Bike to work: How to survive Seattle's hills
Thousands of commuters are taking the cycling challenge for Friday's Bike to Work Day, and in hilly Puget Sound, a roller-coaster route is virtually inevitable.
Cascade Bicycle Club
It's Bike to Work month, so you dutifully get on your two-wheeler and coast on in to the office whenever possible. But oh, man, that climb to get home! Your quads (those squishy things on the front of your legs that seem a bit too much like two-liter bottles of pop) are screaming, and your heart is heading toward ER levels.
You realize that regular cycling in hilly Seattle might take a bit more preparation than just oiling the chain. Maybe now is the time to think about improving your technique.
"Climbing is kind of the holy grail of cycling," says Coach Craig Undem of Cycle University, the bike coaching group with locations in the hilly neighborhoods of View Ridge and West Seattle. Cycle U offers a month-long hill-climbing "boot camp" to get riders up to the challenge.
Here are some tips:
- Clear your mind.
- Start easy.
- Churn up, gear down.
- Relax into it.
"We start with the mental side," Undem says. "Start to accept where you are right now. Don't compare yourself to other people." Especially if they ride by you like you're standing still, or send you a sidelong, superior glance as you're walking up that final grade. Hey, even walking beats sitting in a traffic jam.
Once you've accepted your plight, don't try to attack each rise like you're Teddy Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill.
"Start off easy," Undem advises. "Most people will start off too hard at the beginning of the climb, and then they get out of breath or the climb gets steeper and they have to get off and walk." Which triggers the tape loop back to advice item 1.
Instead, picture your effort in a hill-shaped curve too, pacing yourself, with your effort rising along with the altitude.
Call upon your inner Pilates instructor and use your core strength (stomach and butt muscles) as well as your legs to keep the wheels turning. If you find yourself hunched over like Quasimodo, try standing up to get help from your body weight.
Simultaneously, as your muscles are gearing up, your bike should be gearing down. Click through the gears to offset the climb, getting down into the "granny gears" on the small chainwheel if you get onto a really steep grade.
Common mistakes, however, are gearing down too quickly, which results in loss of momentum, or waiting too long, which makes gearing down impossible.
Caution: some bikes don't downshift well under pedal pressure. Test your gearing out on easy grades. Shift on the upstroke, and bear down smoothly until you feel the new gear click in. Too much stress and you could jam or snap the chain, snap off a pedal or damage other parts of the chainring and derailleur system.
"The only thing you can really control is breathing," Undem says, "so try to relax and breathe."
Take longer, deeper breaths to get full oxygenation into the lungs, he suggests. For more capacity, "sit up a little bit taller, try to relax your jaw and face, and breathe deep into your abdomen."
While you won't be scaling the Queen Anne Counterbalance after your first inner pep talk, that last block home from work might become a bit easier. Time and consistent effort may even make the ride enjoyable. If you enjoy the hill endorphins, try more sophisticated techniques like working on posture, cadence, or zone training.
Since climbing is a feat of strength — essentially pitting your muscles against your weight — it could even encourage you to lose a few pounds. Which would make the climb easier, even as you get stronger. And it might help send those withering glances in another direction.
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Comments:
Posted Thu, May 20, 8:22 a.m. Inappropriate
There are also electric-assist bikes, such as that used by the mayor, where you still have to pedal, but the bike helps you. These bikes are heresy to some, but for someone who's not in full cycling shape but who wants to start getting around by bike, and reducing carbon emissions, they're a very good option.
Posted Thu, May 20, 10 a.m. Inappropriate
Bikes should join the horse and buggy cemetery and the bus and light rail non-efficient modes of transport. Cars, trucks, SUV's are the way to travel in the modern world.
Posted Thu, May 20, 10:21 a.m. Inappropriate
I just want to second smacgry's comment. Not only do eBikes provide some quad relief on the hills but they also allow people to wear work clothes without being covered in sweat at their destination. There is a bit of condescension towards electric bikes but if Seattle truly wants to become a biking city, we need to embrace the eBikes. Sorry folks but this just isn't the Northern European Plain.
