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Over the last four years I have been on a bit of a journey - lost 40 kgs, reversed diabetes and decided that to being a hedonistic slob is not a good thing.
Having officially given "working for the man" the heave ho on the day lock-down started - I have been using that time productively - I cycle between 3-4 times week on the South Downs and surround. I am doing 100kms average a week - but up to 50kms in a run. My fitness has come on leaps and bounds - so doing / distance etc are okay. I can hold my own , no trouble
But I always loose out on the uphills - I am not light (100kgs) - and the folks I ride with are general not of the same stature. One has an e-bike - so that doesn't help psychologically.
Last night was the first time I gave up on a hill on the SDW area in two years - - it wasn't ability - it was mental / stamina. It has pissed me off - I am going to have to go back and ride that up hill until I can do it later this week.
Question: at 60, asthmatic, suffering badly from hay fever at the moment - how can I get better at endurance climbing - i.e 250 metre thinking up something steep. I know I can do it on familiar terrain - and once I have done it, it is then bagged. And how do I get faster ??
Or is weight / age the limiting factor - and I should just get on with enjoying it - or buy an e-bike?
Thoughts
Can only really say well a massive well done on your achievements thus far, that's brilliant, phenomenal stuff.
I'm fitter than I've ever been, and regularly ride with mates on ebikes, it's hard not to get too disconcerted when you're struggling to keep up with guys that you know your fitter than, I tend to just have a word with myself, usually works!.
Keep riding, keep enjoying it and it'll come, all the best sir.
Lose weight if you can. Do high-intensity stuff instead of endurance training. Do some running instead of only riding a bike (I hate running, but it will get you fit much faster than riding a bike). Don't bother trying to keep up with e-bikes, you will never win, they're not in the same race as you. Same goes for younger, fitter riders. You're only competing against yourself so set your goal as finishing every climb instead of beating other riders.
My experience
got back into riding a year ago, first time since I was a kid, now 43, not especially overweight and had been doing weights for a few years rather than much cv.
my local is QECP, and the hills kill, even now.. but i think i've got a grip on it. can do flat 30 mile ride without much issues, but chuck in a steep drawn out hill and it hurts like hell.
I ride with a lot of guys that end up waiting for me, but they wait, that's what we do, ride up, wait, descend, wait, rinse and repeat.
The biggest thing with hills is learning to pace yourself, don't play keep up, its too easy to play keep up and burn out too quick and not have anything left to complete the hill at your won pace.
My issue is i do chuck it in the granny gear and after a lot of spinning i can become out of breath with a high heart rate.
So.. the hills i ride i ride regularly, might do the same climb 4 times in a ride, i run strava on my rides, and i do see improvements over time, that's enough psychological boost to get through it.
If i bail and walk, i bail and walk, as soon as i feel ready get back on. I will do it next time...
I am no expert but I have always gone with the theory that if you want to get better at climbing hills, you need to practice climbing lots of hills. If you want to be a better sprinter, do lots of sprinting etc.
I was told, a lot of years ago, that to get better I should attack every hill hard after a few weeks of struggling to complete some of then I noticed that it was having the desired effect. So it was part mental part the need for higher intensity stuff.
For me its not how fast you climb a hill, but more "can I clean it in one go?". The trick to this is to keep as much energy in the tank as you possibly can for as long as you can (don't burn matches - as roadies like to say) so go slow. If its a hill you can't normally get up, go even slower, treat it as a slow bike race 🙂
At no point try and keep up with another rider (especially one with a bloody motor!) until you are confident you can do so without blowing up before the summit.
– and I should just get on with enjoying it –
This is where my focus would be. I got a bit stuck in the rut of of riding the same stuff over and over trying to do it faster. Then in October I had a major heart attack followed by a, thankfully minor, heart attack in March and I still have ongoing angina (I'm 52).
Currently I'm just tentatively starting out again on the flat for short rides, but at some point I'm going to have to do some climbs.
I think that fun is going to be the key focus from now and the health benefits more secondary. As climbs go I've always been a sit and spin chap; perhaps some lower gears would be of benefit as you start out.
Good luck.
Get a single speed. 😉
Fair play though chap - that's a lot of weight shifted. Well done indeed. 👍
My climbing on a bike improved when I started running, and again when using the Wallace Monument as my daily run area - alternated 5k run around or hill reps up the steep bit. It is 60m climb in about 500m.
I'm one of those perverts that really enjoys steep climbs. I live in the South Downs so I know that sort of climb you're talking about. I can't speak to fitness as I've never followed a fitness programme. So this is all in my own uninformed experience. For steep climbs power is more of a factor than endurance. You need to be able to push hard for 3-5 minutes. So how do you increase power? I wish I knew! I did some tough interval training over winter that definitely helps - you need to be on your limit. I tend climb in as big a gear as I can. I would guess that some weight training would probably help if you were really serious. And losing more weight obviously a good thing.
