Hypothetically, lets say you have a long hill. You ride up it, starting off fresh as a daisy, and as night follows day, by the top of the hill you have paced it all wrong and are breathing through your eyeballs.

Assuming you have an accurate HR max and Garmin is ok at working out your zones….which one should you be aiming for…in the long term as you build up fitness?

Or in Watts speak…should you be aiming for consistent wattage all the way up?

I’m confuddled about all this at present. Like looking at a ship in a bottle and how does it get in there!

I’m no expert but I would have thought you would aim to be around your lactate threshold for the majority of the climb until you can see the crest of the hill then take a measured dig into the red for the last bit and hope to recover on the down.

I should not laugh but last dig into the red sums up me rather well
Takes a bit of practice but learning just how far you can push and how much is to much is well worth the pain

When I started xc racing years ago the key was not to be sick at the top of the first climb

Staying in Z4 will get me up most hills comfortably and at a good steady pace. If I feel like attacking it I’ll go up at threshold which is 173bpm, low Z5 and changing gearing to suit. I will try and keep my cadence around 75+ rpm and not ease up over the crest. Ride over a hill, not up it.

When racing I’ll attack a hill as hard as I can and use the downs for recovery, especially for TT’s where you can lose loads of time being too conservative when climbing.

Edit, Whatever method I use to climb I will always mantain a steady effort.