I was just thinking about a few very simple techniques on my last ride that help me to conserve energy on hilly rides and decided that I would mention them here since we are pretty much in peak riding season (at least here in the northern hemisphere).

First let me mention that when I write about a popular topic, like this one, I usually do an internet search and check out the articles ~ and videos ~ that are already out there on the subject. What I found is that there are quite a few articles on this topic as I expected. Many have to do with racing and others, have good tips but get into a little too much detail for me.

So here are my own personal tips, that I have learned from many years of riding experience, for handling hills on hilly rides (specifically I am referring to rolling hills more so than steep hills or mountains).

Keep Your Momentum

The key thing that I have found to be the most helpful is to keep your momentum, or even increase your speed a little, as you approach a hill (going up). If you are coming off of another hill (going down) then you should keep pedaling to keep up or increase your speed especially towards the bottom of the hill and start of the uphill part.

Don’t Downshift Too Low or Too Soon

One mistake that I used to make quite often, and still do on occasion if I am not paying attention, is to downshift to a much lower gear too soon before going uphill. This is really one of the key points that I wanted to make. You will want to shift to a lower gear when climbing a hill but if you gear down too soon, you can lose your cranking power, break your momentum and start to slow down much too soon making it much harder to climb the hill.

It takes a little practice to get your timing right but I have found that there is a huge difference on the energy that I spend or use depending on how well I handle the hills.

Standing vs Sitting

I found that there were quite a few articles that go into the advantages or disadvantages of standing on the pedals as you go uphill This technique can be helpful in some situations but it can also work against you if you don’t do it the right way or at the right time. I have found that standing on the pedals works best for me only on very steep hills and towards the top of the hill. If you already have some speed built up as you approach an uphill section and stand too soon… once again you break your momentum.

I’m not going to get into a lot more detail than I already have posted here. I have found that the techniques that I’ve mentioned here can make my hilly rides much easier when done right.

 Other Stuff

Well, yesterday’s broadcast of the Tour de France included highlights of the initial stages of the race since it was a rest day for the riders. OK, I guess they might need a rest after so many hundreds of miles at top speeds and into the mountains. 🙂 . I actually missed some of the climbs into the Pyrenees which I like to see.

Regarding this hill riding post, I do notice the TDF riders standing at times as they climb into the mountains but it seems like they are seated on most of the climb. I’ll pay more attention as I watch tonight and see if I notice any obvious patterns.

I also keep an eye on the traffic that this site gets (via Google Analytics) and I have noticed a big increase in the interest in the Proform Tour de France Bike, which is not suprising at this time of year, with the TDF happening.

One other thing that I wanted to mention is that I am usually out riding new trails at this time of year and photographing and documenting them on this site but we have had some problems with our vehicles and I have not been able to get out to the new trails yet. I still hope to get out there soon though.

And finally, I am currently in the process of moving all of my existing Bike Trail Videos to YouTube. Originally, I kept my bike trail videos on this site exclusively, rather than posting them on YouTube since I was able to generate the Flash videos myself but I have found that there are now some very good reasons to move these videos to YouTube.

I have quite a few Bike Trail Videos, of the trails in our area, and they do a pretty good job of documenting the trails but they are a few years old now and the quality of videos have gotten so much better that I see I need to upgrade my video equipment asap. I will post more on this once I have completed the transition.

I have written about this topic each riding season for the last few years but I still find this particular Bike Riding Tip to be very helpful and it is a good reminder even for those of you who are already aware of it.

My riding tip is actually very simple… Check the Weather Radar for rain before your bike rides. OK, this is not totally necessary on a bright sunny day with a clear blue sky (although it doesn’t hurt to check) but it is especially helpful when it’s cloudy and looks like it may or may not rain.

Usually, the general weather forecast is not very accurate when it comes to rain because weather forecasters will show rain in the forecast, for the day, when there is as little as a 30% chance of rain. This also does not specify at what time it may or may not rain. In the past, I have used the hourly forecasts on the Weather Channel website for a more accurate forecast but I find that I still like to check the radar to really get a feel for what is going on up in the skies before I ride.

I was thinking of this blog post on my last ride since it looked very cloudy and the weather forecasters were predicting rain (in general for the day). Before my ride, I checked the radar and saw that it was totally clear and there was no rain heading in my direction for the time of my ride. I had a nice worry-free and dry ride and there were very few other riders out since it looked like rain.

