Recumbent and hills?

[threewheels]

Lifelong keen cyclist with back and shoulder problems struggling with my upwrong. Keen to try a recumbent but seen several comments when researching what to buy about the poor performance on hills. I live in Snowdonia so there is no escaping hills and strangely I do enjoy climbing the hills but given the severity of them and my advancing age I could do without any disadvantages when trying to get up them. Any tips or advice would be very welcome.

[[XAP]Bob]

Gear down. And then gear down some more if you need to.

There is no minimum climb speed, but there also isn’t the option to stand up and change position whilst riding.


Just realised you didn't specify trike... my bad.

For three wheels just gear down... for two wheels, be prepared for it to take a while to get the muscles into place...

I've done the Wild Wales a couple of times on three wheels - thoroughly enjoyed it too.

[Jdsk]

Many people find them hard uphill. And I'd certainly expect you to find them different.

Two or three wheels?

And would you consider electrical assistance?

Jonathan

[threewheels]

Sorry, I didn't say two or three wheels. Originally I thought three as I like all things three wheeled but thought two might be lighter and help with the hills. Again any advice or recommendations appreciated.

[UpWrong]

Three wheels is easier on hills because there's no stall speed, even if you gear down to 15" and move at 2 mph. On two wheels when it goes above 10% and I am down to walking speed then it's time to bail out.

[Stradageek]

Only ever been defeated by the top of Winnats Pass, 20% gradient, ran out of puff. Never tried it on a DF, chances are I'd have had the same issue

[yostumpy]

Unless an upright has MTB low gearing, or, the ‘bent has racing gearing, the chances are that the ‘ bent will have the lower gearing of the two. Obviously you can’t stand up to gain speed, power, or change muscle use, but…….you can gear right down and twiddle. I find on my GTE, that if a long ‘stiff’ hill approaches , not quite a 1/4, best approach is to attack at speed for about 10 secs, then whilst it’s starting to slow down, change down to the almost lowest gear, and coast until you have almost stopped, then start peddling, and grind your way up in that gear from the very bottom to the top, knowing you have 1 gear left for emergencies. I find that if I do it the other way and constantly work my way down through the gears, I loose all sense of rhythm, and struggle more. So pick a low gear at the base, stick with it, get into a cadence ( 55 ish for me climbing in a very low gear) , and if the gradient eases off a tad in the middle for a tiny bit, I still stick to the same gear, but ease off and rest the legs a tad. It feels very slow, but it’s the position you are in, ie sitting in a chair. If I haven’t been on the ‘bent for a while, I get frustrated that I’m going too slow, I’m not, but I think I am, and I’ve put this down to the fact that my brain thinks I’m in a car, and therefore should be going faster.

[UpWrong]

I shall try this next time I am on a hilly ride. It makes sense .

[Stradageek]

On my lightest recumbent (Bacchetta Strada, two wheeled high racer) I climb at the same rate as any upright riders I encounter. A two wheeler will stall at very low speeds but I've never encountered this problem unless tackling 20%+ gradients.

The 'can't stand out of the saddle' myth does need debunking. On an upright, maximum power when out of the saddle is limited to body weight plus a bit of pulling on the handlebars. On a recumbent you have a seat to push against so the only limit is the power in your legs. I've broken chains on a recumbent but never on an upright.

The second part of the argument 'you can't stand up to rest your muscles' is also largely mythical. What you do is change your cadence, twiddle vs plugging, and swap between 'fast' and 'slow' twitch muscle fibres in the same way you do when going from sitting to standing on an upright.

Having said all this there are other considerations.

It will take many months to develop 'bent legs'. On you first serious hill on a recumbent you'll be wondering what on earth you've done, your legs will die. Be patient, they do strengthen.

If you have a heavier recumbent you will climb more slowly, physics is against you. Trikes therefore climb more slowly that two wheelers and the more convoluted drive trains on some trikes can also sap some power. But hey, with no balancing to concentrate on you can spend the time admiring the ever expanding views - which you'll need to because you wont be able to admire them on the descent, you'll be going far too fast.

Finally there is wet road climbing. On a tadpole trike, wheel spin can be an issue on very steep, wet, roads but it's rare. I have a Kettweisel 'delta' trike which climbs brilliantly having a direct chainline, very rigid frame and all the weight over the rear wheels. My (power matched) cycling partner has a Trice trike and cannot match my climbing speeds. However I have the non-differential (single rear wheel drive) version so the front wheel does crab across the road on steep, wet climbs.

Hope this helps

[UpWrong]

If you go with a trike, one with a 20" rear wheel will give you lower gears and, on a tadpole trike, more traction in the wet (generally) because the rear axle is nearer the seat and carries mor weight.

