KneesUp
Guru
Being as where I live is quite hilly, I wondered what the consensus is on the best way to build fitness. Because there is bound to be a consensus, right?
For example, on my (short) commute in this morning, I had some spare time. Normally I follow the main road, which goes around a small hill but today I though 'well, you're supposed to be getting fit, and you have loads of time to cool down once you get to work' so I went over it.
Now the scale of the hill doesn't matter - some of you I'm sure wouldn't have noticed it - it is about 4 to 5% and only lasts about 1km, but hey, I'm not fit, I have a heavy bike and a rucksack, and I didn't want to arrive at work looking like I'd just been in the sauna.
Today I decided to get up it in the same gear as I had been riding on the flat as this feels like better exercise, and to be honest it was fine; not much of an effort at all until the last bit where I started breathing a little harder.Perhaps this suggests I might consider using a higher gear on the flat? Anyway, I would like to go touring sometime, so I imagine that I should save the lower gears for then, sort of on the principle that weight + low gears = not as much weight + higher gears. But then sometimes I think it's not exercising my heart as much as dropping a few gears and spinning away, and probably isn't good for my knees.
I come across little hills like this all the time. Would you take every hill in as high a gear as you can manage, or spin up them?
For example, on my (short) commute in this morning, I had some spare time. Normally I follow the main road, which goes around a small hill but today I though 'well, you're supposed to be getting fit, and you have loads of time to cool down once you get to work' so I went over it.
Now the scale of the hill doesn't matter - some of you I'm sure wouldn't have noticed it - it is about 4 to 5% and only lasts about 1km, but hey, I'm not fit, I have a heavy bike and a rucksack, and I didn't want to arrive at work looking like I'd just been in the sauna.
Today I decided to get up it in the same gear as I had been riding on the flat as this feels like better exercise, and to be honest it was fine; not much of an effort at all until the last bit where I started breathing a little harder.Perhaps this suggests I might consider using a higher gear on the flat? Anyway, I would like to go touring sometime, so I imagine that I should save the lower gears for then, sort of on the principle that weight + low gears = not as much weight + higher gears. But then sometimes I think it's not exercising my heart as much as dropping a few gears and spinning away, and probably isn't good for my knees.
I come across little hills like this all the time. Would you take every hill in as high a gear as you can manage, or spin up them?