biking up hill
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Replies
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I appreciate the info. It helps me understand the options and considerations.
I’m still using flat pedals. I have toe clips that attach on one side and took them off when I started because they just seemed like an extra annoyance. I also have separate set of clipless pedals but no shoes at this time.
I do not know the grade of various streets and have no idea how to estimate it. My Fitbit gives me 10-15 floors when I walk it, so about 100-175 ft gain in 1-2 blocks @10-13 ft per floor.0 -
Get yourself on Strava and you will understand and compare the grade of hills you ride and also be able to track your improvement.3
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Try the toe clips.
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I was also going to ask about pedals, if you went clipless yet, remembering the previous discussion. It will definitely give you an advantage. Pushing and pulling on each stroke will provide more power to your climb1
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Personally, I don't think pedals should be your priority at this point.2
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I would stick with the pedals you have for now.
If you're not going to make it up a hill and have to get up and walk, you don't want to add having to clip out before you fall over into the mix. Tackle the hills first, then come back to the pedals.
Clipless can help you sprint faster, because you can pull up on one pedal while you push down on the other one. I really don't think people do this much outside a sprint. 99% of it comes from pushing down on the pedal, and you can do that just fine with the ones you have now.2 -
Get yourself on Strava and you will understand and compare the grade of hills you ride and also be able to track your improvement.
yep. or map a potential route out on https://ridewithgps.com
It will give you an elevation profile.2 -
NorthCascades wrote: »I would stick with the pedals you have for now.
If you're not going to make it up a hill and have to get up and walk, you don't want to add having to clip out before you fall over into the mix. Tackle the hills first, then come back to the pedals.
this. I too would suggest being used to the clipless pedals before tackling a hill that you might have to bail on. (which can happen suddenly especially if you are also getting used to changing/selecting gears).4 -
Stick with the gearing you've got.
Stick with the pedals you've got.
Get onto Strava.
If you are just new to this, it can take a little while to get into the swing of things. But once you do, then consider making changes.2 -
I'm over 60, overweight (considerably), with AFIB and other concerns. Just returned to riding this year after about 30 yrs. Family bought me a trail-style bike (Trek X-Caliber) for 2017 Christmas and my new retirement gift to replace the old touring bike that I had intended to ride.
Living in coastal NJ, I'm in a pretty flat area, but any terrain undulations are a challenge to me. I seek out hills as a certain percentage of my riding. You've already been getting advice about shifting/etc. that I'm not going to add to.
In my case:
1. I refuse to walk the bike up a hill. If necessary (due to either basic conditioning, current state of exhaustion/not or the AFIB), I will pause partway up, then resume when the heart settles down. Some hills took repeated efforts over the year before I scaled them totally in one continuous effort. Those were good feelings each and every time; hills will never be my friends. Now that the season is changing, I continue scaling hills to maintain the basic fitness I've gained as a prep for next year.
2. Halfway through the year, I switched grips to Ergon GP4s. I was getting some hand numbness, so the basic Ergon design was for that. The GP4 has "bar end" handles that I use sometimes to "pull" myself up hills. Whether this is a real thing or a psych thing, they work for me. You can see them in the below picture.
3. I ride flat pedals. I have a long boring story of a self-inflicted accident last year, when I first thought about riding again, that cost me a half-year of recovery, so no clips or cleats for me. This costs in pedaling efficiency, probably especially for hills. Your calculations may be different. I work with my choices and continue to press on.
At this point, I'm happy with the progress I've made, approaching 1000 miles for the year and more than 30lbs lost, plus tremendous gains in overall fitness, general health and outlook on life. I'm looking at higher goals for next year.
Happy cycling!
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NorthCascades wrote: »
Just looks at bikeforums.net. Noticed that in addition to an over-50 group, there's a "clydesdale" group. Thanks for sharing the tip on this thread.1 -
I'm over 60, overweight (considerably), with AFIB and other concerns. Just returned to riding this year after about 30 yrs. Family bought me a trail-style bike (Trek X-Caliber) for 2017 Christmas and my new retirement gift to replace the old touring bike that I had intended to ride.
Living in coastal NJ, I'm in a pretty flat area, but any terrain undulations are a challenge to me. I seek out hills as a certain percentage of my riding. You've already been getting advice about shifting/etc. that I'm not going to add to.
In my case:
1. I refuse to walk the bike up a hill. If necessary (due to either basic conditioning, current state of exhaustion/not or the AFIB), I will pause partway up, then resume when the heart settles down. Some hills took repeated efforts over the year before I scaled them totally in one continuous effort. Those were good feelings each and every time; hills will never be my friends. Now that the season is changing, I continue scaling hills to maintain the basic fitness I've gained as a prep for next year.
2. Halfway through the year, I switched grips to Ergon GP4s. I was getting some hand numbness, so the basic Ergon design was for that. The GP4 has "bar end" handles that I use sometimes to "pull" myself up hills. Whether this is a real thing or a psych thing, they work for me. You can see them in the below picture.
3. I ride flat pedals. I have a long boring story of a self-inflicted accident last year, when I first thought about riding again, that cost me a half-year of recovery, so no clips or cleats for me. This costs in pedaling efficiency, probably especially for hills. Your calculations may be different. I work with my choices and continue to press on.
At this point, I'm happy with the progress I've made, approaching 1000 miles for the year and more than 30lbs lost, plus tremendous gains in overall fitness, general health and outlook on life. I'm looking at higher goals for next year.
Happy cycling!
