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Living with hills — Part 2

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More “Living with hills (and how you can learn to love them)“, part 2 of ?

I had a few questions after the first hills article and I thought answering them would be a good start for this follow on.

Question 1 Some riders seem to stand up when doing hills and some sit in the saddle. Why is that? When should one stand going up a hill? Is there an ideal way (i.e. intermittently sit/stand sit/stand) to shoot for? What are the advantages and disadvantages of standing to climb a hill?

You get the most power generation sitting down and keeping your cadence up (using clips and a good “circle” technique, see #2). However, when you stand up, you do get the added benefit of all your weight pushing down on the pedal — as long as you’re lifting your other leg and not pushing it up too!!

Personally, I haven’t found that standing really gets me going any faster, and takes just as much, if not more, energy and I get winded faster. Even so, standing can give your hamstrings a break. I had a friend who was a very good climber and he mimicked some tour-de-france rider who claimed that changing your hand positions from the drops to the hoods to the top of the handle bars gave you six positions for climbing (those three positions and sitting or standing). He further claimed that each position used slightly different muscles so that you could get some good benefits by switching between them on a climb. Though I was never quite convinced of the theory, he always beat me up the hills. On a long hard climb, I’ll stand about 25% of the way, just for the change. Also, have you ever heard of “the magic shift”? Shift up to a higher gear or two as you’re standing, and shift back to a lower gear as you’re sitting down.

Question 2 Some riders do not have clips, or those straps on their pedals. Does having the right clips help the climb by lifting with one leg while pushing with the other? If using the lifting leg is helpful, what is the best technique?
Pedals with toe clips

Pedals with Toe Clips

Yeah, clips (or cleated shoes and “clipless” pedals) help engage more of your leg muscles than your quads — which is what your mostly using if you have just a flat pedal and no clips. Pedaling in a circle is the most effective way to use all of your leg muscles. Practice in a training stand, on a stationary bike, or on a flat section of road. Unclip one leg and try to make a perfectly smooth circle with the other leg. Then switch feet. It’s harder than you think, but a little practice and you’ll be spinning up faster that you can say “Contador!” If you aren’t lifting the leg that’s not providing power, you’re using your other leg to lift it up and using power that would otherwise be delivered to the wheels. Another tip I’ve heard and used is to move your foot like you were scraping mud off the bottom of your shoe using the pedal.

“Clipless”* cycling shoes have a number of advantages over your sneakers. First, the soles are quite stiff and this allows the pressure on your feet to be distributed and not concentrated on the ball of your foot. Secondly, the direct connection between the shoe and the pedal lets you use that upstroke to contribute the power of your hamstrings to the move the cranks. A properly fit cycling shoe along with a proper spinning technique will let you ride farther with less foot fatigue.

Shoes with CleatsClipless Pedals
Cleats on shoes (left). Clipless Pedals (right).

This is also a good time to talk about cadence. Cadence is the number of revolutions per minute of the cranks (i.e., your feet). Racing cyclists generally have cadences of 80 to 110 RPM. Recreational riders are usually at 60-80 RPM. When you’re climbing a hill, your cadence will drop about 20 RPM and that’s normal. The advantages of keeping a higher cadence is that you are doing those circles using more muscles and that puts less stress on your knee joints. It’s just another factor you can experiment with to get a more comfortable and efficient ride.

*-clipless in the sense that the cage-style pedals that were the first attempt at providing lifting power were called “Clips”. Those were replace by “clipless” in which a cleat on the shoe is “clipped” into the pedal. The terms can be confusing because you “clip-in” with a “clipless” pedal.

Question 3 Should one ‘carb up’ prior to a climb or wait to get hungry?

Long climb coming up? Carb up about 10-20 minutes before you get to the hill. Otherwise, the sugars won’t be digested enough to help you. Shorter climbs? — not really going to help much as you’ll be over them before the sugar boost kicks in. Best to eat a good pre-ride meal with enough time to digest some of the food, since generally, the body will divert resources from digestion to support activity. That time will, of course, vary with individuals and some people may prefer to go out on an empty stomach. Whatever works for you. You can’t do long distances without fuel, however. Intense exercise requires 30-60g of carbohydrates per hour**– you can burn 6000 calories doing a century ride, so don’t neglect your need for calories when you’re out there riding. If you use gels, you’ll need to drink water with them or they’ll just sit there making you feel sluggish.

** – “Life cycle nutrition: an evidence-based approach.” S. Edelstein, J. Sharlin

Question 4 Any tips on clothing for climbing and descent?

Sounds like another article on “Why we wear spandex!” ;) Avoiding the deeper issue of spandex for now, for cycling in general, you want tight fitting clothing to be more aerodynamic and to avoid flapping. If your clothes are flapping, that means you’re catching the wind and that sucks energy from your forward motion, meaning you have to put in more effort to go the same distance as your body glove clad riding partner. You’ll want good clothing that wicks away moisture, too, but I’ll save that for the “Why spandex?” article.

