If you ask most people where their cycling weakness lies, they will more often than not say hill climbing. Nothing sucks the snap from your legs quicker than a steep uphill grade but nothing is more satisfying than conquering a tough hill. If your goal is better fitness you can’t get a better workout than a ride that hits hill after hill. As a coach, the most common questions I get revolve around how to be stronger on the hills.

Here are the four key areas that affect your ability to go uphill fast.

Climbing Power

Climbing well requires both cardiovasular and muscular endurance. Without getting too technical, the best way to get better at hill climbing is to climb. Hill repeats where you climb to the top, turn around, descend to the bottom and repeat are a great way to get a lot of hill work in a short workout. My favourite is to head out to local hill that is about 1 km long. It’s challenging with a few steep pitches with good visibility at the top and bottom, making it safer for turning around when doing repeats. Early in the season I’ll have athletes do 5-6 repeats, building to 15-20 further into the season.

When training to climb better it is important to work on both seated and standing climbing. Standing up when you hit a steep section is a good way to get up quicker and spread the load over more muscles but it only works if you work at it. When doing hill repeats, alternate doing one time up seated and the next standing. Just remember to switch a gear or two harder before you stand up as your cadence drops when you stand.

If you are a mountain biker, then heading up to your local ski hill is the best place to work on your climbing. You can do either long or steep and as it takes less time to go down than up you will spend more of your ride time climbing.

Bodyweight

This one is really simple. For the same fitness, the lighter you are the faster you will go up hill. Power to weight ratio is an exact science among pro roadies. For every 5lb you lose you will be 30 seconds faster over 5km of climbing at 7 percent grade. If like me, you can’t see your abs then work at cutting weight and you will see a big improvement in your climbing ability. Don’t lose weight too quickly though as it can negatively affect your power output. 1-2 lb per week is a safe level of weight lose without sacrificing energy you’ll need to train.

Core and upper body endurance

The legs are the prime movers on the bike but the support muscles like your arms, abs and lower back work constantly while riding. Over time they get tired and your pedaling form suffers. When it comes to climbing they work even harder so the fitter you are in your support muscles the longer and faster you will be able to climb. While your core can be the weak link on the bike the best way to train it is off the bike cross training. See the workout below to improve your core fitness and climb better.

Mental focus

I won’t lie to you, climbing is hard work. That is where both the challenge and reward come from. Part of climbing well is mental. Don’t look upon that big hill with dread. See it as a challenge to overcome. Keep telling yourself in your head that you are a good climber. Attack the little climbs like you own them.

Core Workout to improve your hillclimbing

Do this workout 2-3 times per week and you will notice an improvement in your cycling within 4 weeks. Try to do the workout with as little rest as possible between exercises. Do a set of each exercise, moving to the next immediately for a total of three circuits. As you become fitter build up to a total of 5 rounds.

3 rounds

15 dumbbell swings 15 Spiderman pushups 15 Sumo deadlift high pulls 15 seconds each of front planks and side planks to each side (build to 30 seconds)

This workout won’t take much time but will do a lot to improve your hill climbing. Put in consistent work and you will see progress in a very short time.

Mountain biking has taken the cycling world by storm. It wasn’t all that long ago when the phrase “mountain bike” would’ve elicited blank stares. Now you see them everywhere. Mountain bikes are made to handle almost every terrain imaginable, and that’s why they’ve become so popular. Just like SUV’s, most people who use them don’t have a need for their full range of functions, but it’s good to no the capability is there “just in case”.

Mountain bikes are nice even for the urban rider because they eliminate the worries one might have when encountering potholes, gravel, and bad road conditions. Mountain bike riders utilize their bikes for a wide range of activities and competitions. A number of races and competitions have sprung up to make use of the mountain bike’s many capabilities.

One such extreme mountain bike competition is known as cross-country (or XC) races. Cross-country mountain bike races usually cover about 30 miles and cover a variety of terrains. These races feature a mass start with all the riders taking off at the same time much like a marathon.

