You already know how to suffer on a climb. What you might not know is that most advice on getting better at long climbs recycles the same handful of tips without questioning whether they work.
If you want the fundamentals of body position and gearing, we covered that here. What follows is the stuff nobody tells you.
Your Fitness Matters More Than Your Bike
That carbon upgrade you’ve been eyeing? It might save you a kilogram. On a 60-minute climb at a typical amateur power-to-weight ratio, one kilogram of bike weight saves roughly one minute. One minute for potentially thousands of dollars.
A modest 5% bump in FTP produces the same climbing speed improvement as a 5% drop in body weight. For riders above 15% body fat, losing fat is the fastest path to climbing faster. A disciplined 12-week block of consistent riding and better nutrition can yield a 0.3 to 0.5 W/kg gain through fat loss alone.
⚖️ The priority order is clear: body weight first, fitness second, bike weight a distant third. That $3,000 carbon wheelset buys you seconds. Dropping five pounds buys you minutes.
Forget 90rpm. Find Your Own Cadence
90 RPM became gospel. Spin faster, climb better. Research tells a different story.
A 2004 study in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that ~80 RPM was more economical than 100 RPM at sustained workloads. Oxygen cost goes up as cadence climbs, meaning that magic 90 RPM number costs you more energy than most riders realize.
Even the pros don’t spin at 90 on steep gradients. Watch any mountain stage and you’ll see most climbers settling between 70 and 80 RPM once the road tilts up.
Your self-selected cadence is usually very close to your most efficient one. Stop fighting what your legs already know. If 75 RPM feels right on a climb, that’s because it is.
🚵 Personally, I like about 80-90 cadence up the hills – so I am a bit of a “spin to win” type person. But, do what feels best for you!
Slow Rides Build Fast Climbers
Riding easier makes you faster. Zone 2, the intensity where you can hold a full conversation, triggers adaptations that harder efforts simply don’t.
Your body builds more mitochondria, gets better at burning fat for fuel, and improves how it shuttles lactate between muscles. Stop redlining the engine and your body builds a bigger one.
The most common mistake among recreational riders is spending almost no time in Zone 2. It feels too easy, so they push harder. Every ride becomes a tempo ride.
Elite endurance athletes across every discipline follow an 80/20 rule: 80% of training at easy intensities, 20% hard. That ratio is backed by decades of research from sports scientist Stephen Seiler. If you can hold a conversation while riding, you’re in the zone.
It Takes Months, Not Weeks
Two weeks of hill repeats won’t transform your climbing. Meaningful FTP adaptations require 6 to 8 weeks of consistent, structured training.
Beginners commonly see 20 to 40% FTP improvements in their first year of structured work. Even trained riders can expect 5 to 15% gains per focused training block.
If you’re over 40, natural fitness decline runs at roughly 1% per year after your mid-40s. One solid training block can recover several years’ worth of that decline.
💡 Consistency beats intensity. Three moderate rides a week for three months will always outperform two heroic weeks followed by burnout.
Pace the Bottom, Not the Top
The climb didn’t get harder. You started too fast.
The bottom of a climb feels deceptively easy because you’re fresh, so you push. By the top half, you’re buried in oxygen debt and grinding to a halt. Start 5 to 10% below your target effort. The first few minutes should feel almost too easy. You’re banking energy for the steep final section where most riders crack.
Below roughly 10% gradient, staying seated uses less energy. Above 10%, standing lets you use body weight as leverage, partially offsetting the extra metabolic cost. On most long climbs at typical 5 to 8% gradients, sitting wins.
Your pacing mantra for the next climb: if it feels easy at the bottom, you’re doing it right. The top is where the race begins.
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