Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => The Knowledge => Further and Faster => Topic started by: quixoticgeek on 03 March, 2019, 09:55:03 pm
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I notice that the weather forecast for tomorrow is for a stonking westerly wind. I was planning to do a HIIT session, but I'm pondering taking the opportunity to try Hill reps, using the wind.
I'm thinking something like 5 minutes hard slog into the wind, turn round, 2.5 minutes "down hill", 5 mins into the wind. etc... repeat for a total of 4 sets.
Is this a crazy idea? Is there a better way of doing it? I need to improve my climbing, and given the closest thing I have to a hill round these parts is 40m tall, I kinda have to make do with headwinds.
What does the hive mind suggest?
J
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Works for me, I have a ten mile dead straight road that goes SW, perfect for a long Dutch Hill climb
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More experienced people will be along soon. It it seems reasonable to me so long as you think about cadence.
On a steep hill I find that I am at a relatively low cadence, trying to keep a know. Steady power and keeping my HR at a steady level. What steady is for you will vary. I find aiming for a cadence which keeps my HR at 150 works fine. I can do a couple of hours at that level grinding out a climb but will be at about 40-50 cadence.
Hill training is about strength but even more about how to do the climb
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Having spent the second half of 2017 and the first half of 2018 in the same vertically challenged geography, I would suggest that into the wind reps and just riding into the wind did help my hill climbing ability. After 4 months of doing few hills larger than the last dune into Den Haag I rode the Porkers (6000m ascent in 400m) and was surprised to find that I was climbing up the hills better than my peers (and I was a good bit quicker than my previous foray on these particular Wessex roads).
The point about low cadence is well made. I ride with a lower cadence into the wind, just as I do when climbing hills. That's mostly a mental point, when I'm riding into a stiff headwind, if I drop a gear, I just get blown to a slower speed and I have to drop down to a lower gear, whereas if I keep the power high (at a cadence of about 60) I can grovel forever. There's probably a health warning about knee pain - especially if your position on the bike is not perfect.
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Of course by the time I got out on the bike, the wind had died down. Did my usual HIIT session instead. Forecast suggests Thursday may be another chance to try for Headwind Hill Reps...
Todays HIIT session inadvertently hit my target for one of the local strava segments, PB was 11:23, target was 11:00, I hit 10:41. Very pleased.
J
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Of course by the time I got out on the bike, the wind had died down. Did my usual HIIT session instead. Forecast suggests Thursday may be another chance to try for Headwind Hill Reps...
Todays HIIT session inadvertently hit my target for one of the local strava segments, PB was 11:23, target was 11:00, I hit 10:41. Very pleased.
J
Congratulations
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Of course by the time I got out on the bike, the wind had died down. Did my usual HIIT session instead. Forecast suggests Thursday may be another chance to try for Headwind Hill Reps...
Todays HIIT session inadvertently hit my target for one of the local strava segments, PB was 11:23, target was 11:00, I hit 10:41. Very pleased.
J
Congratulations
+1
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Currently heading south down the East coast of India starting from Chennai. 25mph headwinds and 40c temperatures make for exhausting progress!
Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
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Currently heading south down the East coast of India starting from Chennai. 25mph headwinds and 40c temperatures make for exhausting progress!
Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
#continentdropping
Nicely done!
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So I went out on the Ringvaart to do some hill reps. Wind is forecast as force 6, mywindsock says it was 12.5-20.7m/s. Which works out at 45-74kph. Given a couple of gusts were enough to blow me to a stop, and the bit with a slight crosswind I was riding canted over at a 10-15° angle, the lower end of that certainly seems plausible. I had originally planned 4 minute efforts, with 2 minute "downhills", but given the wind was even stronger than expected, I did a last minute change down to 3 min up, and then 90 seconds spin at a high gear, there was just too much traffic to make turning round safe. I did 5 efforts in total. Which was bloody hard. Grinding away at 60rpm, and 150bpm yet at times struggling to make 13kph is pretty crazy. At the end I continued on an extra half km to the end of a known segment. The other day in light winds I did that segment as part of a HIIT session (part intervals, and part as the easy spinning between sets), my time on Tuesday was 12:34. Today, I managed 20:56. Having completed the segment, I spun round 200m up the road, took a run up, and did the reverse segment. The one I got a new PR of 10:41 on Tuesday on. Well today I averaged 36kph over the 4.95km distance, peaking at over 43kph... For the first time on this bike I hit top gear and found myself clicking away wondering why I wasn't going up a gear. I wondering if I could have given it a bit more and broken the 8 minute barrier. But hey, I'll take a 2:33 improvement on my time.
On Tuesday I reset my previous 11:00 goal at 10:00 I'm wondering what the hell to set my goal to now...
Strava link for anyone curious:
https://www.strava.com/activities/2197233418
J