HIGHER FASTER FURTHER
WATCHING NAIRO QUINTANA FLY UP CYCLING’S TOUGHEST MOUNTAINS CAN SEEM A WORLD AWAY FROM THE SLOW, HORRIBLE GRIND MOST OF US MANAGE. BUT HILLS ARE HILLS, SO WHAT DO THE EXPERTS DO THAT WE CAN LEARN FROM? CYCLING PLUS ASKS THE PROS HOW WE CAN CLIMB LIKE THEM...
Okay, so we’re promising a lot here… Climb like a pro? The point isn’t that this feature can turn you into Chris Froome, more that learning from the pros can help us all to be better than we are. After all, as Froome’s INEOS teammate Ben Swift tells us, “I think what sets the best climbers apart is just natural ability really, rather than anything that they do.”
“[Nairo] Quintana is one of the most naturally talented climbers out there,” continues the INEOS rider. “These guys train hard, but I think it’s that innate ability that sets the likes of Quintana and Froomey apart.”
So, what if we’re not blessed with the gifts of the climbing gods? It’s all relative, of course, but as someone who rarely sees the battle at the front on longer climbs in WorldTour races, sprinter Swift can relate.
“Keep to your own rhythm, and never go into the red too early,” he offers by way of advice to those of us climbing outside our comfort zones.
Former professional David Millar also advises caution over valour – at least to begin with. “You need to make sure you have the right gearing on your bike,” he explains. “Don’t underestimate how small the gearing you need might be, because even if you are riding short climbs they are often the steepest.”
“I don’t think you should ever worry about putting smaller gears on your bike, or fitting a compact or even a triple if you don’t ride often, and big sprockets on the back – a 28 or so,” adds Millar. “It’s something that a lot of people get stuck on, thinking it’s shameful to put small gears on your bike, whereas all the pros I know in Girona [where Millar lives and the Spanish home to many WorldTour riders] – even the climbers – all have 36x28 compacts on their bikes. And they’re some of the best climbers in the world; that’s what they use on their training bikes.”
Coach James McCallum, formerly a pro with the UK-based Plowman Craven, Rapha-Condor and NFTO teams (all now disbanded), is also an advocate of sensible gearing. “The circumstances of each climb will differ – from race to training to sportive – but some of the principles of the discipline are constant,” he explains. “Gearing is something that’s unique to each rider and hill, but on some of the steeper climbs even pros will opt for a compact chainring and a larger rear cassette. Aim to anticipate steep gradients, lower your gear and start spinning a higher cadence. Avoid having to change gear when the road gets really steep.”
TO SIT OR TO STAND?
One of the eternal questions when it comes to climbing is whether it is better done in the saddle or out. While the likes of Froome have made a virtue of climbing in the saddle, all three of our pros advocate a mixed approach dependent on terrain and personal taste. But Millar, for one, is adamant that in line with getting your gearing and cadence right, you should at least stay seated to begin with.
“Always start a climb sitting down. If you start standing up, you’re going to use up more oxygen and tire yourself out,” explains Millar. “If you can, do the first half sitting down in a small
Don’t underestimate how small the gearing you need might be, because even if you are riding short climbs they are often the steepest
gear, then keep in your head that if you do the first half at a level that feels within you, then you can allow yourself to go deeper in the second half.
“You should only hear yourself breathing hard when you see the summit. That’s a good way of thinking of things: when you see the top, that’s when you should really hear yourself breathing hard because you’ve only got a finite amount of time you can breathe that hard for if you’re not super fit – even if you are, it’s just you can go for longer – so you don’t want that happening in the first half of the climb.
“Oddly, if you do all that, increasing the effort over the second half and punching over the top, and look back, you’ll probably find you generated the same power over the whole climb. It’s just your perception of the effort that’s grown all the way through while you’ve kept roughly the same pace.
“You’ve got to be prepared to attack a climb at a pace you can finish it at. Many start climbs too fast and then end up going slower and slower. You should start a climb and, if anything, be able to punch it over the top. It’s like a time-trial effort. If you look back at [Sir] Bradley Wiggins and how he won time-trial races and stages, it looked like he accelerated during the second half. The reality is that his pace actually remained constant – it’s the others whose pace was dropping off.
“Try to treat each climb as its own individual time trial. Don’t ‘race’ other people that you don’t know because you don’t know what they’re capable of, whether they’re going to explode or whether they’re going to go faster and faster. It’s always a good idea just to do your own thing unless you’re with people you ride regularly with.”
Ben Swift also emphasises the need to use time in the saddle to maintain a constant effort, jumping up when it’s time to push on.
“Sometimes when you stand on a climb it’s just to change position and get different sensations,” he concedes, “but typically out of corners is a good place to get out of the saddle. Going uphill you don’t have to consciously
Always start a climb sitting down, because if you start standing up you’re going to use up more oxygen and you’ll tire yourself out
slow down for a corner, but you do lose speed – especially on hairpins – so you need to accelerate out for it. Typically, you’d cover attacks out of the saddle, too. For smoothness you’re better to stay seated because you’re able to regulate your effort a bit more.”
