Hills

When I take note here of a 'Basic' workout, I am talking about one of three versions of the 'Basic' ride on the trainer, each lasting just 30 minutes.

1) Basic, 30

2) Basic, Intervals

3) Basic Hills

Today for the first time this indoor season I did the Basic Hills routine. Let me share what this one is about.

Basic Hills follows the same format as the Basic Intervals workout, only during the middle 10 minutes instead of concentrating on high rpm/spin you simulate climbing on a hill in intervals.

Here is the breakdown;

I take the first 6-7 minutes as a warmup in my starting easy gear. Then I shift up one gear ad ride to the 10:00 mark.

From 10:00 to 20:00 do intervals in bigger gears.

Do 30 seconds making a harder effort in a tougher gear, then do one minute of recovery, ridden in that middle gear. Repeat.

The point here is to never go all the way back down to your starting easier gear until the intervals are over at the 20:00 mark. During your recovery one minute portions you should be in your medium gear.

Go down to the easiest gear when the intervals are over at the 20:00 mark and simply use that final 10 minutes to spin and cool down.

During the intervals of hill work, choose however many gears up you want to go each time. For instance, I start out going up only one gear harder but by the final interval I am three gears harder than my medium gear.

These are the times you might want to get out of the saddle and "hammer" as they say. I do NOT attempt to do that any longer because I have found in the past that because the trainer bike doesn't 'give' like a bike out there on a real road, it can bother my hip replacement the next day. So I avoid any out of the saddle while on the trainer.

Also during these hill interval 30-second efforts, I find it is a good time to remember my good old dog poop waterfall pedal suggestion. Every little bit of the pedal stroke helps when being challenged in a bigger gear simulating going up a hill.

RIDE

Trainer; Basic Hills

6.8 miles/13.6 average mph

2020 SEASON MILES

Indoor: 54.8

Outdoor: 11