[UpWrong]

I'm planning a hilly ride tomorrow, so thought I'd check my gearing after recently changing to a Tifosi cassette with different spacing from the SRAM PG-980 it replaced. This is on the P-38 (2-wheeler, not a trike):
http://ritzelrechner.de/?GR=DERS&KB=26, ... H&DV=teeth
My normal cadence range is maybe 60-85. At 60 in bottom gear I'm doing 3.5 mph, which I can hold steady as long as I'm relaxed. Difficult if traffic is overtaking and cutting you close. At 85 in top I'm doing 25 mph (downhill only!).

If I stall on a hill, it's difficult restarting in first gear because it's a problem getting enough momentum to bring the standing foot up. I do wonder if the short 150mm cranks make it more difficult. I don't have a problem starting in second gear on slopes up to 10% say.

EDIT: If I follow yostumpy's method and climb in 2nd gear (23") then at 60 rpm that's about 4 mph and approaching 5 mph at 70 rpm.

[Jdsk]

...
The 'can't stand out of the saddle' myth does need debunking. On an upright, maximum power when out of the saddle is limited to body weight plus a bit of pulling on the handlebars. On a recumbent you have a seat to push against so the only limit is the power in your legs. I've broken chains on a recumbent but never on an upright.
...

Personal experiences:

On the three-wheeled Windcheetah I change all of the way down and, as above, it's stable.

On the two-wheeled short-wheelbase KingCycle I can't get anywhere near the force that I routinely exert on an upright by standing up. My wife does better by leaning her upper body forwards but that doesn't work for me.

On the mid- and long-wheelbase two-wheelers that I've ridden in the Netherlands there there weren't enough climbs for me to find out.

Jonathan

[Stradageek]

On the two-wheeled short-wheelbase KingCycle I can't get anywhere near the force that I routinely exert on an upright by standing up. My wife does better by leaning her upper body forwards but that doesn't work for me.
Jonathan

I tried a KingCycle but opted for a Speedmachine as my first proper recumbent (a KS2 probably doesn't count). On the SM I can't push nearly as hard as I can on the Strada, all the power seems to get lost, not sure whether it's boom flex, suspension squat, long angled chain-line, bike weight or whatever. When I got the Strada I discovered the joy of accelerating up hills where on the SM it's change down and twiddle. But on the flat into a headwind the SM is epic

So I'm wondering if the King Cycle has a similar issue to my SM. I remember watching a guy on a King Cycle doing the 'Trolley Dash' at the World HPV Championships and seeing the bike flexing like crazy with every pedal stroke. I asked the rider about the flexing and he said that it's always been like that.

[a.twiddler]

I think, if you have the right ratios already, at least on two wheels it's down to familiarity and practice. A couple of years ago with a gear range of 20 -110 inches I thought I could climb anything on my LWB Linear until I came across Alsagers bank in Staffordshire. Here I found that the low gearing allowed me to pedal up the slope OK but there was a stretch of about 100 yards where my speed dropped below 4mph and once I got to an indicated 3.5 mph it took very little to start the steering veering all over the place and I had to get off and push. Recently I climbed a slope which dropped my speed to 3.5 mph and I was able to pedal steadily up it.

I've never had a problem starting and stopping on a steep slope once I'd mastered it as part of my initial learning curve.

What had changed? I've ridden a lot of miles on it in between times. I've had a rear frame stiffener welded to it. I've changed my bottom gear to 17.5 inches. It might be any, all, or none of these but I think it's just that I've ridden it a lot and got the knack of pedalling smoothly at low speed uphill. Maybe the gearing being 2.5 inches lower has had an effect on the smoothness but it's such a tiny change that it's hard to detect.

Is this ability transferrable to other recumbent bikes? i was able to ride a SWB Dawes Lowrider fairly easily last year but I didn't get to try it on any real hills. I need to try out a SWB bike with equivalent gearing to what I have now, to find out.

[pjclinch]

My Streetmachine isn't the greatest up hills but that's mainly because it's a lump (full sus, twin racks, dynamo, built for expedition touring). My previous one, an Orbit Crystal/Speed Ross was much whizzer in all respects, including climbing. But the Streetmachine does get there, even fully laden for camping touring, thanks to a ~20" granny and practice spinning it, and it's an awesome descender.

Beyond that "less is more" message I'm onside with the other contributions above. Pushing against the seat gives you all the oomph needed, and if you can spin (riding 'bents really taught me to spin!) you'll get there.

I have been asked (when I was 20 years younger, admittedly) if 'bents were particularly good climbers when I'd chugged up a big hill faster than a lot of folk on a CTC run, but it really was a case of "it's not (all) about the bike". If you have a climbing engine you'll get up hills, even if it takes a bit of re-tuning.

Pete.