Attack the hills!
Posted by Daniel Thu, 21 Sep 2006 00:55:00 GMT
Last Sunday I went for a really nice ride with three other folks from the RBC. The guy leading the ride has probably been riding in this area for more than 50 years, and it is amazing how well he knows the area. Around here what that means is that you can create a route that has no painfully long hills, which makes for a very pleasant Sunday morning ride.
The second part of this story is that my knee is still healing, but I went without NSAIDs (having forgot) and then hoped for the best. You might recall, dear audience, that I hurt my knee doing “out of saddle” intervals, which is short hand for I needed to get much better at getting in and out of the saddle (standing while riding) because while you support more of your own weight, you have gravity to help you push the pedals, and as I’ve noted, gravity loves me. It’s a very important tool and I was woefully bad at it, especially on a road bike where it felt completely different to me.
Since starting the conversion to “roadie” three seasons ago my approach to riding hills has been to “spin” up and over the hill. That is, to stay seated, find a gear where I can maintain some real leg motion (pushing less hard, for less long on each stroke, trading for more strokes. This has several benefits. One, it’s far easier on the knees. Two, it places a greater load on your cardiovascular system (which still needs serious work in my case) and three, and least important, is far closer to what I was used to mountain biking, and didn’t add one more bad skill to the pile required for me to shift to the entirely different position a road bike requires.
What I realized this year, is that unless you have the cardio system of three people (well that’s how it feels with my current fitness/weight situation) that spinning up and over hills has its limitations… namely that at some point you run out of lung/oxygen delivery capacity and you max your heart rate slowing one to a slug like pace that forces you to grind away despite the fact that you’re already in your lowest possible gear. It’s bad. And it makes it hard to keep up with a group of fitter folks.
This Sunday I was with a group whose pace was well within my abilities, and so I felt it was time to try something new. This was born out of an experience I had the previous Sunday riding down to Edgewater. I previously followed whoever was in front of me up the hills, and always spinning. If they went a bit faster fine, if they went a bit slower fine, except I’m not a good enough hill climber to play with tempo that way. I need to go up how I go up, and later on as I get better I’ll be able to play around with pace. But I failed to do so again and again because I thought I might learn something about hill climbing from whoever I was next to… um, well, not so much.
So I’ve been working on riding out of the saddle and have made some progress, so it was time to try it out on something longer than a rise in the road. On this ride, when we hit a hill, instead of worrying about down shifting, spinning etc. I attacked the hills and hit them hard. I’d pass whomever was in front of me… even without knowing the route, the hills, or how far to the top. I’d wait until I felt my out of saddle spin beginning to degrade and then it was out of the saddle to keep moving up and along. On this ride only one hill was long enough to cause me to have to sit and spin at all… but, well, OK I’m impressed with myself. The technique works great, and it’s certainly more fun to be the first person up the hill rather than the last.
Now this hasn’t made into a mountain goat by any stretch, but it certainly adds another power system to my climbing. That is, a different set of muscles get used, and one’s cardio system is not an instant on system. You don’t hit the hill and start breathing hard and pounding your heart (although it seems that way at times). What in fact happens is that you have a certain amount of time (depending on your fitness level and how hard you’re working) before all this happens. Work hard enough for a short period of time and you’re over the hill. You don’t start breathing hard until you’re on the flat or downhill side… where it is possible to recover. Cool. 36 miles with one lovely lady saying “Wow, you’re strong on the hills…” Mmm, not so much, but it’s all a matter of perspective. She was doing exactly what I had done until a few weeks ago, namely only spinning up the hills, and losing some momentum at the bottom concerning herself with down shifting. I thought I might share why I seemed strong, but the right time never presented itself. It will, no worries.
My knee didn’t hurt much on Sunday as I did this, but I still felt it, and I haven’t been getting the miles in I was getting a few weeks ago, so I decided to just spin on Monday, and see how my knee was doing. Not so good. Considering how lightly I was going at it on Monday, it hurt pretty good. Tuesday I stayed off the bike, and checked in with a recently written book on fit and cycling related injury. It doesn’t hurt that my wife is physical therapist.
Today, I raised my seat a bit, tried it, decided it was too high, lowered it almost back to where it was, tried again, decided it was too low, and raised it back up a bit. That felt better, and so did my knee. I got a bit lower leg crampy after doing the Lake’s little hills, no doubt because of the additional stretch, but my knee felt good. I theorize that a few weeks ago when I had to reset my seat on the fly I may have dropped it a bit, though I was as careful as could be… it’s been feeling a little low. My knee definitely felt better today, so I’m going to keep the change and see how it goes. It couldn’t be much more than 2 - 3 centimeters. It was also a reminder to do more stretching.
So when I hit the little hills today I decided I would try the same technique all the way to the golf course hill extension. It’s a short rise, but kinda steep at the end, and I use it as a test for all sorts of things. Today I popped up out of the saddle, went until I felt like I was getting a bit shaky in the legs, sat, spun, popped up etc. a couple more times and then finally down shifted and spun up the last short section. Nice! I’m definitely getting better at this.
Things on my list for the winter:
