I think what I did was to find a ridiculously steep road hill that’s fairly short and try to ride up it.
At the first attempt you won’t get very far- then you come back the next day and get a bit further, etc, etc.
Eventually you end up able to climb it to the top.
After that you’ll have no problems with hills of ‘normal’ steepness.
It’s important to lean forward when climbing a steep hill- not only cos it makes it safe (far better to UPD forwards than backwards) but also cos it’s physically necessary- when going forwards you always need your center of gravity ahead of the wheel axle, more so when the road is pointing upwards.
Basically, as Joe says above, you just need to practice riding up hills,then you’ll get better.
Fitness is important, but, the better your hill technique gets, the less energy/muscle you’ll need to acheive the same result.
One mistake I often used to make with really steep hills was to just power up using brute force, when, if I just relaxed more, i found I could focus more on balance and take the hill slower.
On a really steep hill, you tend to go up in a series of 1/2 crank rotations, at the top of which you can do a micro still-stand- that’s the opportunity for a ‘micro-rest’ and, as technique improves, you learn to extend that a bit.
On a paved road, what is considered “normal” steepness? When is it considered difficult? Extreme? I know it is relative to your fitness and experience, and maybe even unicycle, but would 10% grade be considered normal or difficult? I guess I’m asking if there is an established range of difficulty for hills.
It very much depends on the place as well- I’m in Sheffield and hills are everywhere, some of them very steep.
I can tell by what people post from other regions that what they consider a ‘steep’ hill, would, by Sheffield standards, be better described as ‘mild’.
People who talk about tackling ‘steep’ hills on Cokers with 110mm cranks,for example, are, I suspect, not riding the kind of hills that I’d call ‘steep’.
Some categorisations I find useful are-
a hill would be described as ‘extremely steep’ if the only way to get up it is to be standing fuly up on the pedals, minimal weight on seat,probably also requiring pulling on the handle
if the hill can be ridden with most of the weight on the seat and not standing up, then I’d say that it isn’t extremely steep
‘short and steep’ vs ‘long and less steep’- both can be hard to ride up, but for different reasons- the short and steep hill requires standing on pedals and extreme, short term, expenditure of energy and muscle fatigue:the long and less steep hill is easier to ride (and ridden with full weight on saddle), but, it goes on so long that it’s really tiring
I cant really offer useful comment on 10% hills, as have no idea of the %-age values of the hills I ride.
On my recent ‘700c with slim tyre’ thread I talked about setting up a meet in Sheffield for a variety of ‘big wheel’ unicycles- from 24x3, via 700c/slim tyres, 29-ers and Cokers, with various crank lengths etc.
Tackling Sheffields various terrains, including several hills of the most extreme types mentioned above, would, I feel, yield some interesting perspectives on the various hill/crank length/tyre size debates we get on these boards.
Anyone interested then do let me know and I’ll get to work on setting a date.
After one gets use to climbing and has built up strength, you may start gauge hills by climbing any thing that the two wheelers do.
For road rides on a 36, I use what BicycleClimbs says “Ratings are intended to be relative to your area, but generally an “A” class climb is like a 300’ climb at 8% average or more.” The regions for “Seattle”, “Mountains of WA”, and “Bellingham, WA” list many of the climbs I do, have done in the past, or plan on doing. They provide an easy way to track them, add a region for your area, or compare one to another.
Can’t believe I haven’t seen this resource before, although not surprised Joe that you’re the one that turned me on to it. Thank you! Under the Seattle list: We skipped the Tolt Hill climb on your RTL qualifier, although Jeff did it when I rode the qualifier with him. That means you and Bruce still need to complete it to balance the karma.
I’ve been thinking about the May Valley Rd. to summit of Cougar Mtn climb for a while now, and this is the year that I’m going to knock it off. A bit more accessible than the Zoo climb, with nicer road and a lot less traffic. Maybe you should come down late July and we’ll climb it, help you get the final tune for your Cougar Mt. race. If necessary, I’d be willing to bypass doing the climb myself so that I can pace you with my car. That’s the kind of generous guy that I am.
Sounds great. Bruce loves going up hills. Think we could get him to join us?
The Zoo hill has a couple of wicked corners. I may choose to ride the wrong side shoulder to make one of them on a Coker and maintain any speed. Wow what a turn.
The reason reclining bicycles have a BIG advantage over conventional bicycles is that the back of the seat allows the rider to do a leg press on the pedals. You might leg press 400 pounds. An upright cyclists can only exert his body weight down on the pedals.
If you pull up on the uni handle, this allows you to do a leg press, and exert far more pressure on the pedal than pushing down on it. I recommend the press by pulling up on the handle, if you want lots more power to push up the hill.
As for the “wobble” motion with each pedal, this actually makes the hill less steep. Because you are not powering straight up the hill, you are actually making lots of less steep diagonals up the hill with each pedal.
Ok so here are some of my tips for riding big ass hills.
Foot/pedal motion. If you are riding with pinned pedals and with a flat soled shoe that gets lots of grip from those pedals, on your upstroke point your toes to the ground so you can get torque from your foots upward part of the motion. If your feet are maintaining a horizontal orientation with the ground you can’t get this torque (your foot will simply lift of the pedal). Its not quite the same as having clipless, but it lets you get some force to the wheel on a foot that is otherwise contributing nothing to your momentum.
Combine point one with getting a hand(s) on your front handle/t7/pi bar or other to hold you down on the wheel thus allowing you to get more force to the pedals-rather than just pushing yourself off the seat.
For road- on really prolonged and steep hills a slow cadence will work your muscle strength more than your cardio fitness. This is a bias in my fitness that i think is the same with most people. In my entire road riding experience i have not come across a hill that i can’t climb on my nimbus 36er/ 125mm/t7 setup. (Note: i am not an amazingly fit guy- Australia is just pretty flat, even in its steep regions)
For muni- getting up off the seat and really reefing your wheel around in 1/2 revolution spurts on steep sections is often the only way i can climb sections of the trails around here. It will probably get to the stage where you will need a cf seat base because you have torn your plastic base in half from that upward pressure.
A conventional bicycle allows for much more that body weight to be applied to the pedal. A great deal of leverage is available by pulling up on the handlebars on the same side as the downstroke with the foot.
I’d argue that while you may be able to exert more gross torque on a recumbent bicycle it is a far less efficient way of climbing a hill. (But with that said, recumbents sure look fun on the descents!)
The most efficient method whether bicycle or unicycle is to use cleated / clipless pedals and get power around the entire stroke (over the top, down and around and then at the very least unweight on the upstroke or pull up if needed).
I banged this novel out in response to a crank length query over in the Florida mUni Meetup thread, and it seemed too topical not to at least cross-link. Comments (beyond the obvious TL;DR hehe) appreciated.
I’ve been improving my climbing a lot lately, probably due to losing around 20 pounds more than anything else. But here’s something I have struggled with, and am finally showing improvement …
First, I ride almost only muni, primarily on 29er w/150s. The thing I struggle with is what a bike rider I know calls “blowing out my legs” on a climb. I tend to do whatever I need to do to stay on the uni and keep climbing, which means I often overexert on a climb and end up either not completing it (due to UPD or running out of steam), or make it but suffer from going anaerobic on the climb. What I would ideally like to be able to do is figure out, as precisely as possible, the minimum effort required to maintain forward motion, and keep that pace so that I can successfully climb most of the hills I encounter.
My riding buddy and I have been doing some significant hill climbing practice lately, riding fire-road hills with around 8-10% grades (there aren’t many hills where I live, so not a lot of choice) for 2-4 miles. I’ve been more successful in finding the rhythm that others have talked about, and notice that my buddy rides at a slightly higher cadence up the hills than I do–not a ton, but he ends up significantly further ahead. We were talking about how we’re each just trying to stay in the “flow” zone, where things are just kind of clicking along and going well. The simple practice is probably helping a lot, too.
But I guess the test will be when I’m riding the regular trails and see if the practice on fire roads helps out there. I’ll be crossing my fingers.
If you can ride up an 8-10% grade for four miles (gaining 1800 feet?! ), what are you complaining about? What hills “blow out” your legs if they are good for these rides?
The ‘steep’ hill at the end of my road is so steep that it has a handrail for people walking up it! I can’t ride up it on coker with 110s at the moment, but mainly because I haven’t ridden coker for a couple of years. I don’t think it’d be impossible if you built up leg strength.
I think you might be surprised about what people can get up on a Coker with 110s though. Particularly if you haven’t ridden with any of the strongest riders out there. I don’t think there is any road hill in the UK that isn’t rideable on a 29er with 125s, or at least I haven’t found one yet - and I’ve seen people like Sam and Tue climb stuff that is close to the limits of my 29er ability when they were on a coker with 110s. There is a stinking great hill out of Ambergate in the Peak District, seeing that lot of fast people ride up it on coker whilst I was in low gear on the 29er was kind of scary.
When I was in New Zealand, we rode Arthur’s Pass from Hokitika - at one point that is 1:6 for several km (there is 1000m of ascent in the whole day) - I cranked up it slowly on a 29er with 125s, most people walked bits, Roger Davies just powered up it on his 36", I think he had 125mm cranks on.
The road I live on now is fun to ride up - it is not super steep, but it is made of big Derbyshire stones, so it is basically one big lovely rock garden. It’s like a little bit of muni at the end of every ride.
Also, you can work out percentage grades of hills by looking at how much it goes up on an ordnance survey map, and how long it is, then using the formula here. Streetmap.co.uk has 1:25,000 OS maps which are good to calculate gradients off.
(How far did you go in a day? It is a long, steep ride!)
You can sign up for the routing service here:
It is free and it lets you map out and share rides. If you click the elevation option, it includes a profile map with road grades. You can map out road rides or wilderness rides (by turning off the “follow road” option under settings.) It is a fun site to play with, and you can share routes. (I have no affiliation or financial interest.)
I think we did Hokitika -> Arthur’s Pass village one day, then Arthur’s Pass -> Springfield, then Springfield -> Christchurch. It is a nice ride for sure. If you have a muni with you, Craigieburn is a great ride round there too.
I hadn’t ridden my unicycle since the summer of 2007 until Monday and hill training is where my renewed journey has begun. I now live in Pittsburgh near a rather large and hilly, forested and trail-covered area called Frick Park. I’ve also gotten married and gained some weight (unrelated I hope). I’m now in a position and place where unicycling can fit back into my life and I want to once again go at it full force. While home on Easter I got my unicycle, a custom-built 26er by municycle.com in Germany. I’m ashamed to say it’s gathered a little rust.
So, upon entering the park on Monday afternoon I was ready to knock the rust off the uni and myself as well. I was happy to mount on the first attempt and roll off somewhat unsteadily. The ride went well, very cautiously, though well until I reached a the bottom of the ravine and had to make my way up. I huffed and puffed, see-ed and sawed my way up the steep incline, which carried on and on. It was an absolute killer and my legs were dead after I made it up (falling once). I managed to go back down the ravine and fought with everything I had to keep myself going up the other side and did eventually make it, tired and breathless enough to walk the uni the ten minutes home.
That may sound like I had an awful time of those hills, but actually they are what motivates me beyond anything. Today I went out for my second ride and tackled two more big inclines. Neither of them were any easier than the first day’s hills, but I felt a little bit steadier. I know that in a month I will be mounting those crests with relative ease and will be zooming around those trails with a huge smile on my face. That smile was on my face today as well, but largely owed to looking towards the future.
I have been trying something new on hill climbing. When I was just learning I found grabbing the seat and really jamming down the pedals very helpful. Since that time my balance has improved a lot. My new “drill” is to try some road hills and some dirt hills without touching the handle at all. It forces me to stay in balance, and it also keeps my speed down. If I try to take it too fast I end up pushing myself off the unicycle. (That is why I originally found grabbing the handle so helpful.) So I go slow and easy up the hill, hopefully in balance the whole way.
Is this be best way to climb hills? No, but it is great for building skills. I still usually ride holding onto the handle, but I can now get up some steep (OK, steep for me) hills without UPDing. The key for me is to stay in balance and take it at an easy rate. The handle lets me power up the hill, but in tricky or rough spots I can slow down and take it a half-crank at a time without UPDing.
I have a hill near my home which is my own private Everest: never succeeded in climbing it (rather long ascent).
I have tried it with every uni I own (from 20" to Coker) and after 6 years I still fail!
the problem is not leg strength but either I run out of steam (breath … effort asthma starts) or, if I try slower, I UPD (and I am unable to freemount big wheels when going up!).
this limitation in hill climbing (and fear of passing-by cars) is why I do not practice long distance (for Muni I don’t care : I just walk up!)
I’d love to see a pic of your “Everest”. My hill is on a bridge that has handrials along the pedestrian track. If I run out of steam or UPD for whatever reason I just mount holding the rail. The rail is also tall enough to keep me inside on the bridge and out of the river below. Any lower and it would be scary looking over the edge.
), what are you complaining about? What hills “blow out” your legs if they are good for these rides?
