# Hill training-without hills



## mlombard (Jun 8, 2009)

Ok, strange question...is there a way to do "hill training" without actual hills? Everyone says the only way to get better at hills is to ride hills. My schedule on Saturdays allows me to get out of town and find some hills, but I ride 25 miles Monday and Wednesday with a group after work and our ride is virtually flat. Any suggestions for simulating hill training either outdoors or at the gym? I appreciate the help. BTW-the reason I ask is that I have a bike trip planned for Oct. and there will be serious hills on that ride!


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## muscleendurance (Jan 11, 2009)

*2 ways*

indoor on the turbo trainer (and put a few books under th front wheel to simulate gradient like climbing)

wind: outdoors obviously! - train into wind, th stronger the better, and the more non gusty the better, you want constant resistance. Also roads that are false flats, use a higher gear than normal (if your bodys trying to tell you to get out of the saddle, you in the right gear, just push against the resistance like when climbing)

oh yeah. It doesnt matter if your a flatlander or live in the mountains (its a myth)
one look at pancake flat holland and their victory Palmares on Alpe d'huez is the best proof of that one :wink5:


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## velogirl (Oct 14, 2005)

putting a stack of books under your front wheel will only simulate a stack of books under your front wheel. gradient (ie the stack of books) is only indicative of hills if you're moving weight up the grade. 

add resistance (using your gears) to any workout (indoor or outdoor) and you will simulate the intensity of climbing.

if you want to work on technique (balance and form), find a short hill where you can work repeats. I have a client in Florida who uses a parking ramp/garage or a highway overpass/bridge.

Lorri


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## function (Jun 20, 2008)

velogirl said:


> putting a stack of books under your front wheel will only simulate a stack of books under your front wheel. gradient (ie the stack of books) is only indicative of hills if you're moving weight up the grade.


 +1



velogirl said:


> add resistance (using your gears) to any workout (indoor or outdoor) and you will simulate the intensity of climbing.


Good points, i do the vast majority of my 'hill training' on flat country roads.


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## DelawareDager (Jul 16, 2008)

multi level parking garage


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## Peanya (Jun 12, 2008)

I've followed much of the advice given here (riding into wind, putting into a high gear), and it helps a little. It still will not train you for the reality of it. It can, however, make the hills a little bit less brutal.


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## saf-t (Sep 24, 2008)




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## iliveonnitro (Feb 19, 2006)

What everyone is trying to get at is that it's not exactly possible to duplicate it.

In the end, it breaks down into two things: power and weight. Increase your power, decrease your weight. Just because a rider can train on mountains all the time doesn't make him/her good at going uphill. Someone from Florida with a higher power to weight ratio can still beat them.


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## tbong27 (Oct 6, 2008)

@Velogirl Would multi storey carparks work?  not that steep though


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## moabbiker (Sep 11, 2002)

A good stationary trainer, I suppose. Most of the cheap, even mid priced ones don't have enough resistance to simulate even moderate grades so you got to look for one that's capable enough. As for parking ramps and stuff, eh, I dunno. maybe for BMX training, I can't see how those short bursts would help any for road climbing. One thing that I found helfpul is to find a segment that's mildly sloping (3-4%) with a consistent strong headwind. That'll make it seem a good deal harder to get going on... problem is that wind strength and direction can be hard to predict even in windy areas.


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## Blue CheeseHead (Jul 14, 2008)

20 minute big ring/small cog on my Kurt Kinetic repeats do a pretty good job. Keep the cadence at ~ 60 rpm. Do sets of 4. You might want to start out at 10 minutes per rep with a 5 minute recovery in between. Work your way up to 20 minute efforts.

It helped my climbing and big ring power on the flats.


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## B15serv (Apr 27, 2008)

Perhaps somebody can shed some light on why climbing training is needed for climbing. Heres my thoughts... when climbing you are doing X power at Y cadence in V gear with the bike at W speed and Z angle. Other than comfort and breathing your angle shouldnt really matter since I can climb in the drops or sprint on the flats if i really chose to. (not that i would) So this removes Z from the equation. The speed only matters in a race so forget W as well. The gear you're in isnt really important either since your power/cadence is whats important so lets also remove "V".
This leaves us with X power at Y cadence so if I can maintain those figures on a flat road how does it differ from training on an actual climb? The variable of incline will change me speed but thats not exactly important.
Theres also the gravity thing which although is a factor would probably be cancelled out by the increase of wind resistance since if youre climbing at 14mph and fighting gravity with a certain effort you will obviously lose that gravity challenge on a flat with the same effort but will increase speed to say 22mph which obviously increases wind resistance. 
Im not sure im explaining this well but id love for someone with more experience to either tell me im right or explain why im wrong.


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## IAmCosmo (Jul 26, 2005)

B15serv said:


> Perhaps somebody can shed some light on why climbing training is needed for climbing. Heres my thoughts... when climbing you are doing X power at Y cadence in V gear with the bike at W speed and Z angle. Other than comfort and breathing your angle shouldnt really matter since I can climb in the drops or sprint on the flats if i really chose to. (not that i would) So this removes Z from the equation. The speed only matters in a race so forget W as well. The gear you're in isnt really important either since your power/cadence is whats important so lets also remove "V".
> This leaves us with X power at Y cadence so if I can maintain those figures on a flat road how does it differ from training on an actual climb? The variable of incline will change me speed but thats not exactly important.
> Theres also the gravity thing which although is a factor would probably be cancelled out by the increase of wind resistance since if youre climbing at 14mph and fighting gravity with a certain effort you will obviously lose that gravity challenge on a flat with the same effort but will increase speed to say 22mph which obviously increases wind resistance.
> Im not sure im explaining this well but id love for someone with more experience to either tell me im right or explain why im wrong.


I'm not sure the physics behind it, but 22mph into the wind for me is easier than 14mph uphill...


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## DelawareDager (Jul 16, 2008)

yea I dont know about the parking garages, where you guys are from but around my way they go at about a 10-15% grade, and if your doing all out efforts and repeats? Yea I'll break my bmx bike out for that one


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## zriggle (Apr 16, 2008)

DelawareDager said:


> yea I dont know about the parking garages, where you guys are from but around my way they go at about a 10-15% grade, and if your doing all out efforts and repeats? Yea I'll break my bmx bike out for that one


Parking garage repeats are about all I did in Houston last summer. Stick it in the big ring-little cog and go to town.


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