Pretty much everyone one of us has a nemesis climb, and more often than not it’s a darn steep blighter! But why is it that steep climbs feel so much harder, and how can you improve on them? Cycling coach James Spragg runs through what you need to know…
James Spragg
Sports scientist and coach James Spragg is one of the experts who will be answering your questions in Cycling Weekly’s ASK A CYCLING COACH series which comes out every Wednesday. Working both in research and applied settings, he currently runs Intercept Performance Consultancy .
We talk a lot about power output in cycling, however (in my opinion) we should be considering power as a product of its component parts, torque and cycling cadence . Simply put, torque can be considered as how hard you are pushing on the pedals and cadence as how quickly.
When we go up a steep climb, the speed is relatively low, therefore the primary thing we are having to overcome is gravity. The steeper the climb the more vertical displacement or gain in height we achieve with each pedal stroke. Achieving more vertical displacement in the space of one pedal stroke means we need to put in more force.
Torque can be thought of in the same way as power. We all have a max torque in the same way as we have a peak sprint power, and likewise, we all have a sustainable torque in the same way we have a sustainable power, your Functional Threshold Power […]
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