Box Hill on the Big Ring

[Snoop Doug]

[quote="mrP(Boonen)VT"]Pebble Hill on the big ring today 53 12- no sweat.....

Guru P

[quote="Snoop Doug"][quote="mrP(Boonen)VT"]Pebble Hill on the big ring today 53 12- no sweat.....

Guru P

[Toks]

[quote="-Adam-"]53x15 to be precise.

Five times.

0 degrees.

Ouch.

[Stu Merckx Man]

i did it last year toks (as adam as my witness!), it started to hurt my lower back towards the end!

[Toks]

[quote="Stu Merckx Man"]i did it last year toks (as adam as my witness!), it started to hurt my lower back towards the end!

[Andrew G]

I've ridden the vast majority of it out the saddle on a number of occaisions Toks, when riding fixed wheel. Not such a big gear as Adam's intervals though as I've been on either 48x19 or 48x18.

No problems with legs or back or anything else but then it's less of a graunch on that smaller gear. It's not really long enough to be a problem climbing out the saddle for that long in itself, I think any pain or discomfort you may get would be down to using a big gear for a strength interval and how an individual copes with the gear. The first of the Brighton Mitre hill climbs I did this year was just under a mile long and steep all the way (about 10%-17%, mainly in the 12-14% bracket) so that was racing as fast as possible out the saddle all the way, apart from one 100m flat section halfway up. Obviously I wasn't trying to do that in 53x15 but for anything under a mile I think you can probably either ride or race it out the saddle without any problems if you're in a smaller gear, i.e. one that naturally suits your climbing ability/style. I don't think it's being out the saddle for that period that's the issue it's the gear and how you cope with it.

[Toks]

Depending on how fit you are that Box Hill climb can take anything from 6-13 mins.IMHO riding the whole thing 'comfortably' out of the saddle would be pretty tough going. Lets be honest most of us only climb out of the saddle for a couple of minutes before sitting down. On your fixie Andrew you would've had little mini breaks (15~30secs to rest seated) so that will definitley make the climb much easier

[Andrew G]

Do you use look delta pedals Toks? Give me a shout next time you're down for the CR and we can switch bikes at the bottom of Box.

[Michelle]

I did my own Box Hill on the big ring on Sunday.

It's the hill up to Brastead Chart from Brastead. Lovely smooth tarmac, lots of interesting rich peoples houses to look at while you are going past, takes about 11-12 minutes and a super smooth swooping descent on the way down. Bit more interesting than lbp-20.

But I'm not quite on the big ring yet I'm sure that will come.

[Toks]

[quote="Andrew G"]Do you use look delta pedals Toks? Give me a shout next time you're down for the CR and we can switch bikes at the bottom of Box.

[quote="Toks"][quote="Andrew G"]Do you use look delta pedals Toks? Give me a shout next time you're down for the CR and we can switch bikes at the bottom of Box.

[Toks]

Ok maybe I'll come and do that early sportiv in Feb that goes up Box Hill with you. The reason I asked about the out of the saddle climbing was because I did one of those puny 3 minute hills (~8%) up here in north London in 39/17 the other day out of the saddle. It was bloody tough after about two minutes so I wondered about a longer climb like Box Hill. I'm not being competitive really just thinking of ways to amuse/challenge oneself on a long ride

[quote="Toks"][quote="Andrew G"]Do you use look delta pedals Toks? Give me a shout next time you're down for the CR and we can switch bikes at the bottom of Box.

[Andrew G]

Use a bigger gear Toks. You'll want to naturally pedal quicker out the saddle in the same gear you'd use if climbing seated. Up the gear so your cadence stays the same as it would be if you were seated.

The day you're thinking of Toks the hilly 50 finishes up Box hill so will have a load of cyclists finishing the route up it. Would be better to do another day when there isn't an event on the hill.

Of course Snoop lets have the whole club run do it.

[Sylv]

Ahem .. [quote="higg on 25.10.07"]Mention should also go to Slyv for his climb up Box Hill. I went past me, at the first hairpin out of the saddle at around 18mph. Surely he's going to slow down later on I thought as I tried (unsuccessfully) to stay in touch, but no, he maintained near enough the same pace out of the saddle all the way to the top.