I did the Fred on Sunday and it was a sort of fun day out.

The hills in the Fred are particularly steep, but it does point out that I have a particular weakness with incline – how do I fix that?

The obvious answer is to ride more hills, but as I live in a flat area that’s easier said than done. Also, I’m quite light (67kg, 179cm) and have an FTP of circa 3w per kg. Not amazing, but it does me okay on the flat.

I just seem to lack power and strength on the uphill, which lessens my overall stamina.

So, what does the wisdom of the STW crowd recommend for me?

67kg and 3w/kg isn’t much if I’m being harsh. At that weight you should be flying up.

How much riding are you doing?

The speed you go you go uphill is ultimately about W/kg, so you could work on intervals that increase your FTP (without increasing your weight). You should also do some above FTP interval work, to train yourself to be able to push beyond your sustainable limit for short periods and recover quicker. If you genuinely don’t have any hills to ride up, try doing some of your intervals as big gear, low cadence efforts.
It’s difficult to train for the psychology and rhythm of climbing without actually finding some hills, though!

Find hill, ride up hill, ride down hill and repeat. Then try it faster and repeat, then try bigger hill and repeat….. I reckon you’ve got the hang of this by now.

Spin class that replicates hills.

Sorted.

Get fitter, lighter, technical setup/gears, tactics, fuel and enjoy the hills.

67kg and 3w/kg isn’t much if I’m being harsh. At that weight you should be flying up.

I don’t know what your reference point is, but if the OP wants to climb hills faster, the only useful thing to measure against is his own current performance. An FTP of 3W/kg seems a perfectly reasonable starting point.

If you don’t have a real hill, just do intervals that mimic them? Your heart/lungs/blood/muscles* don’t know the difference between a 20 minute interval in Norfolk and 20 minutes on Mont Ventoux**.

*maybe a slight impact from the gradient effectively altering the geometry of the bike, but that’s got to be marginal.

**apart from the altitude, but in the UK that’s not going to matter.

A few times up the Alpe de Zwift should help. Hill repeats. Crest sprints. Overload your body and let it recover.
I find climbing actually does engage my muscles in a different way from flat riding. I’ll drop cadence to around 75-80 on the steep stuff vs my normal 90-100.

Panniers with bricks in.

Ebike?

Not for everyone but an indoor trainer that can replicate climbs could be an option. I’ve been using one since October and now when I occasionally riding back in the open as it were the difference in climbing and overall bike fitness is quite amazing, very pleased with the results.

The FW is a tough baseline to judge your climbing on. Hardknott after 90 miles of Fred is pretty much the hardest road climb in the UK, so if you found that an absolute savage effort then don’t worry, you were meant to.
That’s not to say you couldn’t just quit your job, get divorced, move north and start riding like a man, but not everyone can make those choices. Just try and get better in your locale, there must be some decent off-road efforts at least.

Thing that struck me about the FW when I did it (not being from a road background) was how bad the average club riders were on the steep bits, e.g. folk getting off on Honister left and right, but also how fast they were on the rolling stuff. Normal blokes seemed to be riding with purpose – dishing out 17, 18 mph avg sort of speeds no bother, and the club hardmen were well above that. That sort of roadie toughness impressed me, I felt slow all day on anything that wasn’t steeply pitching up or down.

Hill reps, get used to them then start sprinting the last few metres.

If you can produce an FTP of 3W/kg, do you do so on the steep hills several hours into a sportive?

Some other things spring to mind.

When you’re plugging your way up a hill, airflow drops and cooling drops. Your body has many innate protections from overheating so if you generally wrap yourself up for your rides, an incline can tip you over the edge and performance drops away quickly. When you’re on a big stretch of a ride like the Fred (without hilly centuries being part of your regular programme) you’ve got a lot to factor in just in terms of managing your stamina. Sometimes you need to go slower to go faster.

The great thing about hills is that you can go up them slowly; going slower moderates the effort within your capability. It can take some practice but, while a hill can give you an urge to strive against it, constantly striving is probably an above FTP effort and you’ll blow quickly like that and actually manage better from doing something that feels like soft pedalling. Low gear. Decent cadence. No surging through the power stroke. No lunging on the bars.

Hills can defeat you mentally before they defeat you physically. You are going slower and it doesn’t feel like you’re going well. That eats away at you. Option A is you respond and overcook it and then blow up. Option B is that your mental game prevents you from just plugging away and you despair and blow up. Option C is that perceived difficulty makes you lose form on the bike and you don’t even perform to your potential.

3W/kg isn’t nothing but also isn’t a big number. You’ve got to be realistic. Your perception of 3W/kg may be “I’m slow”. A plan to grow that 3W/kg will always help but consider mental factors also. Just remember, you’re on your bike; what could possibly be better?

I live in Norfolk so not blessed for hills, but ultimately you need to build leg strength and increase watts.

For Torino-Nice rally last year, i rode my singlespeed for the months leading up to it on the few inclines around here, gradually increasing the size of the front chainrings and trying to stay seated for the climb. That plus a couple of gym sessions a week, with dynamic squats and other leg exercises.

Riding against the wind can also replicate riding up hiĺl

I started MTB again a year or so again and the ripe old age of 40 and 102 KG.

I ride around the South Downs and when I forst started I was walking up most hills, but now after just doing it over and over im at 92kg (target is 85kg) I can get up most hills on my FS Trek – which is not the lightest bike out there.

It just takes time and effort, but well worth the rewards.

Best thing I found to improve strength and hills was riding singlespeed. You have no choice but to get better at going up them when you only have one gear. On the flat set it up with a slightly taller gear to build strength.

Drugs?

Knowing your FTP is helpful, although these days there are a lot of riders like me who use 95% of their best power over 20mins as an estimate, instead of riding at our limit for 60mins… My best 20min effort from March was 314W, but over the last year I’ve yet to do better than ~255W over a full hour.

Mix up power interval duration repeats of anything from approx 1-20mins, with higher power aims for shorter durations, followed by recovery periods of approx 50-100% length.

On a turbo trainer, you could simply ride a big hill like Ventoux in RGT, where you do easy/hard periods of changing which gear you are using, which will give more variability to the power than using ERG mode but will enable you to feel the power you can produce in different gear combos for when you ride outdoors.

If you have an incline or two nearby that takes over a minute to climb at full effort, you can improve your sustained power for when you visit big hills.

Silly question, are you using your gears properly?

If you are going to ride a lot and “train”, then yes, running in a higher gear and slogging up some hills is the way to gain strength, but if you’re (like me) a bit of a lightweight, and don’t really find enough saddle time, then you’ve got to spin your way up the hills because you won’t have built the muscle mass to be able to slog up them. So, get in a low gear, early, and REALLY spin your way up, remembering to breath properly!

I ride with loads of heavier / stronger riders who tend to pull away at first on a hill while i start spinning, but 3 min later i’m still spinning at the same rate and they are stalling & puking… 😉

Chris Froome’s Best Tips for Climbing