Hills on single speed

[Annoying Twit]

I climbed some of the biggest hills I encounter in my standard weekly travels today. As 531Colin advised, I tried to attack them, speeding up on the approach and self-consciously keeping pedal cadence up. I'm not sure if it's fortunately or unfortunately, but I found that I could climb them without getting out of the seat. I was puffing at the top of the biggest one, but I was a bit disappointed in the way that attacking the hill reduced the challenge. I didn't have time to repeat the hills this morning, so perhaps repeating them will add challenge back in.

Paraphrasing Jaws, I think I'm going to need a bigger hill. It's a bit out of my way, but if I do some of my shopping at the Glenfield (Leicester) Co-op, then I'll get the exercise of climbing Stamford Street, Glenfield with a bag of shopping on my back. That's going to be a challenge no matter how I approach it, I believe. (BTW: I think the hill is steeper than it looks on Google Streetview, which seems to be a common visual effect on Streetview. Hills look really flat, which is annoying when I look at a hill that I struggled up.)

On-topic since this is a health and fitness sub-forum, I've noted a step up in fitness since a swim session last Thursday. On the ride, I felt much fitter in general, not just on the hills, and I reduced the time my 18km ride took by some margin. I managed it in a time comparable to what I was doing on the same bike in 2014 when I was the fittest I've ever been in my life.

[Si]

I can't see why it matters particularly if you get out of the saddle or not.

'cos if you are riding a slope that is bigger than the gear and you stay sat then that annoying sound you hear is your knees popping! If you can't change down the only options are to stop or add more power - standing up gives more power.

Which is essentially what I said.

My point was that if you have a choice (i.e. if the gear allows) then just ride how you want, either in or out of the saddle.

Which is essentially what I said before that...I feel we may be going round in circles here .

Although, if it's a single speed and you are able to comfortably sit in the saddle and spin, then it ain't a real hill

[Annoying Twit]

Which is essentially what I said before that...I feel we may be going round in circles here .

Although, if it's a single speed and you are able to comfortably sit in the saddle and spin, then it ain't a real hill

It's logical in a way. My pedals and sprockets are also going in circles as I go up hills.

One thing I noticed is that a lot of my in the seat/out of the seat decisions are basically unconscious. And often it's not on hills where I get out of seats. It's often at lights and intersections in town where I get out of my seat to get a headstart on cars so that they overtake me on the road, not through the intersection. I also found that on hills that I've climbed many times before, that I unconsciously do just enough so that I'm slowing down to just a little too slow just as I'm cresting the hill. I must take conscious control and attack more.

Whether something is a real hill or not if you can sit in the saddle and spin on a single speed may depend on leg power of course. That's the whole point of what I'm trying to do. Develop leg power and endurance so that I can cruise up even serious hills. Now I want people to tell me some hills near where I live (Leicester) that are unambiguously proper hills as that'll be a good challenge. @Si, what do you think of the hill shown in Google Streetview in my last post?

[hamster]

I ride a single speed MTB, largely off road and have done for 7 years. I expected to give it a try for a few weeks, get knee pain and give up.

Discarding all the gears, shifters, cabling, etc saves 3kgs or so, which is nice.The first 6 weeks were nasty; it's hard work and there is no bail-out option apart from walking.

However I got fitter and tougher. What surprised me most was that I also learned to corner better: you take them more aggressively if you cannot recover speed. I never get knee pain as I don't have the possibility to sit and grind big gears. Exact ratios are trial and error depending on where you usually ride, fitness etc.

The singlespeed is my go-to bike.

[Si]

there is no bail-out option apart from walking.

although I do notice that if it's so bad tat I have to get off and push then I often walk up the hill just as fast as mates are twiddling their grannies!

[mjr]

there is no bail-out option apart from walking.

although I do notice that if it's so bad tat I have to get off and push then I often walk up the hill just as fast as mates are twiddling their grannies!

Remind me what gear you use, Si? I've noticed this with a 44" but I doubt many single-speeders use that

[Annoying Twit]

"Gear inches." That's a better way to describe gearing than I knew of before. Using an online calculator my bike has 72.3" gearing. To me that's about a perfect balance.

Is this Si in this picture?

[Si]

there is no bail-out option apart from walking.

although I do notice that if it's so bad tat I have to get off and push then I often walk up the hill just as fast as mates are twiddling their grannies!

Remind me what gear you use, Si? I've noticed this with a 44" but I doubt many single-speeders use that

I think I have a 54 on the mtb...which is what we were discussing.
Road, of course, is very different bag of fish.

[greyingbeard]

So thats where my underpants went.

[hamster]

I run around 50" on the MTB: 2.0-2.3" tyres, 32/17 gearing or 32/16.

Typical road setups are something like 42/17, which is 70" give or take.

[Annoying Twit]

Interesting experience today. Big problems on a couple of the early big hills, but I managed to power up one (compared to previously) that was pretty serious well past half way into a 100km ride. It's a repeating pattern that I managed some big hills, but then my legs were tired and even quite moderate hills immediately after a big one were very difficult. E.g. on the attached image, I may not have it correct, but I believe that I climbed the slope marked in blue quite well (for me), but then had to walk a bit of the tiny hill marked in red after it. I climbed, I believe, the bit marked in red early on, and I climbed one other hill though I can't remember where. If I could climb like I did on the blue bit there, then that would be very good. What I need to do is to be able to climb like that and not trash my legs so much.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
Did I miss it, the actual gear you are using

[Annoying Twit]

Hi,
Did I miss it, the actual gear you are using

72.3" inch gear. Single speed. 44T on the front, 16T freewheel on the back, 700C wheels.

I don't want to change the freewheel or the front sprocket to give me a lower gear as I think what I have is a good compromise. In fact, if I'm successful in building hill-climbing strength, I would be more likely to go for a higher gear in the future.

[Phileas]

That's the same gear I use on my single speed commuter.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
Add some weight to the bike for better training