As for what to wear when, well, that’s very unique to individuals, the time of year, and the current weather conditions. I guess I’m being asked about cold weather because in hot weather you just wear as little as you can possibly get away with and not end up in jail. In colder and wet weather, you’ll have to experiment with what works for you. A wise, experienced cyclist once taught me to “go out expecting to be cold for ten minutes or so”. With activity, you’ll warm up soon and if you overdress, the rest of your ride you’ll be uncomfortably hot.” See the Winter Cycling Tips article on this site for some good guidelines for clothing to use in varying conditions (with a good deal of thanks due to the crew at Freeze-Thaw Cycles in State College. Caution: Spandex ahead).

3/15/2011 Meeting Minutes

CRBC Meeting Minutes |  3/15/2011 @ SC Municipal Building | Bike Summit Review | Rumble Strips Update | How Houghton Mich became a Bicycle Friendly Community.

Bike Summit Report from Jordyn Drayton and Eddie Magulick

Jordyn, Carrol, Eddie, and Frank all went to the 2011 Bike Summit held in Washington, DC, recently and reported their findings to the CRBC group present at the meeting. This included talking with representatives and their aids. On Thursday morning Senator Casey has a breakfast that anyone can attend. Don’t go for the food.. You get to shake hands with the senator, and say a few words. Bike folks were the majority in the room that day. Casey traditionally votes up on multi-modal bills and his aid, Ed Stodard? is on the ball when it comes to cycling issues. The group commented that Ed was well informed about what cyclists want.

The groups message, and the message of the Summit was focused on the economic impacts of cycling.

At congressman Thompson’s office the group spoke with a Mr. Crist? who was not as versed as Casey’s aid. The group commented that he didn’t make eye contact and seemed to be a little despondent.  Jordyn commented that Thompson seemed to be a nice guy.  The message that day was economic impacts and the group sited Huntingdon, PA.  The Allegripis Trails have had a 4 million dollar impact on the local economy. And, they have only been around for a year. Thompson said during the brief discussion that rising gas prices equals more bike riding. Thompson votes in lockstep with Schuster who votes bike related issues up, which is good. “we are in a weird position with funding” Jordyn said, bikes are a cheap way to get around. Currently there are not any funding bills related to bikes moving through the house right now.

First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign was really awesome.

National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) is trying to bring the rules of European roads to North America. They have had a positive effect on the roads in NYC. Click Here for more.  The group thought that looking into this for the Center Region would be awesome.

PennDOT and the Rumble Strips

There were a couple of CRBC folks, Paul and Chuck, who met with PennDOT officials about the rumble strip issue. A couple of years ago there was some money that was allocated federally for the states to put in rumble strips. There was some stipulations, like there had to be a 4’ median. This problem was not isolated to the Center Region, it is national.

CRBC would like to thank the Center Region COG for helping to keep this issue on the hot button.

PennDOT is now fixing the issue. Go to the web article somewhere on this website to find out more about this issue.

How Houghton Michigan Became Bike Friendly

Ann (didn’t get her last name, sorry ann) spoke to the attendees at the CRBC meeting about her recent involvement in getting Houghton Michigan honored as Bicycle Friendly Community (BFC). Ann, a recent transplant to SC, commented that Houghton is similar to SC in that it has a university, Michigan Tech (6,000) located in the downtown, and lots of students riding to work.  There are also a lot of IMBA action close to town like here in SC. A task force formed with a lot of different people on it, these folks put together a survey (survey monkey) and some maps of bike routes (both of which we already have), and started to shop the idea of BFC around to elected officials. They developed a bike route map, that turned into a bike plan that incorporated students, faculty and staff of Mich Tech. The plan was assembled by the regional transportation planner and paid for through her salary.

Bike to work day tripled in numbers as awareness rose in the community, people began to own the idea of living in a bike friendly community.

2. Policy | Houghton was a little light on community involvement. At first, Ann commented that officials weren’t sure of the benefits of becoming a BFC. Eventually came around and felt moved to put some paint on the road, bike lanes and such.  Events became a part of the process, and had a positive effect on the number of folks out riding.

The Health Department was all for the BFC initiative, knowing how this would positively affect the overall health of the community.

They used Madison’s bike parking stuff, which is excellent. Now every new building has to address bike parking (why can’t we do that here?). They got the Mayor to sign on to the idea of BFC.

There are 2 state highways that go through Houghton, and M-DOT was not pleasant to deal with.

Ann commented that Houghton is not as nice a place to ride as the Center Region…and why are we not a BFC?

Read more about Houghton’s Win here

Breakout Sessions

 The group then split into two groups, the special event group and the BFC group.

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