Uphill riding hard for me

Question

New to riding what is the best way to ride going uphill? I live on a hill going down is fine but I have a hill to get to the main road.

Answer 1

I'm also relatively new to riding and would like to share with you my experience here. I also struggle specifically with climbs.

1. As a beginner you're expected to build base miles endurance. The more you ride the better your body is going to become for cycling. Heart volume increases, muscle efficiency increases and you would be able to handle the load much easier.
2. The best way to become better at something is to do this more often. Our body knows that it's hard for us and optimizes for this specific load so next time it gets easier. Use the climb you have as an opportunity to become better. In Norway there are many mountains which population faces every day, this makes them super fit and healthy, so consider the climb as a chance for you to improve. Sometimes I take alternative commute route just to take a few extra climbs.
3. Weight. The more you weight the harder it gets. If you have extra weight just keep on riding and eventually you will lose it and it will make climbing easier too (I lost about 5KG in 4 months and it helped me a lot! :)
4. Gearing. Every terrain requires specific gearing. Keep the easiest gear and see if your heart rate is steady when you climb (preferably staying before the anaerobic zones). If not and you kind of "blow up" and have to push really hard on the pedals - you may consider to get easier gears. It is surprising how many relatively new bikes still have bad gearing for beginners, tested on myself.
5. Pacing. Some climbs can be taken in fast rapid action, others require steady long work. Both types require different muscles types, so it's worth practicing both approaches if it's possible. If the climb is too long or hard for you it's better to take it easy, stay in the saddle and rotate that easy gear! If you can't make the entire climb on a bike just do whatever you can do - and walk the rest of the way. Keep yourself positive and motivated - next time you're going to make few meters more, at some point you're going to make it all and even challenge yourself to make it even faster!

Generally speaking, the more you practice the more "flat" the surface becomes in your eyes. I remember myself telling to my friend that I don't want to take that route to work because it has that annoying "climb", year after I ride that "climb" averaging 30km/h without even noticing that surface gradient change.

Answer 2

Basically the only real way to get better at going up hills is to get fitter - which you can do by repeatedly riding the hill :-)

Some tips:

• Stay sitting down
• Use low gears and a fairly high pedaling cadence
• Use good gear management, shift down progressively as you start the hill and keep pedaling cadence up.

The main point is you want to avoid using your anaerobic system and exhaust your legs. Pedaling too slowly and too hard will make you go anaerobic. Low gears and faster pedaling will keep you aerobic longer.

Answer 3

First off, it sounds like you start your ride going up a hill. This is always going to be a bit hard because usually you wont' have warmed up at this point. You should use the lowest gear on your bike and go as easy as possible.

With that said, four factors are at play:

• Fitness: riding uphill is a battle with gravity. While you can roll along flat roads with no real effort, uphill requires a certain amount of effort simply to conquer the effect of gravity. The amount of effort depends on the steepness of the hill and the combined weight of you and your bike. Provided you don't gain weight, as you ride more and become stronger you will increase your power to weight ratio, which will make climbing easier.
• Technique: ideally, you want your legs to be spinning quickly, so you need to choose a gearing ratio that lets you do this. Start with the smallest chainring on the front, and the largest on the back, and see how that feels. If it is too easy and you're going too slow, you could then consider changing gears. On a short and steep climb, riding out of the saddle adds extra power, because you are able to use your body weight for leverage on the pedals. However, staying seated most of the time will be more efficient over a longer climb. Mixing the two together often helps to reduce fatigue.
• Bike fit: having your bike well adjusted is important. Saddle height and position need to be adjusted so that you and your bike are well matched. If you are interested in riding a lot, you might want to consider getting a bike fit at your local bike shop. Otherwise follow an online guide and adjust it yourself.
• Equipment: an older, heavier, or poorly maintained bike will make riding and especially climbing harder. In this case, get your bike serviced, or learn to service it yourself. Also, having a bike that doesn't have a good gear range for your fitness and local terrain will make climbing hard as well. Even a great, expensive, lightweight (but aggressively geared) race bike will be hard to get up a hill if you're new to cycling and don't have the fitness for it. If you struggle to climb using the smallest ring on the front and the largest on the back, then you may want to consider your options for changing the gearing on your bike (talk to your local shop).

Answer 4

Get pedals with pegs. They bite into the soles of your shoes, which greatly increases your grip to the pedal. What that allows you to do (with a little practice) is to pull the pedal with one leg as you are pushing the pedal with the other. In other words, you can then use all of your leg muscles, as well as work both pedals at the same time, which makes going uphill much easier.

Just watch out for the pegs. They bite into your shoes, but they can also bite quite hard into your leg when you are walking your bike.

Alternatively you could get pedals that attach to your feet (such as "clipless" pedals), but you would need special shoes for that.

PS. I use Atlas pedals from Race Face for this and they work excellently, but there are much cheaper pegged pedals that work similarly.

Answer 5

There are only two answers to this question:

1. Being fit and normal weight and riding a bike with reasonable weight and multiple gears
2. An electric bike

I remember a long time ago I was fit and of normal weight; I never found uphills a problem for me. I obviously had a bike that wasn't too heavy (it was about 17 kg), and I had the luxury of downshifting whenever encountering a hill. However, I noticed that after having a nearly one year break from cycling, when resuming occasional riding hills were annoying to me. Of course riding bike more often would have solved this issue.

Note I didn't specify anything other than "multiple gears". About every multi-gear setup works equally fine. The only borderline case is a 2-speed system but you find those only on Bromptons (where it has 133% range). Even a three-speed internal gear hub is perfect for riding up hills as it has 178% range which is plenty. Once you have even a basic gearing setup, you are as good to go as you would be with a 2x12 speed road double.

Electric bikes are mainly useful if you are neither fit nor of normal weight. This applies for me currently and I never consider any hill a problem for me for the reason of having an e-bike. My mid-drive produces 50 Nm torque. I still downshift for uphills. With the most powerful mid-drives, even a single speed e-bike could be acceptable but with 50 Nm I still prefer to downshift when riding up steep hills.