Hill-climbing Hint #1 - Start Small

In January of 2008 I started work at a job near the Bellingham Airport.  To get there I turned off Northwest Avenue near the fire station, to Maplewood Avenue.  The street is level at the beginning, but rises to a modest hill-climb a bit more than a half-mile long (about .7 miles), to an intersection with Bakerview, near the freeway overpass and interchange.  The pavement is cracked and broken, and bike lanes and shoulders come and go on this two-lane residential street, but car traffic is light and usually not fast.  There are a couple of schools nearby, so there is bus traffic, and adult and child pedestrians in the morning.

Many mornings I would leave home five or ten minutes later than I should have, and the hill climb seemed to be the best place to make up time - I just stayed in high gear, stood up and pumped hard.  This put a lot of wear and strain on my legs and my drive-train, though, so I quickly learned to shift down and climb by spinning the pedals at a steady rate.  After a few months of attacking this same, small hill five days a week, I could climb it pretty quickly and steadily; I would get a bit flushed and sweaty in winter rain-gear, but not too out of breath.  When I tried more challenging hills in the spring I found they came easier, too.

I was still using clips on my pedals then.  I'd heard that you should pull up on the pedals.  Now I'd say it's better  to think of keeping the ball of your foot pressed firmly against the pedal, as far around as you can.  This works even if you don't have clips, and it's better than pulling up, which puts unusual strain on your feet and ankles.

One oddity about part of Maplewood Ave. is that on one side of the street, there is a wide paved shoulder with a raised cement parking-lot type divider down the middle.  Probably the half near the car lane is supposed to be a bike lane, and the outside half is supposed to be sidewalk, but there are no signs or markings and pedestrians walk on either side of the divider.  Monday is garbage day on Maplewood, and some residents like to park their big green garbage toters in the bike lane, and their cars on the sidewalk side, obstructing both sides and leaving cyclists with the choice of swerving out into car traffic, or riding across lawns.