The other thing that helps is technique. Most of the climbs on the Downs are smooth so you're not riding up rock steps. So keeping power delivery smooth is easier, getting low on the bike, staying seated, weight forward, spinning the pedals as fast as possible for the really steep stuff and keeping breathing deeply.
I am going to have to go back and ride that up hill until I can do it
This is it for me. Don't lose sight of having fun, but if you can't do something, keep doing it until you can. And guess what? It'll make you stronger - physically and mentally.
Similar to what other folks have mentioned, a key thing on climbs is weight - and the only thing I've found really effective for me in getting the weight off was running.
I still need to lose a fair bit of weight to be actually any good on the climbs though! At the moment my times on flat or downhill Strava segments are fine (as long as they're not technical - I'm crap at anything technical!) but on any decent climb I'm usually struggling amongst the bottom half (or for road climbs, the bottom third) of all the folks that have done them.
If you want to improve, then the short answer is... Interval training, 1/5/10/20min etc.
Purely as an example, I tackled some of my local short/sharp monsters last Friday, hard up the inclines and recover on the flat/downhill. https://www.strava.com/activities/3639326245/analysis
On Saturday, I did a fairly hilly gran fondo, but unusually didn't go nuts up any of the climbs... Staying below my LTHR of ~167bpm and my FTP of ~280W as much as I could up the hills, using my easier gears. First time I've done a sub 4 hour fondo, because normally I've wrecked my self up some cat 4s/3s on the ride and I'm running on fumes on the homeward leg. https://www.strava.com/activities/3645536020/analysis
On Monday, I left it late to head out and a few hill intervals before heading home with a z4 effort. https://www.strava.com/activities/3655622726/analysis
With experience, you get to know what your power and heartrate ballpark limitations are for different time durations.
I love chasing my own times up hills, I just wish I had started playing this game longer than three years ago, it might have stopped me being 90-95Kg for years, whereas as now I fluctuate in the 73-80Kg ballpark (~78Kg and hopefully dropping, now I'm doing more interval cycling again after C19).
AS others have said- more hills and bit less weight if poss.
Back in 2015 I got signed up to do the Ride London and was 89kg. Most of my training rides were on the flat so when I went out with a mate, his route had a few hills (tho' this is Kent so quite tame) and I was left for dead, even running a triple. My first MTB was a lightweight xc bike so sped up the hills ahead of everyone else. I was younger and fitter then but it was a shock to be struggling that much.
As my weight dropped to low 70's and a new route including a few climbs it paid off. I also had a few shorter rides just repeating the closest hills.
Start of this year, weight was up to 86kg, so getting back on STW Chub Club and doing more riding and a bit of running has seen that drop to 71kg. The hills I used to grind up using the triple, I'm staying in the middle ring as I'm toying with the idea of changing to a double only.
Most of my ST MTB riding is undulating technical xc, but I'm lucky to live at the bottom of a decent range. What I've noticed is that if I ride a few solid long climbs my technical climbs get heaps easier. Out of my door I can ride 500m vertical on bitumen, or over 22km get 1000m climb with some insane steep dirt tracks. When I go back to the 5-10 minute single track my body and brain can't believe it.
As for running, I gave it up to ride so I can't say how that compares. I suffered badly from delayed onset muscle soreness only from running for decades without realising it was unusual, but approaching my forties I realised I just couldn't run anymore and expect to be able to walk normally for a few days. Gutted as I did enjoy it ... But biking made me sane again.
asthmatic, suffering badly from hay fever at the moment
Get to doctors, have your asthma check, request spirometry or at leas peak flow self testing.
Get some new or newer generation non-drowsy antihistamine tablets. Like Fexofenadine, Bilastine or Rupatadine.
Don't let them fend you off with cheap, old, over the counter likes of Loratadine or Citarizine.
Just on my first week of peak flow test and hoping that after that will be off the Salbutamol for good once all treatment will be done.
Cheers!
I.
If its just getting up them thats the issue you need to pace yourself, go really slow at the bottom and try not to worry if other zoom off ahead. Protocol is everyone waits at the top of climbs, this is universal so make use of it. When out on your own try a bit harder on climbs you know you can do, try and go harder when you know your 30s from the top or something and just increase steadily.
I have the opposite problem and the fat lads always drop me on the flats and I dont see them again!!
The annoying thing is that in my younger / fitter days , I loved doing steep climb , or long climbs - as I had the mental endurance.
Friday will be time to re-visit it on my lonesome and make sure I work out the technique to get up it ... but I do think the answer is to try and do it until you can ...
I guess "faster" will come after that.
One caveat is that did a ride on Monday of 30k - whilst not over taxing might have meant why I felt so sluggish on the Tuesday ride.
BTW - down hills are not a problem .... and I am never last!