Posted Thu, May 20, 1:31 p.m. Inappropriate
Yeah, just a bit of condensation towards ebike riders. Not even mentioned in the above essay, just more prompting to embrace athleticism.
My ebike has worked out really well, I am far more inclined to hop on my ebike to get to work, rather than my car, than I ever have been to hop on my road bike. I'm going to work, not to the beach! I don't care if I become a hardened buffed out bike dude, I just want to avoid being in and creating automobile traffic.
What is clear is that a lot of the active bike riders out there now really seem to have a problem with someone who isn't inclined to take the same purist perspective of athleticism, and prefers one of simply reducing the impact of a daily transportation task. It is awesome that my ebike lets me do this with 50% less time and 75% less effort than my road bike for pennies in electricity.
One would think that a majority of bicycle users would recognize me as making common cause with them, and that my presence on the bike trail would bring us together into a stronger constituency for more bicycle oriented infrastructure. One would think. Instead you get riders who focus on potential traffic conflicts with ebike riders. Which is silly.
Posted Thu, May 20, 7:57 p.m. Inappropriate
I also want to second smacgry's comments about electric bikes. They can be an excellent way to ease back into biking for people who are older or out of shape. They basically make hills and headwinds go away, and can be a timesaver, depending on your route.
I once got a flat tire will biking up a hill to get home after work. Bus service was (and still is) sporadic, so I started walking my bike uphill. I was wearing a heart monitor that day and was surprised to notice that walking my bike briskly up that hill was about as good a workout as riding it uphill. Anyone who needs to take a break by walking their bike uphill should know they aren't wimping out or wasting their time. Instead, they are getting a robust cardio workout.
Posted Fri, May 21, 10:25 a.m. Inappropriate
Not to criticize electric assist bikes, or otherwise poke fun at these tips for bicycling in Seattle, but the article neglects bicycling infrastructure, ie, bike paths separate from traffic, intersections and crosswalks roadways designed to give motorists a clue they aren't licensed to kill, etc.
Painted bike lanes and sharrows do not make bicycling compatible with motor vehicle traffic. These suggestions for training bicyclers to travel in traffic at traffic speed is BS. Adding electric assist doesn't make a cyclist safer.
Road race bicyclists treat other cyclers like obstacles. It is so like Seattle that its bicycle community is filled with agro cyclers no more considerate than motorists. The STP ride is a joke. Those bikes spend more time on bumper racks than anywhere else. Making Seattle safe for bicycling will require infrastructure that is designed to benefit cyclers who ride alongside pedestrians, not alongside motor vehicles. Picture widened sidewalks, curb extensions, the removal of curbside parking, bike paths that were once parking lots spaces. IT BS ain't gonna do it.
Posted Fri, May 21, 10:42 a.m. Inappropriate
The author forgot: "Forget your pride, just walk!" I mean really, who cares if you walk or ride to the top? On my old regular commute, I used to ride the first 1/4, then walk some, ride some, walk some until I got to the top. By the second month I was up to ride the first 1/3.. by the end of the summer I could ride the whole hill. (triple, with a really low granny gear btw.) Time wise, it's not more than a few minutes to walk a hill vs ride it. Pride wise, who the heck cares who sees you out walking your bike? And by the end of the summer cresting the top by riding sure felt good.
ebikes... great as a cargo bike. With kids or groceries they really can replace a car for those close in trips. I commute on a full bike though for the exercise.
Posted Sun, May 23, 3:10 p.m. Inappropriate
Seattle needs to be more like Pittsburgh and build a whole bunch of pedo-bike cable cars that are free rides up and down the hills. In fact, all over Puget Sound, like up and down Kent East Hill, Beacon Hill, Capitol Hill.
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