Training for Mountains when you live on the flats

[zzmkdw]

I am really interested in participating in this event next year:

http://www.michiganmountainmayhem.com/mmmspringclassic/course-info/

My understanding is that many who ride this race, don't actually treat it as a race. It's more about just seeing if they can do it. I would fall into that category. I do not hold a current racing license, so this will be more for "fun". Where i live it's flat...pan flat. I have ridden centuries and have decent fitness, but that is on flat roads. Does anyone have any ideas on how to train for a ride that has so much climbing, when you don't really have a place to climb? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[7ducati]

I do MMM every year, and while it is hilly, it's not mountainous. There are a couple of short punchy climbs around 20% grade, but most everything else is rolling. Where do you live? If it's in Michigan, I could give you some hilly areas that could help.

[zzmkdw]

I live in Waterford (Metro Detroit). The only decent hill i know if the out near Kensington Metro Park. I think that the climb up to the gravel pits is a 9-10% grade.

I am open to suggestions.

Thanks!

[drchull]

The short oversimplified answer is you can't really.

You can do repeats on the shorter hill. You can work intervals at the estimated climbing times for the hills you will be climbing (check Strava for goals). Just working on aerobic capacity and strength will help but need to do hills to get good at hills. May want to do intervals in higher gear with slower cadence. Lose weight, that helps.

You can do these thing but probably need to spend a day or to a month going somewhere where you can ride hills. Reading grades and judging pace requires some time and experience.

[Multebear]

Climbing is like timetrialing. It's a question of holding a steady pace/load with the highest amount of watts, that you can put out for the amount of time, you need to get to the top. You need to know your FTP, and adjust the load according to your FTP/workzones. If your fitness is, where needs be, then it's only weightloss, that can make you faster.

A lot of VO2 max will eventually raise your FTP, and shorter intervals like 30/30 and 40/20 as well. Those will make you faster on a TT and a faster climber.

[arthurf]

Climbing is like timetrialing. It's a question of holding a steady pace/load with the highest amount of watts, that you can put out for the amount of time, you need to get to the top. You need to know your FTP, and adjust the load according to your FTP/workzones. If your fitness is, where needs be, then it's only weightloss, that can make you faster.

A lot of VO2 max will eventually raise your FTP, and shorter intervals like 30/30 and 40/20 as well. Those will make you faster on a TT and a faster climber.

This.

I went to the Alps for the first time this year and we only have short steep climbs where I live (1-3km at 10%+) so I did hour long TT efforts and got up Alpe D'Huez in 47 minutes. My friends, who spent a long time riding our short hills as training, weren't used to the constant load required on your body for a long climb and really struggled.

[zzmkdw]

Thanks for the responses.

I am built more like a sprinter, so weight loss is something I'm working on and will continue to work on over the winter. I've already modified my normal route to include the few hills that i do have more often and have been working on pacing myself on the flats (I usually just went full gas) so that i can go all out on the climbs. I've noticed an improvement in the way i get up the hills. I had never thought about treating the climb like a TT, but it makes a lot of sense. I'm heading out now to give it a try.

[7ducati]

I live in Waterford (Metro Detroit). The only decent hill i know if the out near Kensington Metro Park. I think that the climb up to the gravel pits is a 9-10% grade.

I am open to suggestions.

Thanks!

Oh cool, you are pretty close, I'm in Rochester. Yeah, the Kensington one is good, but too far for me to drive on a regular basis. There's quite a few decent hills (at least for SE Michigan) around the Rochester area. I do hill repeats on a regular basis at Oakland U, but if you don't want to do that, you can easily put together a ride that hits the Rochester area hills and get a few thousand feet in a couple of hours. Here are a couple that are in the general area. You could park at OU and hit all of these.

Snell Road is short but steep, with no run-up to help your momentum. (https://www.strava.com/segments/696486)

Bald Mountain Road is a bit longer but not as steep (https://www.strava.com/segments/2417113)

Giddings is similar to to Bald Mountain, but this has more traffic (https://www.strava.com/segments/826706)

Bloomer Rd has a punchy section and then levels off (https://www.strava.com/segments/2809965)

Bollinger Rd is right next door to Bloomer (https://www.strava.com/segments/1631277)

Letica is right next to Bloomer and Bollinger (https://www.strava.com/segments/1594725)

Orion Road is pretty great, but there's only a small shoulder, so maybe hit that when it's not too busy out. (https://www.strava.com/segments/7143538)

[kellyiom]

I'm on the Isle of Man and although we've got some punchy little tough bits that will go from sea level up to about 330m with some part of that climb hitting 20%, you're only talking 2/3km so as a distinctly non competitive rider needing to get in shape to do a charity ride up Ventoux, I had a similar issue...lots of boring reps helped, no more real fun rides out, just warm up, bike on the car (!) go to bottom of hill, go to top, go down etc...there are a few decent longer runs of 6km but still only getting to the same height so it was an opportunity to learn more about out of the saddle in higher gear for much longer than usual.

Also got a Specialized Roubaix Sl4 with a compact and a 32 granny gear seriously! Also did some ridiculous rolling type flatty rides in a much higher gear than normal and paid attention to getting my weight down to around 71kg. Got up Ventoux fine in a superb time of just under 2.5 hrs! lol but I did feel pretty fresh to be fair, took lots of energy, hydration, electrolytes, probably was very cautious since it was a total step into the unknown, feel I could do it again tomorrow 30 mins quicker, but just really got into a comfort zone and remembered to spend at least 20/30s out of the saddle on higher gear every few mins of riding whether the terrain warranted it or not and for a novice, I was fine. That Mt Washington looks good, one for the list! does get a bit addictive this!