Yep Patrick and Steve that's what I do. Spinning fast uphill in a tiny gear = going nowhere in a hurry and running out of breath. Going uphill in the largest gear I can get away with while pedaling slow and steady = very efficient in terms of propulsion forward, strength and breathing long, deep breaths. Actually on the steepest parts I'm bent over more forward with more arm bend the harder it gets, so in that way it really doesn't change from flats to uphill when pushing hard. The only difference is in the rpm. Both are quad burners ... heeheehee !
As I've watched pro road cycling since the 70/80's, this is how everyone rode. Slow rpm in big gears uphill and huge gears spinning high rpm with great supple' going downhill and on the flats. Watch Greg Lemond in the 80's in race videos, he was fluid from the very low to very high rpm. To be a pro you pretty much had to be able to do that. That started to change in the early 90's, where higher uphill rpm were beginning to happen, but that time frame coincided with the introduction of the drug EPO, which basically gave riders more oxygen in the blood so they could push those higher rpm without running out of oxygen. That's how the story goes as I understood it at least. Even still, you see riders ride in every conceivable way and so one must caution against implying "everyone does this or that" because everyone is unique in their own way. On Friday, April 28, 2023 at 7:23:39 PM UTC-4 Patrick Moore wrote: I think Garth does what I do, which is to shove back to the end of the saddle, put hands on ramps or flats, and push the crank forward and around at top dead center in a highish gear; right, Garth? Me, I expect there are as many different climbing styles as there are gearing patterns, and perhaps some people like to sit upright and spin a very low gear. I (who raised the matter) can't climb like this because I don't twiddle when climbing. When I twiddle, it is to accelerate or to maintain peak speed (not very speedy in my case) and, to do so, move forward and bend low -- "on the rivet" as they used to say. On Fri, Apr 28, 2023 at 2:52 PM Steven Sweedler wrote: On big climbs do you ride in the drops of with hands on the ramps. Steve -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/5a9badd8-0fb6-4590-8999-9a2e978c8191n%40googlegroups.com.
