Do you know anyone who out-climbs you on road but who you out-climb off road? And not just on techie things.

Probably…. But the technical is all part of it, skill strength a day stamina all play a part in a mtb climb. I take fire road/simple singletrack to be the same as a road climb

Few MTB riders train at the level of intensity of road / CX riders for racing, so generally the fitter rider would prevail.

Hmm, not in this case.

Seems to be something to do with power delivery. SaxonRider will pull away on longer climbs but only be just ahead on the steeper shorter road climbs despite having a 15kg weight advantage. And off-road he’s way behind me. So maybe it’s a question of max power?

Just got back into the dak side again and have been out with mate who is a regularly roadie. The thing I noticed is that MTB has made me more efficient at using gears properly. So I am keeping a much smoother cadence than my mate – who changes gear too late IMO – and generally eat him up on the climbs.

MTB generally favours larger more powerful riders. The only thing a lightweight rider has in his favour is gravity, and tends to need a sustained climb to really take advantage of it. On short punchy climbs a larger rider can compensate with brute force for a short period, and offroad, rolling resistance forms a larger part of the overall resistance, which again favours a more powerful rider.

Do you know anyone who out-climbs you on road but who you out-climb off road? And not just on techie things.

Yes.

teamhurtmore – Member
Just got back into the dak side again and have been out with mate who is a regularly roadie. The thing I noticed is that MTB has made me more efficient at using gears properly. So I am keeping a much smoother cadence than my mate – who changes gear too late IMO – and generally eat him up on the climbs.

I notice this a lot in CX when things get muddy, the ability to maintain cadence and grip in the slippery stuff is a real mtb Brucey bonus

Seems to be something to do with power delivery. SaxonRider will pull away on longer climbs but only be just ahead on the steeper shorter road climbs despite having a 15kg weight advantage. And off-road he’s way behind me. So maybe it’s a question of max power?

Sounds like SaxonRider has better threshold power to weight than you but a flatter power profile for the shorter duration efforts.

What you calling an off road climb?

My riding partner several years ago would slowly drop me on long draggy fire road climbs. I’d catch him on the descents and always out climbed him on short steep technical climbs. It didn’t surprise me that some years later he became a full on roadie, ditching his mtb all together.

Sounds like SaxonRider has better threshold power to weight than you but a flatter power profile for the shorter duration efforts.

It’s a bit like the old power/time table that crops up.

Saxonriders power might tail off quicker than yours. I know my power (when it was tested, infrequently, in a lab) was something like 5,5-6W/kilo at FTP, but my short duration (equivalent to 5s on that table) stuff was more like 18-20. Makes short sharp climbs much more uncomfortable than long draggy ones. Racing in the UK was distinctly unpleasant, lots of changes in gradient and changes of pace.

The main difference I noticed on group MTB rides was most people’s distinct lack of endurance. MTB doesn’t do anything for steady state power output over time and when you factor in that most group rides are basically one long faff-fest of wait at top/wait at bottom/fix puncture/stop to play on jumpy bit/stop to take photos it’s not really surprising that if you ask a regular “enthusiast” (ie non-racer) MTBer to do 15 miles without a stop they won’t be able to.

Most road rides are geared much more towards 2-3hrs steady state endurance but with much less of the random sudden changes in power that MTB calls for (up short hills, through mud etc).

A road climb is just a steady state power output at a higher level than normal whereas an off-road climb could involve technical sections, backing off the power, much more use of body weight…

MTB doesn’t do anything for steady state power output over time and when you factor in that most group rides are basically one long faff-fest of wait at top/wait at bottom/fix puncture/stop to play on jumpy bit/stop to take photos it’s not really surprising that if you ask a regular “enthusiast” MTBer to do 15 miles without a stop they won’t be able to.

Not all rides are like that…
Last Sunday was a 3hrs 5 out 2hrs 44 moving. Tough climbs and fun downs.
On a road ride you can just keep pedalling and get to the top, put any kind of obstacle in on the mtb and you have to work for it, technique and punchy power normally, the better the technique the less punch required or how much more it delivers for you. A solid fit mtb rider should be able to deliver on both sides.
The lack of pack to drag people along probably confuses most roadies 😉

I wonder about recovery from anaerobic / hard efforts too. I used to ride with a mate who was an iron man triathlete and whose wheel I could barely hold on the road, but on off-road stuff I could kill him just by taking him on any sort of terrain that required short, hard, repeated efforts – short steep bits, steps etc. Two or three of those and he was dead. I figured that he just didn’t recover as well because he wasn’t used to going into the red repeatedly with his tri background that meant mostly he just sat below threshold and pedalled for several hours.

He got better when he started riding more off road and presumably adapted to it along with improving his technique.

I have a mate who can out climb me on and off road, but is pretty much chicken $h!t on descents, either on or off road so over the course of an event I can beat him.

A good example was this years Dyfi, we rode together until the final beer stop – him easing off a bit on climbs at the top (we’re only talking 20 seconds or so on long fireroad climbs) and then me waiting at the bottom of descents, for a bit longer sometimes – and then the last section was go as hard as you can, I out climbed him and out descended and beat him by around 3 mins over the last 6km.

He also can’t pace himself at all, on one event last year he smashed the first climb (up Bwlch-y-groes from Bala), beating me to the top by about 45 seconds and did the same on another one up over Barmouth on a little single track road, but I ended up dragging him clinging onto my back wheel for the last 20 odd KM as he was spent, does it pretty much every time.

One of the girls who rides with us struggles/moans once it gets past 15 miles/3000ft on the MTB, yet can easily do 100 miles (and loads of climbing) on the road.

Seems to be something to do with power delivery. SaxonRider will pull away on longer climbs but only be just ahead on the steeper shorter road climbs despite having a 15kg weight advantage. And off-road he’s way behind me. So maybe it’s a question of max power?

Shorter steeper stuff is a different kind of climb, you can punch up that sort of thing on the road and probably suits someone with say a good 1-5min power/w/kg whereas longer climbs might be paced at threshold so suit a rider with a higher w/kg at threshold?

My Mrs tends to out climb me off road, on road I’ll beat her up most climbs but I just climb badly on the mtb or cx. Obviously she never goes on and on about it

One major difference is that offroad most of the time have to sit to climb as standing results in a loss of traction. Look at Contrador he climbs out of the saddle a lot and practices it. However, offroad you just can’t do that and Cotradors performance on gravel mountain climbs at places like the Giro & Vuelta are far less decisive.

Also worth noting on the new Nino video he talks about practicing short hard climbs, but nothing too long as in XCO racing there is little climbing over a couple of minutes long (for the Pros at least!).

I also think his MTB is too small, he doesn’t look comfortable riding it, which may be part of it.