There is always a possibility of getting a few sprinkles of rain, on a cloudy day, during your ride, even when the radar does not pick up anything but I don’t mind that. I just don’t like being surprised by a heavy rain or a downpour when I am quite a few miles out on my ride.

Where and How to Check The Weather Radar

These days there are quite a few places where you can check the Weather Radar and you mostly just need to find which service you prefer. There are many weather websites that give you a animated radar display and you could even just check the Weather Channel on TV (although I prefer checking online since you have more options and I don’t have to wait around for the Weather Channel to display the local radar).

MyRadar app screen

The Weather Channel website has a pretty good radar display and many of the local news media sites also have good radar displays. I recently got an iPhone and downloaded the free MyRadar app and this is probably my favorite service now since it is always handy, up to date and so easy to use.

The image that I have included here is from the MyRadar app. This is a free app so there is a line of advertising at the bottom which I cropped out in this case. As you can see from the attached image this is NOT a good day for a bike ride (which is why I am inside blogging 🙂 ). We are actually having major storms and flooding right now.

The color codes on the attached image are pretty common too. The lightest precipitation is usually blue and green, moderate precipition yellow and the heaviest is in red.

The way that you will usually want to check the radar is to make sure that you are looking at an animated display (not just a still display). Then note the time range for the display ~ there is usually a display of the time of the radar image that matches the animated image (usually from 1/2 hour to an hour). Then if you see precipitation heading your way you will need to make a prediction of how much time you have before it reaches you. You will want to zoom out to check a longer time frame and zoom in for more detail in your immediate ride location. You can actually get pretty good at this after a little practice.

I have found that the blue areas and even sometimes green are pretty safe to ride in. Blue may just be clouds and green could be clouds or a sprinkle of rain. Yellow is going to be a pretty good chance of rain and red means you are going to get soaked if you are out on a ride.

Another Related Tip

While I’m on the subject of rain and bike rides, I wanted to mention one other tip that may be helpful to you. These days, I always have multiple electronic devices with me on my bike rides. I always have my Edge 800 GPS Bike Computer and my iPhone and when I am out exploring and documenting new trails I usually have my camera and sometimes a camcorder. This makes me nervous when I get caught in a heavy rain (OK, it can still happen. Sometimes I don’t check the radar or I just decide to ride even if it looks like I might get caught in the rain).

My GPS Bike Computer is weather resistant but I like a little extra protection so I also carry a baggie and a rubberband to cover it when it rains. A soft, non-zip-lock baggie works best for this. For my other devices I carry some additional zip-lock baggies that are the best size for each device. I also have a bike bag and camera bag that are fairly water resistant but they do not claim to be completely waterproof so I put my electronic devices in the baggies inside the bike bag (and camera bag) for a real hard rain.

So there you have it. a few simple tips that can make your rides more fun and worry free and even give you the option to ride when everyone else thinks it is going to rain on them.

Keep in mind, these tips are also helpful for quite a few other outdoor activities. 🙂

It has been so nice to be able to get out on the bike trails again and I just wanted to mention how important it is to stay healthy ~ for cycling and everything else really ~ and how I managed to get back on the bike trails again this year after a recurring leg injury.

I injured my leg last fall and although I was still able to ride, I had to cut back on how often I rode and really take it easy or the pain would get much worse and I would not be able to ride at all.

This was not too much of a problem since it was very late in the riding season. When the weather started getting colder (and the days shorter) I eventually put my bike away for the year and got into my winter exercise routine (usually walking and running, mostly outdoors) and although there was still a little pain, it was not all that bad.

Unfortunately, my leg had never completely gotten back to normal and when the weather got warmer this year (very early this year, actually) and I started cycling again, I took a couple of long and fast rides and re-injured it once again. 🙁

At first I just stopped riding for a while and tried to give it enough time to heal on its own. Well, that was taking forever and driving me crazy that the weather was beautiful and I was not able to get out and ride.

Touch of Health in Buffalo Grove

This is when I decided to take action and see my Chiropractor. I had had back issues in the past and had seen Dr. Steven Ciolino at Touch of Health in Buffalo Grove. It took multiple visits and adjustments for my back problems (which I have had all my life) but after my chiropractic treatments my back has been much better and I rarely ever have any back pain.

I really believe that chiropractic therapy plays an important role in health care and is often overlooked by people that like to see their regular internal medicine doctor for any and all of their health care issues.

