Just like to share my experience of the past few days on tackling hills. I decided to take part in the KOH event because I thought it would be a good opportunity to bring hill training to a different level. It would give me a chance to experiment with equipment and improve form and technique. Boy i certainly got more than I could ask for haha...the first two training sessions were indeed humbling. I chose Mount Faber as the key challenging adversary and the initial two sessions saw me struggling to get past the slope without stopping to gasp for air. Whilst stopping and gulping air, several roadies would past by steadily and oh also a Bike Friday Pocket Rocket) and do loops on the mountain. I could only watch in admiration and vowed to return one day and do the same thing. But before I could do that there was KOH looming up in the weekend. It did not help also that we had just finished a long 160km ride a few days earlier and I was recovering from the flu so energy levels were low and I had lost at least one third of my cardio respiratory fitness. So I had to strategize a plan. My objective for this event is to complete it not how fast. What were the factors that would impact my hill climbing performance.
Intrinsic factors - fitness, weight, condition
Equipment - wheels, gears,
Technique - spinning, mashing, form
Intrinsic factors
I couldn't do much about these haha. You either have it or u don't and time ran out on improving these overnight. Weight does play an important part in cycling particularly hill climbing. No point having the lightest bike in the world and u are 10kg overweight. I had already lost 10 kg but it was not enough as that only brought me down to a normal weight. To be a good climber I had to lose another 10kg to bring me to racing weight. So too bad Liao..do what I can.
Technique
There are two types of cyclists..the spinner and the masher..those that can combine both become phenomenal riders eventually. I consider myself more of a spinner as I don't have the strength to mash away at the paddles for long. A spinner takes advantage of gearing and adjusts speed by improving cadence. To climb hills I had to have a gear low enough to spin and maintain an acceptable cadence. No spin no movement. I targeted 60 rpm as the figure to go for.
Some tips on technique: stretch before starting as this helps prevent cramps, warm up enough before going up the hill or else u find yourself in a cardio respiratory mismatch with the exertion, take your time going up as this is a competition against yourself only. The thing I learnt about hill climbing is that it is indeed humbling and must know when to Cheong and when to ease up. The first time hill climber that Cheong will realize how quickly he tires out and maybe stall. So it's better to pace yourself, maintain a comfortable cadence and inch your way up. Some cyclists advocate getting off your saddle. While this technique works, I advocate doing it if u are familiar with the route and if u know where the top is. Getting off your saddle zaps u of energy very quickly and for the unwary he might find himself totally flat without reaching the apex. So save this technique for the last burst and gear up one or two gears if u do it to take advantage of this so called second wind. I learnt all these the hard way especially the first two attempts on Mount Faber.
Equipment
Ah..this was where it really got interesting and lots that can be done. Contrary to belief, the roadies will find it harder to climb up a hill than a smaller wheel bike. This has to do with the gearing ratio or gear inches when comparing a big wheel vs small wheel. From wiki, Gear inches is a relative measure of bicycle gear ratios giving an indication of the relationship between the pedal effort, cadence and bicycle speed in different gears. The gear inch measurement is a range based on the number of gears u have. For a big wheel bike these normally range from 40-120 or so. For the small wheels, they usually range from 25-90. The higher the gear inch selection u have the faster u can go provided u have the strength to carry u through. The lower part of the scale helps more in hill climbing. The lower the number the easier to climb or carry a load. Speed is irrelevant here. I considered myself an average or above average hill climber. I can do Mandai hills relatively well but when I first tried the KOH hills, I was truly humbled lol. Unlike Mandai, there is no long stretch before the hill to gain momentum and force your way up the hill, here the hills come up to u and u have to rely on your pure strength and stamina...no momentum. Straight away I realized that my weight would be a factor and though I could lose weight in time, that ain't gonna happen overnight. So I started playing with the gearing ratios. I started out with a 53/39 front chainring and a 12/25 rear cassette. This saw me struggling up the mountain with a low end gear inch measurement of 41". So I compared what others were doing. The foldies had low end measurement of average 30". I said to myself..oh wow I'm gonna suffer if I maintain my current set up lol. In fact i was looking at the lcsg forum and someone brought his gearing down to 23" for this event.. Oh wow! These guys are serious..So one day I popped into bike plus and asked if they had a large rear cassette for my bike. Luckily they had a 11-28 cassette. So I swopped my rear for this. I now had a lower gearinch number at 36" but wasn't sure if it would be enough. I attempted mt Faber again in the mid week. Oh this time so much better and can do the full mountain and inner loop with only a short 2" stop. I wasn't confident of being able to do the hill more than once though. So I brought my bike back and checked if they got a compact crank (50/34 crankset)... Guess what? they did haha...anyway during the first visit, I was already told that my chain and crankset had already worn out which was causing the chain to drop more than one occasion so it was opportunity to replace these anyway. So I changed the front end to the compact to match the 11/28 rear giving me a gear inch range of 31-120...not bad indeed...I had gained a bit from my top end 116 to 120 gear inches but a world of difference at the low end 41" to 31".. easily a 20% improvement in hill climbing ability! So so fun! Yesterday's ride was so much more manageable. Oh before I forget, better check your bicycle before going up the hill..after the 160km ride many thing came loose for my bike and had to be tightened.
Anyway to cut a long story short..check your equipment if u having problems climbing.. I am a true believer of using technology especially if it helps u improve your performance. Speed is overrated I say...make yourself more efficient..more fun! In other words, it may not be u, it may just be the equipment LOL!! Otherwise the other way is to Get on the Program! The Program?... Growth hormone nightly, EPO a week before the event, blood transfusion the night before...hahaha
Finally, i also want to say that I personally am not sure if all my training and changes will give me enough strength to tackle all the hills but am happy to just give it a good go and gain some experience. ...till next year!! Good luck guys haha.
P.S. Oh...lorong sensuai next week anybody?....lol