If cross-country races are too short for you, there’s always endurance (or enduro) racing. These races cover in excess of 70 miles and climb to elevations of 8000 feet and more.

For the real maniacs out there, the only way to go is downhill racing. Downhill races typically have staggered starts to try to minimize crashing, but as you can imagine, crashes are a regular part of such events. The racers fly down the hill at breakneck speeds, the key being to have the fastest time down the slope. Many of these races are held on ski slopes during the warmer months. Such competitions demand that the riders have the utmost skill and experience as it can be an extremely dangerous endeavor. These races aren’t for novices.

A competition rapidly growing in popularity is dirt jumping. This will be familiar to BMX enthusiasts as it’s essentially the same sort of competition. Such events aren’t races, of course. They’re judged events wherein riders compete to accomplish the biggest, most amazing jumps involving spinning the bike in the air, doing flips, and even completely letting go of the bike and getting back on before it lands.

Another form of extreme mountain bike competition is bike trials. These events involve navigating unbelievable difficult terrain without touching your feet to the ground. Bike trials require riders to balance their mountain bikes on rails, boulders, posts, tree stumps, and any number of seemingly impossible obstacles. The goal is to finish the course quickly and without having to put your feet down.

If any of these extreme mountain biking competitions appeal to you, start practicing and getting into shape. These events are for skilled and experienced riders only. They’re physically demanding and fairly dangerous. They are not for novices. Remember to wear a helmet and pads when attempting crazy stunts on your bike, and take care of yourself if you’re going to attempt extremely arduous long-distance rides.

Remember when you didn’t think about the gears on your bike? Your bike had a bike sprocket connected to the pedals and a small sprocket connected to the back wheel an that’s all you needed. Then you got a little older and got your first 10-speed. That bike had two sprockets up front and five on the back. In all likelihood, the shifters were a pair of levers connected to your bike frame near the handlebars. As time went on the shifters moved to the handlebars themselves and then became advanced-looking dials right beside the grips. And next thing you knew, instead of a paltry ten speeds on your bike, you were riding a 27-speed mountain climbing machine!

Why all these gears? To make riding faster and easier, of course. Whatever the number of gears your bike has, if it has 2 or more then there’s a basic set-up which almost every bike employs.

First of all you have your front and rear sprockets. These, along with the chain, form the most basic components of the gearing system. To determine your gear ratio you compare the number of teeth on the front sprocket to the number of teeth on the rear sprocket.

If your front sprocket has 52 teeth, and your rear sprocket has 20 teeth, then you’re looking at a ratio of 2.6. The higher the ratio the faster the gear. Typically the gears on the front, starting from the inside, get larger as you move out. On the back wheel, though, the largest gear is typically the farthest inside and they get smaller as you move out.

The next key component for your mountain bikes gears is the derailleur, or derailer. The derailleur is what moves the bicycle chain from gear to gear. A typical shifting system employs both a front and rear derailleur. Without the derailleur you wouldn’t be able to shift gears. The derailleur consists of pulleys and the cage, which is the part which actually comes into contact with the chain. The pulleys are attached to the gear cables. There are separate cables for the front and rear derailleurs. The gear cables connect to the gear shifters.

There are a variety of gear shifters available today and they cover a wide price range. The gear shifter is what allows you to change gears. The first type of shifters were levers known as friction shifters. These worked simply by pulling the cables attached to the derailleurs.

Friction shifters can be troubling because the way they’re designed you can easily get caught between gears and accidentally damage your gears or even wreck. The more advanced variety of shifter is known as the index shifter.

Index shifters have specific stopping points and are calibrated to perfectly shift from gear to gear. They remedy the drawbacks of the older friction shifters. Gear shifters may be placed anywhere from the frame to the handlebar base to the grips to models which seem to be part of the brake levers.

Mountain bikes have multiple gears to make it easier for you to negotiate difficult terrain. Higher gears are there to help you speed downhill or across the flats, and lower gears are there to help you surmount those difficult inclines. Remember, it’s best to shift gears when you’re not putting a lot of stress on your pedals. Shifting when there’s heavy pressure on the pedals can damage your shifting system.