Trust the trainingĮveryone will ascend faster by doing dedicated hill climb training. Yet it probably shouldn’t have and wouldn’t have if I’d been more realistic. Exhausted by the morning effort, my performance at Bank Road disappointed me because I hadn’t tempered my expectations. I fell into this trap at the Matlock double header: you climb Riber in the morning and Bank Road in the afternoon, two of the UK’s toughest climbs.Ī friend from the area had warned me about Riber’s difficulty, and how he and other riders avoid it all costs. While it’s enjoyable and good training to cram multiple races into a weekend, given their intensity, you can’t expect to be at your best for the second or third. I can attest race pacing is devilishly tricky to get right, having finished races grovelling over the line and also frustratingly fresh.Īs a rider with little to no kick, I found the best pacing strategy for me is to gradually ramp up the intensity rather than holding something back for an explosive final flurry. “But you are so desperate not to go out too hard, so I was afraid of that.” “Whether I could have found that a little bit further down the climb, may be so. Halls PhotographyĪll of the elite women and men hill climbers I spoke to after Sunday’s race emphasised the importance of pacing.Ģ021 National Hill Climb champion Tom Bell, who finished second this year, said: “Maybe I could’ve picked it up sooner, but I didn’t want to explode and lose time that way. Jack didn’t leave anything out on the road of the Old Shoe. I finished in 20th out of 133 and 25 seconds off the winning time of 2:50 in one of my more competitive performances. Second, climbs with relatively shallow gradients are more forgiving to absolute power, although the rider with the highest power-to-weight ratio will likely still prevail.Ī good example is Bristol’s Belmont Hill, a 1.3km climb averaging 7.6 per cent. On Sunday, the power I held for seven minutes exceeded what I’d managed for just five minutes at the start of the season.īecause weight loss has previously left me under-fueled and under-powered, it wasn’t something I wished to flirt with this year.ĭon’t feel being a taller, heavier rider like myself (190cm and 75kg) is a barrier to hill climbing.įirst, because it doesn’t matter how fast you climb in this welcoming form of racing. You’ll get faster if your power goes up and weight stays the same, which is what I managed this year. Losing weight helps to go fast uphill but is not essential. The hill climbing Holy Grail remains increasing power while losing weight cycling.īut weight is just half of the power-to-weight ratio equation. It’s the domain of the sub-6kg bike and the 60kg rider, so this heading must look contrarian if not contradictory. Hill climbing is the most weight-obsessed branch of a weight-obsessed sport. Steep UK hills require power as well as low weight. Unless you’re an elite or especially competitive rider, you’re largely racing against yourself.Īs a result, my most satisfying races were not my highest placings but when I paced it well or produced a power personal best. If you train with power, you know whether your average watts on the climb are above or below your potential. If you’ve ridden the climb before, you compare your time to a previous best – if not, to riders of a similar ability. After crossing the line, you know straight away if you’ve left any strength on the hill. The feedback from a hill climb race is instantaneous. I can’t put it any more pithily than that, though I will expand a little. “I like how it is pure and guaranteed to be painful.” “Everybody is out there just trying to bury themselves for however long the hill is. The women’s UK National Hill Climb champion, Illi Gardner, summed up the draw of the discipline when I spoke to her after Sunday’s nationals. But it’s an addictive one and why hundreds of hill climbers like myself return week after week. That’s an odd way to spend a weekend morning. Slumped over your handlebars across the finish line, the taste of blood permeates through your throat. You sprint uphill until your legs and lungs burn. The intense, short-lived discomfort hooks hundreds of hill climbers.
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