Does Swift train himself to be able to make and maintain those out-of-the saddle efforts?
“I don’t work on it specifically, but when I stand it’s usually because I’m making an effort. If I’m doing a session that calls for hard efforts on a climb then I’ll typically stand for those efforts, then settle down into a steadier rhythm in the saddle during the recovery phases.
“I like doing those spiked efforts on the climbs in training, where you are up and down a little bit. It can be hard, but it’s a bit more entertaining than just sitting there for 20 minutes riding steady. If you’re mixing it up it definitely helps.”
James McCallum suggests aiming for a mix of sitting and standing that suits you: “Try to find your own rhythm as you train on hills. Maybe get into a routine of 20 revs in the saddle, 10 standing, until you find a form that works best for you.”
When you do get out of the saddle, Millar has more advice. “Learn to do it properly,” explains the ex-Garmin man, “which means always put it in a bigger gear when you stand up. Click it down two sprockets, which will give you a slower cadence, and practise that so it feels like your upper body isn’t really moving and the bike is moving beneath you. You want to keep the bike in a straight line, but learn to relax out of the saddle, too. You’ll see some of the guys out of the saddle and their front wheel is just relaxed. It’s got this slight swerve to it, so find the right style for you.”
KEEP ON PEDALLING
Your effort shouldn’t come to a stop at the top of the hill, either. “You don’t want to just switch off at the top and stop pedalling the whole way down,” Millar explains, “because you’ll freeze up and your legs will fill with lactate acid. It’s a good idea to keep your legs spinning, which you can do if you’re pacing the climbs well and not reaching the top feeling as if you’re on the verge of a cardiac arrest and in need of a lie on the grass.
“You want to be able to keep riding. You’ll notice one difference with pros when they’re out training or riding is that they’re pedalling pretty much the whole time, whereas if you go past some amateurs any little thing will see them stop pedalling.
“Never stopping pedalling is a weird pro phenomenon, but it does help with clearance – it keeps your muscles warm and keeps your heart rate going, because you don’t want that to drop too much. If you reach the bottom of the next climb and your heart rate has gone back down to almost resting level, you’re going to get a massive lactate rush as you’re boosting back up. You’ll misjudge your perception of effort and explode halfway up the climb. Your perception of effort at the bottom will be so wrong because you’ll feel like you’re fine, and you’ll go so deep that all of a sudden it will catch up with you and you’ll explode. By keeping rolling, you’re keeping your heart rate at a certain base level.”
TRAIN IN VAIN
Is there a secret the pros use in training to give them an advantage when the
Try to treat each climb as its own individual time trial. Don’t ‘race’ other people because you don’t know what they’re capable of
road points up? Not really, unless hard work is a secret. Focusing your training on your strengths, rather than constantly trying to address your weaknesses, emerged as a key element of the pros’ training plans.
“Most of my efforts are done on climbs of up to 20 minutes,” says Swift. “I don’t need to push myself for much longer, I just need to be able to tolerate that length of time. Normally, if the climb lasts over 20 minutes, I’m not going to be there. With those climbs, I need to train to tolerate them and sustain my effort to get them over as soon as possible. I’ll do more intense work on shorter climbs, anything up to around 6km.
“The climbs like those we see in the Ardennes [and in Milan-San Remo, where Swift made the podium in 2014] are slightly different from the mountains as there you have riders like Philippe Gilbert who can be 20kg heavier than Quintana but still be the fastest up them, because that kind of climbing is more about that shorter capacity effort and having that punch.”
To many of us who ride in the UK, however, a 6km climb is far from short. McCallum advises, “Be prepared for some pain and take the hills in your stride. Don’t go all guns blazing as you hit the climb in a bid to power all the way up – you’ll just risk tiring yourself out too soon. If a hill profile is 20 per cent and it’s a 1km climb then you could be on the ascent for around six minutes – conserve your energy by keeping it steady. Look at those around you. They are going to be finding it just as tough, that’s for sure.”
Chloe Hoskins, who rides for the AléCipollini pro women’s team, adds that focus is the key to training, suggesting modifying what you do depending on the sort of climbing you’ll face in your target events.
“At our races the climbs are short, steep and punchy during the spring – more suited to sprinters like me actually – so I’ll do max, max, max one-minute efforts on a steep climb in training,” Hoskins explains. “When it comes to June and July, when we’re doing races like the Giro, I’ll be doing more like 15-20-minute power efforts on climbs, and that’s low-cadence, high-power stuff. So it’s a noticeable difference between spring and summer in terms of how I train for climbs.”
She also advocates training with others. “I remember riding for WiggleHonda [2015-2016]. I went to stay with Elisa Longo Borghini for two threeweek blocks a season. She’s one of the best hill climbers in the world, so I would just try to sit on her wheel for as long as I could. It was really hard and I noticed a significant improvement in my climbing because I was sitting at a higher speed and intensity on the climb than I could myself.”
While there’s no secret formula for climbing like Quintana, hopefully, there is enough knowledge here to get you climbing to the best of your ability.