Climbing hills on your mountain bike isn’t everyone’s favorite part of riding, but conquering a steep hill on your bike can be a fun, challenging and rewarding part of the sport. Read on if you want to level up your climbing skills and fly up those steep uphills faster than your riding buddies.
Choose the right gear
Choosing the right gear of your transmission to climb in is very important to being able to pedal to the tops of hills. It’s usually best to pick an easier gear for climbs since you already have gravity working against you.
If you’re riding in a higher, more difficult gear from the previous section of trail and try to tackle a steep climb without downshifting, you’re going to have your work cut out for you and there’s a very high chance you’ll need to stop partway up the hill, having lost your momentum and not able to pedal and shift because of being in a harder gear.
As you approach a climb from flat or downhill sections of trail, you should always be thinking downshift. Knowing how much to downshift for a climb can be more art than science, but getting your mountain bike into a gear that is close to the one you should be in, even if not perfect, is much better than trying to power up a hill in a gear that is much too difficult.
Small adjustments, like downshifting or upshifting one more gear, isn’t usually a problem and you should be able to do this on the fly as you climb. Trying to downshift from a gear that is much too difficult is a completely different story – and you’ll find this out when you stall out partway up the hill.
Think ‘smooth and steady’ for your pedal stroke
When you’re mountain biking uphill, especially on steep climbs, you need to keep a smooth, constant pedal stroke. This means that the pace of your pedaling stays the same throughout your climb, with no rapid speeding up or slowing down.
By keeping your pedal stroke as smooth and consistent as possible on climbs, you’ll be able to more efficiently carry your momentum up the hill. But maybe even more importantly, you’ll be able to maintain much better traction by being smooth instead of jerky with rapid accelerations on climbs.
Keeping your pedal stroke smooth and steady on steep sections goes hand in hand with approaching it in the right gear – too difficult a gear will make it impossible to maintain a steady pedal stroke. Too easy a gear can also lead to rapid accelerations in your pedaling and cause your rear wheel to slip.
Keep things smooth and you’ll get to the top more efficiently while keeping solid traction with the trail surface.
Pace yourself
As anyone who has ridden their mountain bike up hills already knows, it can be very tiring! Depending on your conditioning level and the steepness and difficulty of the trail you’re climbing, you can easily become out of breath.
You’ve got to pick the right pace for the uphill trail ahead that will allow you to make it to the top of the hill without having to stop because you’re exhausted.
You also have to keep in mind how much of your ride remains. If you’re just tackling that one last uphill section towards the end of your ride, then go all out if you want! But if you’re still early in your riding for the day, make sure you keep that in mind and save some energy for the rest of your ride.
Your pace can also vary a lot depending on the length of your climb.
Shorter climbs vs long climbs
You should approach uphill sections of trail differently depending on how long they are. Your climbing technique can depend on how long of an uphill you’re dealing with.
While pacing yourself is important, you can sometimes be better off going as hard as you can to keep your speed and momentum up and get over short climbs quickly. By short climbs, we mean a climb that can be ridden up in about 10 seconds or less.
When you have a short climb ahead, often you’ll be best off sprinting towards it and carrying as much speed as possible to carry you up the hill. When doing this, you should still downshift some into an easier gear, but not as much as you would on longer climbs – keep your bike in a relatively harder gear.
Keep in mind this strategy will only work on short, relatively smooth climbs that can be done in about 10 seconds or less. On longer or more technical climbs, you’ll need to downshift more and remember to pace yourself and keep a smooth pedal stroke to get to the top efficiently.
Stay seated if possible
When climbing its generally best to stay seated if at all possible. By staying seated while you climb, your weight stays centered over the bike. Staying seated while climbing can be made easier if your bike comes equipped with a dropper post that allows you to raise the seat height before heading uphill.
When you stand up, your center of gravity will move around more which reduces the traction your tires have on the trail surface. This can cause your rear wheel to slip out or spin in place while you try to pedal.
Staying seated while climbing will allow you to pedal more smoothly and evenly, while standing up encourages uneven pedal strokes that can lead to traction loss and slips.
Another major benefit of staying seated, especially if your mountain bike is full suspension, is that it reduces pedal bob. Pedal bob happens when the force from you pedaling causes your suspension to compress, reducing the amount of energy transferred to moving you forward from your pedaling.
The amount of pedal bob you’ll have to deal with will increase when you stand up, and staying seated will help to reduce it.
Sometimes it will still make sense to stand while climbing a hill. On short climbs where you’re simply trying to carry your speed right over the hill, you may choose to stand up to sprint over it. Also, technical climbs can sometimes require you to stand up to get the proper weighting on your wheels as you ride over obstacles.
Line choice and trail reading
Line choice is always important to mountain bikers, and perhaps nowhere is that more true than on uphill sections of trail.
Picking the right line on any section of trail will help you to get through it more quickly and efficiently, and usually will help to keep your ride as smooth as possible. This is true for climbing too, but beyond just the challenge of navigating obstacles like rocks and roots, you’re working against gravity too.
What does that mean? It means that any mistake in line choice will be amplified, and more likely to force you to get off your bike and walk it to the top of the hill. Picking the right line will help to keep your momentum moving up the hill uninterrupted.
Get your tire pressure right
Having the right tire pressure can make a big difference in climbing on your mountain bike. As a rule of thumb, higher pressure in your tires means less traction but more rolling speed, and lower pressure means more traction thanks to the larger contact patch with the trail, but at the cost of more rolling resistance.
Having too high of pressure in your tires will reduce your traction on climbs, and will increase the frequency of slips and spinning your wheels, especially on steeper climbs. Too high of pressure will also not allow your tires to deform as much over obstacles and can make it easier for you to get stuck on a section and need to walk your bike up the hill.
If you have your tire pressure too low your rolling resistance will be reduced and it can make it feel like you’re trying to bike through quicksand, especially while riding uphill.
You want to find the sweet spot where you have solid traction while not sacrificing too much rolling speed, and still having some give to the tires to allow them to deform over obstacles like rocks and roots.
Frequently asked questions
Mountain biking uphill is hard because not only are you trying to pick a proper line and deal with obstacles on the trail, you also have gravity working against you. There are ways to improve your riding on uphill sections of trail, including riding in the right gear, setting your tires up with proper air pressure, keeping smooth with your pedaling, pacing yourself and staying seated and centered over the bike as much as possible.
When riding your mountain bike uphill, you should downshift to an easier gear, stay seated in your saddle as much as you can and keep your pedaling smooth and constant while pacing yourself to make sure you have enough energy to get all the way up to the top of the hill.
Your mountain bike setup can be adjusted to improve its climbing ability. Raising your dropper post up higher before a climb, downshifting to an easier gear, and ensuring proper tire pressure are all ways to get your bike set up to climb well. You can also lock out your rear suspension to reduce pedal bob.
Conclusion
Improving your climbing skills can make mountain biking more fun and rewarding, and will certainly get you through your favorite trails faster! Just remember to downshift before the climb, keep seated if you can and keep your pedaling smooth and even, and you will see your climbing abilities level up in no time!