how to: train climbing without (long) hills

[StoereVent]

Hello everybody.

I have the next problem which migth be solved by one of you. Living in Holland, it's easy to train XC while we have a lot of tracks. Non of them as spectacular as yours, I believe that inmediately. But it's hard to find a hill thats climbs for some time in Holland. So therefore we sometimes go to Belgium, where there are The Ardenns with hills up to 350 meters (that's a guess).
Now my question: is there a way to train for climbing without having serious climb nearby? (As I'm typing this, I realise it sounds verry silly, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to ask.) Next November we are going to a place where the climbs are pretty steep and tough, so some training for this wolud be a good idea.

Greetings, Jeroen.

[zulu]

  You can train for long hills fairly easly if you are able to do laps on a good climb around your area.
Find a nice hill as long as you can find, ride up & down using that hill like a interval trainer.
Enjoy the pain! [smiley=beer.gif]

[Carbon_Angus]

less [smiley=beer.gif] [smiley=beer.gif] [smiley=beer.gif]

into the wind
push a harder gear
drag a brake (not recomended)
out of the saddle in a harder gear
intervals
find whatever hill you have and ride it over and over?
squats with weights

becareful your kness don't blow and you can overdo it, too.

what you are trying to do is strengthen your muscles for climbing and increasing your threshold before you dump too much lactic acid in your muscles

hills are tough, i road ride, even my triple is barely enough sometimes

[Old Proflexer]

ride over to one of your local weekend lunch/beer  [smiley=beer.gif] hangout
where the gang heads over to after the ride.

tie about a 20 foot rope to your seat post and tie the other end of the rope thru the front wheels of say 3 or maybe four of the nicest looking bikes in the rack.

yell out something like - - - - -

"these bikes suck and you guys are all a bunch of woosies!!!!"  

then take off riding as fast as you can, dragging their bikes behind you.  

the added weight of the addtional bikes should be on par to going up hill as you should have to gear down quite a bit to pull the weight.  the ensuing angry mob should should also increase your adreneline rush keeping you motivated to keep moving (aerobic endurance condtioning).  it's good to learn up front not to be stopping on those long climbs, just gear down a bit, relax and keep moving.  if you're working a roadie crowd, make sure you take a knife with you in the event they gain on you and are close, you can cut the rope then head cross country - they won't be able to keep up on a trashed road bike thru the dirt.

you may have to find a few different restaurants or hangouts over time as the local gang  [smiley=furious.gif]  will get to know you and your modus operandi.  by then you'll probably find yourself using much of Angus's techniques for quite some time just to stay out of reach and guaranteed you won't be needing the extra bikes to stay in shape.


a tongue in cheek     OP    

[Scott]

I'll go with "ride into the wind"-I've read this advice in training books.

[StoereVent]

op: I'll try your suggestion next weekend, so it might be possible that tis week is my last week of postings.

But seriously. I thougt that riding into the wind would come closets. But the difference is that climbing desires a high frequency and a lot of power and the result is a low speed. Riding in the wind with a high frequency and an lot of power feels verry different: in most cases the speed will be high and the bike will start bumping a little. That is why I hopend for a better way.
If it only feels different I think it is OK as an exercise.

Jeroen.

[Old Proflexer]

a friend of mine used to say

'there are no hills, just lower gears'

it's hard to train for something if you can't practice specifically for it.  i seem to live in nothing but hills - it's either up or the free ride down the back side.  many of us long for some stretches of flat.  each requires it's own level of skill sets and conditioning.

OP

[pedro]

on a trainer set at a hard setting.