Cycling to get fitter

Stick with it and it gets easier as your fitness improves.

Many road bikes only have a double crankset which makes climbing very difficult. All my bikes have a triple crankset for climbing. My favorite day to day bikes are hybrids which have road bike frame geometry with mountain bike gearing.

Tell us more about your bike.

Great choice. I started cycling to work as part of my fitness/weight loss regime. Go out as often as you can and have fun. The hills get easier over time.

The best advice I have for learning to climb is:

1. Don't tell yourself you can't before you try. Look at the hill as a challenge rather than an obstacle.

2. Find someone to ride with who knows how. Listen and watch. Many times local clubs will offer a beginner ride or have a few folks that will gladly take you out for a ride. I'm actually meeting a beginner tomorrow before the club ride to do a 30 min ride with her.

3. Find a small hill to practice on. Try to pick a gear that you think you can climb in before you start the actual climb. This is tricky, so try a few different ones. If the easiest gear is the one you need, use it. If you still don't make it, just try to make it a little further each time. I promise you you'll get there.

4. Don't avoid hills. The only way to get better is to do it. I've never met a hill I can't walk. Sounds silly, but it's true. You aren't going to die, and we've all walked hills. Heck, I ride a lot of hills and I still occasionally miss a shift and end up off my bike.

5. Enjoy the ride. Don't make every ride a hard ride. Work hills, but not exclusively. Some days it's nice just to tool around.

Learn to shift properly and often. Keep your "cadence" (the number of full rotations per minute) fairly equal, so if you're heading up an incline, shift down to make it easier, and keep shifting down--keeping the cadence relatively the same. Try not to just gun it up the hill and pedal harder and harder (and slower and slower), where you end up depleting your glycogen stores in your muscles (that's the point where your quads are screaming and you have to simply stop or get off the bike and walk).

Instead, use every gear you need to, shifting down further to continue to make your pedaling as easy on your legs as possible. You may go so slow as to think you're almost standing still, but pedaling like a fiend...but that's ok. Your muscles won't take as long to be depleted.

And just keep biking. It's an excellent activity to help build endurance and get fitter.

As an aside, in the winter when biking outside may be impossible, if you have access to an exercise bike and/or weights, try learning weighted squats (and break parallel to engage your hams/glutes) and if an exercise bike has cages for the feet, try one-legged pedaling. It helps build the hip adductor (or abductor?? whatever) muscles that help you bring your legs to the top of the pedal rotation. Squats will help with that too; one of the best exercises you can do to help your biking are weighted squats.

just keep cycling...and utilize your gears.

When it comes to climbing: “It doesn’t get any easier; you just go faster.” —Greg LeMond. Totally true. This is my third season "seriously" cycling. Three years ago, I was excited when I rode 20 miles. Now, a typical weeknight ride is around 30 miles. I'm racing, and loving it. So keep at it. It gets better! I can't even put in words how cycling has impacted my life. I've made some great friends, and have done things on a bicycle I never thought possible. Mountain biking this weekend, I was able to take a super tight "s" curve that I've never been able to do without putting a foot down before. The feeling knowing that I conquered that stupid corner was amazing!

That's awesome! The best thing I ever did was join a local bike club. You'll be safer in numbers, make some great friends & quickly see improvement.