Road Cycling Skills

How to: Use Your Gears When Cycling Uphill

Get in gear and enjoy the climbs

Drop into the 'right' chainring early

Image: Brian Townsley
Get into the right chainring early... Image Richard Masoner / Cyclelicious
Use the descent to gain as much momentum as possible. Rain: optional. (Image: Peter Trimming)
That applies to you, too! (Image: Tejvan Pettinger)
Women's pedal strokes not as powerful?
Image: Brian Townsley
Over a sprint your heart rate won't react in time to register the effort. Image: Coda2

Drop into the 'right' chainring early

Once the hill begins you’ll be putting extra power through the pedals, loading tension through the chain, which can make it hard for the derailleur to do its job.

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If the hill is fairly shallow, you might want to climb in the big ring, but if you know you’re going to need to lower the resistance, shift into the smaller one in anticipation, so you don’t have to force it to ‘clunk’ later on. You can maintain momentum by selecting a smaller, high geared cog on the cassette (note – not the HIGHEST – see the next page).