How To Make Climbing EASIER With One Simple Trick

Climbing for a lot of us is the tolerated part of mountain biking. It's the bit we need to do to get to the bit we want to do. It doesn't need to be a chore though. There's one thing we can alter to make climbing more enjoyable. Got your attention now, don't I? Well, stay tuned to find out exactly what it is. I am, of course, talking about cadence. Now, having put in my fair share of climbs over the year, getting your cadence absolutely dialed can make a climb quicker, easier, and less tiring. The holy trinity of any climb, surely. What is cadence then? Cadence is the number of pedal revolutions per minute or RPM whilst riding. It's worth noting that in mountain biking, there is no magic number, no perfect cadence. Mountain biking is very reactionary and the trails are always varying, unlike our friends on road bikes who can sit at the same pace on these big open roads for a long time. We actually constantly have to adapt and therefore, so does our cadence. That is to say though that when it comes to a climb, finding an optimal number can be key. For example, on a typical mountain bike ride, your cadence or your RPM could be as low as 40 when you're grinding up a really steep, steady, slow hill or trying to get traction on loose ground to well over 100 when you're doing sudden accelerations and sprints. It's your body's ability to adapt and change these constant changes, which is going to be crucial. First big question then, seated or standing when it comes to riding uphill? There is no right or wrong answer and you'll often find yourself alternating between the two, but each one does have its pros and cons, which let's go into. Seated pedaling is generally more efficient for longer durations. You'll find yourself sitting down a lot on longer, smoother climbs and it's often considered slightly more energy efficient as well. You'll find yourself standing up out of the saddle on much more steeper technical climbs and climbs where a lower cadence is required, often between, say, 50 to 70 where you can really stand up and get on the pedals and put the power down. That's that cleared up then. Now we need to look at our pedaling efficiency and what we can do to improve that, how we pedal essentially. You might be thinking, Rich, I know how to pedal. I've been doing it for ages, but actually, the pedal stroke is broken up into two parts. You've got the push and the pull, the downstroke and the upstroke. When you pedal down and when it then comes back up. If you're riding clips or flats, you'll always have power on the downstroke of that revolution. However, if you're clipped in, you can also have power on the upstroke because you can pull up because you're attached to the pedal. This is harder to achieve on flats, although it can be done. It's just maybe not quite as efficient. Managing one's cadence is crucial to managing just how much energy you use. Over the years, I was taught by my trainers that spinners are winners. Maintaining a higher cadence, if you like, up a hill, uses slightly less energy, but you still maintain the good speed. Back to cadence then and let's see what a difference your cadence does make in the real world with a practical experiment. Behind me, I've got a good steady climb, which I'm going to hit multiple times at different cadences. We'll start off at 60, 80, then up to 100. We'll be doing it both seated and standing. I'll be doing it aboard my Canyon Luxe Trail, a bike I'm no stranger to climbing on a lot. To keep variables to a minimum, tire pressures and tires will remain identical throughout. Suspension will always be open and nothing else will be changed on each run. Now, we really want to be accurate when keeping an eye on metrics over the set distance of climbing that I'm going to be doing. For that, I'll be using a Garmin Edge 840 Solar. That'll have all the stats on the screen that I'll need to know, but I'll only have a screen at the time that shows me my distance and my cadence, so I can keep that without knowing any of the other variables, which we'll dive into deeper at the end. This is going to be synced to a heart rate monitor and a power meter to give us as many numbers and as much in-depth analysis as we can. All right, run number one, the sleeves are up. This is seated at 60 RPM. Let's get going. It's quite tough, sitting down especially. All right, it's time for run number two, 60 RPM standing. Seated was pretty hard work. It's such a low cadence, so hopefully standing will fare better. Here we go. Okay, just past halfway. This is tiring on the legs. I'm having to push such a hard gear. Less than 100 meters to go. Heart rate is going to be high on this one and across the line. Okay, that was 60 standing. That was hard work. I got my breath going. That's going to make for some interesting stats, I think. Let's get back down, have a rest, and go on with what I think might be the magic number, 80 RPM. It's now time for 80 RPM. First up, seated. This feels very maintainable. There's a pace I could hold for a long time. Got to keep that cadence