I'm pretty well convinced the cost you pay in efficiency is in the ballpark of 10% for less than 1% of the time you ride. Almost nothing, in other words. Clipless pedals are about comfort and safety (preventing a foot from coming off the pedal while cornering, or near brush), not about performance. You can use them to pull up on the pedal and get a little extra, but it's only a little and people only actually do this when they sprint (including sprinting uphill). Cycling is an aerobic sport, oxygen you put into pulling up can't go into pushing down, they're different muscles but run on the same energy source.
There are many pedal based power meters, and none of them even bother to quantify pulling up. If it were important to bike performance, pedal PMs would measure it.2 -
I'm over 60, overweight (considerably), with AFIB and other concerns. Just returned to riding this year after about 30 yrs. Family bought me a trail-style bike (Trek X-Caliber) for 2017 Christmas and my new retirement gift to replace the old touring bike that I had intended to ride.
Living in coastal NJ, I'm in a pretty flat area, but any terrain undulations are a challenge to me. I seek out hills as a certain percentage of my riding. You've already been getting advice about shifting/etc. that I'm not going to add to.
In my case:
1. I refuse to walk the bike up a hill. If necessary (due to either basic conditioning, current state of exhaustion/not or the AFIB), I will pause partway up, then resume when the heart settles down. Some hills took repeated efforts over the year before I scaled them totally in one continuous effort. Those were good feelings each and every time; hills will never be my friends. Now that the season is changing, I continue scaling hills to maintain the basic fitness I've gained as a prep for next year.
2. Halfway through the year, I switched grips to Ergon GP4s. I was getting some hand numbness, so the basic Ergon design was for that. The GP4 has "bar end" handles that I use sometimes to "pull" myself up hills. Whether this is a real thing or a psych thing, they work for me. You can see them in the below picture.
3. I ride flat pedals. I have a long boring story of a self-inflicted accident last year, when I first thought about riding again, that cost me a half-year of recovery, so no clips or cleats for me. This costs in pedaling efficiency, probably especially for hills. Your calculations may be different. I work with my choices and continue to press on.
At this point, I'm happy with the progress I've made, approaching 1000 miles for the year and more than 30lbs lost, plus tremendous gains in overall fitness, general health and outlook on life. I'm looking at higher goals for next year.
Happy cycling!
That's great, it's so fun to get back on a bike at our age! I'm looking into ways to help manage my hand pain/numbness also, but that's another thread, lol.1 -
NorthCascades wrote: »
... so no clips or cleats for me. This costs in pedaling efficiency, probably especially for hills. Your calculations may be different. I work with my choices and continue to press on.
...
I'm pretty well convinced the cost you pay in efficiency is in the ballpark of 10% for less than 1% of the time you ride. Almost nothing, in other words. Clipless pedals are about comfort and safety (preventing a foot from coming off the pedal while cornering, or near brush), not about performance. You can use them to pull up on the pedal and get a little extra, but it's only a little and people only actually do this when they sprint (including sprinting uphill). Cycling is an aerobic sport, oxygen you put into pulling up can't go into pushing down, they're different muscles but run on the same energy source.
There are many pedal based power meters, and none of them even bother to quantify pulling up. If it were important to bike performance, pedal PMs would measure it.
thanks for this deeper analysis.1 -
I downloaded Strava and it says I must autopay $7.99 a month so I deleted it, then when I went to the website it says "download our free app". How does this work? Free to download but pay to use?
I'm not seeing where I can plan a route on the website.
I worked out some rough grade numbers using google map elevations and distances and the hills in my neighborhood are 6-10%.0 -
It's like MFP - you can do the basics for free, but if you want deeper analysis of your data, that's when you have to pay.0
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I'm a heal driver on hills...but really, I think that's all about preference and feel. Really, climbing comes down to practice and building that aspect of cycling fitness. I'm not a particularly good climber and it's one of the areas I've been working on.2
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I downloaded Strava and it says I must autopay $7.99 a month so I deleted it, then when I went to the website it says "download our free app". How does this work? Free to download but pay to use?
Nope mostly free. There are some things you can do cool for$, but none are needed. They dropped the prices recently, so it shouldn't be $8 anymore. You can use all the social aspects for free always.I'm not seeing where I can plan a route on the website.
The is no mapping. It's a social platform - comparing yourself to others. The big reason to use it are segments. Users tag parts and compete over them. Some segments have a couple people ride or run them. Some segments have TdF courses on them...
However if your ride has segments, they do list the grade.
It's under the explore tab.
I typically "explore" segments, pick some where I want to go, then flesh out the route on Google
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I downloaded Strava and it says I must autopay $7.99 a month so I deleted it, then when I went to the website it says "download our free app". How does this work? Free to download but pay to use?
I'm not seeing where I can plan a route on the website.
I worked out some rough grade numbers using google map elevations and distances and the hills in my neighborhood are 6-10%.
Strava app is free on my phone, I've never seen any benefit for me in their paid version "Summit" as it's now called.
Unless you have a navigation device (such as a Garmin or Wahoo head unit you don't need to create a route and won't get much benefit from it). As you ride you will find you will be travelling established segments and you will be able to see the various hills etc. and track your improvements.
6-10% are significant hills so don't be surprised they feel challenging. On the upside they will make you a stronger cyclist.
Just in case.... To create a route on the website:- Click on the Strava logo top left to go to your home page.
- From Dashboard menu click on "My Routes"
- Click on "Create New Route".
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If you want to pre-map with stava, I think you can only do it on the site (not on the app). I think that's fairly common. I pre-map a lot of my rides, but do so on ridewithgps.com, so I could be wrong about strava.0
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