Bike Noob

Because I'm Always Learning Something New

Getting better at climbing

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When we did our city tour two weekends ago, one of the highlights was Mt. Bonnell. I’d never climbed it before, and I was looking forward to it, for some reason. I guess I had an unrealistic idea of my climbing ability.

Going through neighborhoods on the way there, we came upon a short, steep hill on a residential street. I downhifted to a low gear, but was up out of the saddle, standing on the pedals, struggling to mash the pedals down and keep the wheels turning. I could have gone down two more gears, but because the bike was straining already, I figured I’d lose all my momentum if I tried a downshift, so I kept grinding away. The bottom bracket made a creaky noise I’d never heard before. As long as I could make the bike protest, I thought, I had enough left in me to get up the hill.

And I did. Man, that was a tough one, and with car traffic coming from behind, I had no choice but to go straight up the road — no chance to zig-zag up the hill.

On Mt. Bonnell itself, we had a challenging grade to a right-hand bend, and then the grade steepened. I pulled into a driveway, did a loop, then shot back onto the street with some forward momentum. That momentum carried me, oh, maybe 10 yards or so. This time, I shifted down all the way into the granny gear. I was still tired from the earlier hill, but there was no traffic this time, and I used the width of the street to zig-zag my way up. It seemed like it would take forever, but I finally made it to the top.

An experienced biker riding with us guessed the grade was between 16-20 percent. I decided I wouldn’t be in a hurry to tackle it again (you might recall that I made a wrong turn, and we wound up climbing Bonnell again from the other side — but we walked our bikes this time, too pooped).

My conclusion is that I don’t do enough challenging hills as part of my regular rides. I’ve got some routes that include hills, but nothing like Bonnell. So I suppose I was just undertrained for it.

But if I have to mash pedals in the granny gear time after time, I’m not sure I want to get much better at hills.

What do you suggest for a noob to become at least a little more adept at climbing?

Ever forget how to shift?

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The other day, I was out for an easy morning ride with Pat. This is the one where we get to the Veloway, and I speed away from her to complete three laps, while she does two.

So I’m on the backside of the track, approaching the pesky little hill that provides the only real challenge to riding here. Usually, I’m in the small chainring, moving about 21 mph in one of the smaller cogs. I shift down two or three gears to be able to get up the hill without coming up out of the saddle.

This time, though, I zoned out. I pushed the left brifter in — but that’s the one that shifts me into the large chainring on the front. Startled, I realized I was screwing up, and mashed the right brifter in, snick, snick, snick.

hill

By now, I had reached the bottom of the hill, and had to negotiate a sharp right turn to start the climb. But a lady on a mountain bike was in the right lane. Instead of starting in the left, picking the apex of the turn, and shooting across to the right lane to smoothly attack the hill, I had to keep to the left lane.

I hit the hill in the large chainring, several gears higher than I normally ride it. I wound up standing on the pedals this time, pushing hard to get to the top of the short grade, and watching as the lady’s mountain bike stalled halfway up, in the middle of the track. She put a foot on the ground, and I went by her.  (In her defense, I well remember when I first rode the Veloway on my mountain bike. I didn’t stop, but I strained to get the pedals around on that hill.)

I’ve done this route so many times that even in the wrong gear the hill wasn’t a problem. It just wasn’t as smooth a job as I’d like. What bothers me is that it’s not the first time I’ve missed a shift like this. Most often, I’ll mean to downshift with the right brifter but click the little black paddle instead — the one that upshifts. This time, I got the wrong side altogether!

Has this ever happened to you, or is this a case of my Oldsheimer’s taking over?

Riding in pacelines

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PaceA paceline in nice, cool weather

A couple of weeks ago, the B ride from my club started 45 minutes ahead of the A group. Since we rode the same route, we had a chance to watch them pass by us while they were heading out to the turnaround.

The first six riders had formed a paceline, and what a sight they were! Really moving fast along a country road, and visibly putting distance between them and the less organized group following.

Paceline riding is something I haven’t done much. In the MS ride, I latched onto a couple of small lines, and found that I could keep up with them, but I only got to pull once. They quickly fell apart.

Apparently, most of the riders I encounter haven’t done a lot of paceline riding either. We tend to bunch up in clusters, rather than lines. Even in a bunch, there’s some wind blocking, but it’s nothing like it could be if we were in an organized line.

But then again, one thing I do know about pacelines is that you must be confident in your co-riders. If you don’t know how they’ll behave when you’re wheel-to-wheel, it’s probably not a good idea to form a line with them.

Watching the Tour has inspired me to try to get into some pacelines again. There’s plenty of info online about how to do it, such as this item from Examiner.com, a site featuring articles by experienced freelancers.

I’ll also bet a lot of Bike Noob readers know something about pacelines. How about sharing your insights on it? Let’s all get better together.

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