high. Any second now, boom. That last one felt pretty good at 80 seated. Will standing be even quicker or will it be easier? Let's find out. It's really hard to keep such a high cadence standing up. Legs starting to burn already. Oh, my God. Okay, I made 270 meters on that one. I was going to carry on and then thought, well, I'm not doing the test properly then. I'm sitting down. 270 meters is what I got standing up. It's so hard on the quads, on your legs. I'm not in the best shape at the moment, which is no excuse, but wow, that was way tougher than I was expecting. Next up, 100 RPM. It's now time for the high cadence, 100 RPM seated. Yikes. So far so good. It's maintainable. It's a fast cadence though. Okay, this is the kick of the climb. I've had to drop it up into, well, first gear to keep the cadence there. I'm getting up it fine. It feels like I'm flipping crawling. That was 100 RPM seated. Definitely was not as tiring as 80 RPM standing. Let's by no means least 100 RPM standing up. I can't see this one being fun. Let's go. Oh, my Lord. That's 100 there. Oh, my God. Keep up, Josh. Come on. Come on. Oh, my God. It's exhausting. I'm exhausted. That was just over 100 meters to keep that going on. It's just not maintainable. Let's get back to the bottom, stop this, have a look at some numbers, and keep this thing calming down. Oh, my Lord. In mountain biking where cadence can fluctuate and change so quickly and vastly, your body's ability to adapt to this needs to be, well, pretty spot on. Training for that is crucial. Here's some training sessions I used to do to get my body used to the sprinting, the stopping, the starting, the low cadence, the high cadence back when I used to race. Single-speed riding, this naturally forces you to vary your cadence across different terrains. Find a gear you're comfy with and try to ride only in that one as much of a ride as possible. It could even be a section or a lap, but just try and stay in the same gear. This one I used to love, big gear tempo climbs. Practice climbing at 50 to 70 RPM, alternating between seated and standing positions. You'll build up strong, powerful legs that can handle those tough grinding climbs. Spin-ups, perform high-cadence drills to improve your leg speed and pedaling smoothness. High-force accelerations, practice quick accelerations from a low cadence to improve power and adaptability. Remember, the goal is to develop a wide range of efficient cadences. Mix up the sessions and you'll soon notice a difference. Good luck. Now, onto the results of that experiment. Spinning or grinding then when it comes to going uphill? Well, many laps have just been done. I've got quite a lot of interesting data to go through with you, but I think most importantly, let's look at the time it took us to go up the hill. Fastest time was 60 RPM standing and that was 201 to cover the 400 meters. This was the quickest by about four seconds, over 80 seated at 205. The way that these two felt was incredibly different. Standing up, pushing such a hard gear was quicker, but it required so much more effort. The powers were very similar, but the fatigue was setting in a lot quicker in the legs. Being sat down and spinning a quicker cadence was actually what felt far more energy efficient and far more sustainable for a longer period of time. If we're to go down that train of thought, 80 being the sweet spot, the middle ground if you like, what about when we did 80 standing? Well, I didn't actually even make it the whole way on this. This was like a full-on sprint. I made it 270 of the 400 meters. Power was way higher at 376 or average. The time to get that far was 110. If you were to look at that, actually, it might have been quicker if I'd been able to sustain it, but it was so exhausting on the legs, obviously, because you're having to be out the saddle, you're moving around a lot on the bike, and you've got your extra body weight then obviously forcing down onto your legs as well, which you're having to hold up. It just, for me, wasn't sustainable, which we then move on to the 100 RPM range. 100 seated, 215, 14 seconds slower than our quickest. The legs are just going like the clappers. If you could train your body maybe to be used to that cadence, yes, you might get away with it. 100 standing was almost a joke. That's the RPM you'd be at for a full-blown sprint, not necessarily a long sustained hill climb, if you like. I think what we conclude from this is that 80, that sweet spot for me, is not a full-on grind, even though that is the fastest, and spinning at such a high RPM isn't the one either. Finding that good, quite quick, steady cadence is the sweet spot to getting up the hill in terms of energy efficiency, pretty much the quickest, and when it comes to a sustainable heart rate as well. That was 160 for that just over two minutes. It's perfectly manageable. Let me know, are you a spinner? Are you a grinder? How do you go up hills? Which do you prefer? Do you find one easier than the other? Let me know in the comments down below. From sunny Spain though, I'll see you next time.