This is not to say that chiropractors  can do everything and that we do not need regular (internal medicine) doctors also. It’s just that there are certain kinds of health issues and injuries that are just much better off when treated by chiropractic methods rather than by taking a pill (or worse yet, having surgery without considering alternative therapies).

So getting back to my leg injury, after waiting for my leg to heal on its own for weeks ~ and missing out on a lot of great riding days ~ I finally saw my chiropractor. It did take about 3 or 4 visits but gradually my leg got much better and it is now almost 100% and I am back on the trails again!

When you have health issues or injuries and then get better you really appreciate how valuable being healthy is. I try to keep this in mind and never take my good health for granted.

Cycling is, of course, an excellent way to stay in shape and stay healthy but you also have to be careful not to push yourself too hard and/or injure yourself and loose the benefits of  the workout.

Even when you are very careful you still may end up with an injury of one sort or another. If this happens you may want to look into chiropractic care. I have certainly have found it to be very beneficial.

Stay healthy and enjoy the ride!

OK, I have already written about this once before (back in 2009) but I have found this one small thing that you can do before a ride on what looks like a rainy day to be so simple and helpful that I just have to do an update and mention it one more time.

Check your Local Weather Radar before your ride. I have a “favorites” location added in my browser for the online weather radar specifically for my area and I set it to be animated when I go there, but you could also just go to the weather channel on TV for a quick update if you prefer.

This is the most helpful on cloudy days when it looks like it might rain or on days when the forecast is calling for rain. Often times it is just cloudy and there are no major rain clouds in the area or when the forcast says rain it might just be a very small percentage of a chance that it is really going to rain.

There are many days (such as just a few days ago) when it really looked like it was going to rain and I really wanted to get out and ride. Well, I checked the local radar on the internet and  saw that there was no major rain heading my within the last radar updates (usually 1/2 hour to an hour) so even if it sprinkled a little on my ride, I was very confident that I would at least not get soaked (and most of the time it did not even rain at all). If you need to check more time, for a longer ride, just zoom out for a wider view.

There are other times when I saw rain coming on the radar and was able to accurately predict when it would hit the area where I would be riding and adjust my ride to the time that I had available. It’s amazing how well this works and how accurate it is.

Anyway, I hope this helps and it is really quite a simple helpful way to plan your rides.

For some other related bike ride and weather information. Here’s a link to my 2009 post on this subject and a link to some other helpful hints on what to wear for your ride in different weather conditions.

Sorry for the long delay in blog posts. I have been out there riding but just haven’t had a lot of blogging time.

Anyway, I just had an excellent ride today (29 miles) and since it’s getting colder here in the Chicagoland area, I had to refer to my bike clothing hints on the Bike Weather Clothing page on this site.

I put together that page a few years ago and found it handy to remember what bike clothing to wear in what kind of weather. Now, this is just a guide or a summary and it will vary of course for each person but it works perfect for me though (since I wrote it!) 🙂

As for myself, I seem to be able to handle cooler weather better than a lot of people. For example, it was in the 50s today and I was mostly comfortable with shorts and a t-shirt (while riding) although I did bring a jacket and wore it occasionally too. I still see a lot of other people bundled up like I might be in the middle of winter though.

One of the things that I did not mention in my original article though was that the speed that you ride will also make a significant difference in how warm you want to dress for your rides.

Riding is a little cooler than other outdoor activities because of the wind (which is a great benefit in the summer) but your body temperature will be higher if you are really pushing yourself for speed and a good workout (which I have been doing more of lately).

For example, I used to ride at a leisurely average of around 12mph, which is a nice comfortable, relaxing touring ride speed (for me anyway) and I would probably keep a light jacket on for the whole ride in this weather. Recently, however, since I have been trying to get a better workout, my average speeds are around 14mph to 15mph and I worked up a sweat with the jacket and had to loose it a couple of times.

Since this is very “in between” weather, there are times that the jacket was comfortable and other times that it was too warm. This is where my fairly new rack/trunk style bike bag came in really handy. My jacket fits in the bag pretty easily and it’s easy to get it in and out so I was able to alternate between my t-shirt only and jacket easily with just a brief stop.

Well, I guess that’s about it for my blurb about cool weather riding and how to dress. Most of you probably already know what works best for you but, if you are like me, you may not get it just right or may need some hints and reminders, or even some clothing or equipment upgrades, when the weather first starts changing.

Later, Rob.