As children we all learned that to climb that nasty hill on the way to the convenience store, you had to stand up on the pedals and throw your weight back and forth to grind your way up the hill. When on a recumbent, there is a different and much better way. Spin your way up hills.
On a normal diamond-frame bike, the most force you can exert in hill climbing is the weight of your body pressing down on the pedals. On a recumbent, you can exert much more force due to the leverage of your back against the seat.
And yet, despite that increase leverage and force, most of us still try to grind our way up. We still try to throw our weight at it, and end up wobbling our way to the top. At the same time we risk over-stressing our knees, which are the weakest links in our cycling engine.
But there is a better and more efficient way to climb that hill. It’s called spinning.
Spinning refers to using a lower gear and keeping your cadence up with faster revolutions of the pedals. This combines the leverage of your engine with the leverage of the lower hill-climbing gears. When spinning correctly, only your legs are constantly moving. Don’t throw your weight back and forth. And keep a light touch on the handlebars. If your hands are getting tired, you’re gripping the handlebars too tight, and that contributes to grinding rather than spinning. As a side benefit of keeping a light touch, you’ll find you keep more of a straight line as you ride. You won’t stress your knees and you’ll actually arrive at the top of the hill less fatigued.
Even tadpole trike riders that have the luxury of increased stability when hill climbing, not to mention the advantage of being able to stop without falling over to catch your breath (and not falling over when you forget to unclip), should switch to lower gears and spin up hills.
So the next time you start grunting as you grind your way up that nasty hill, try spinning your way to the top instead.
- Russ
