bikes
In many respects these are a best of both worlds bike. They have the flat handlebars of a mountain bike, a wide range of gear ratios provided by triple chainsets. And if you get a more street-oriented hybrid bike, which most new ones are today, it will have slick tyres on it already.
Pedals
Bikes have three sorts of pedals. Flat pedals on which you just place your feet and push down. Pedals with toe clips and straps, where your feet can pull up on the clips as well as push down on the pedals. And by far the best system for climbing mountains, clipless pedals.
These work by inserting a cleat, which is fixed to the sole of a specialist cycling shoe, into a spring-loaded retaining mechanism on the pedal. Once engaged your foot is always in contact with the pedal, and the muscles of your legs can input power throughout the whole 360 degrees of every pedal revolution. All you do to disengage your foot from the pedal is twist it sideways. They take a bit of practice to get used to but are very efficient and totally safe.
Bike preparation
No matter how light and sophisticated your bike is, it needs to be well maintained at all times, and it needs some extra close attention before you venture into the mountains. But before that it pays to get into the habit of going through some basic safety checks before every ride.
Check your bike’s frame for cracks. Apply each brake in turn while pushing your bike forward. With the front brake on the front wheel should not turn. The same goes for the rear brake with the rear wheel. Check all brake cables and housings for signs of wear, and replace them if you see any. Check your tyres, replacing them if you find any excessive wear, cuts or bulges. Finally, shift through all the gears and make sure that they mesh properly and that the chain doesn’t jump around.
Elbows out, shoulders relaxed and breathe deeply © Luc Claessen
Do a more detailed check whenever you clean your bike, which is something you should do regularly anyway. You must also carry out a regular service on your bike. There are many good bike maintenance books available to help you, but most bike shops will look after your bike if you don’t want to do it yourself.
Before a ride check that your tyres are pumped up to the recommendations that are usually printed on the tyre. Make sure anything you have fastened onto the bike, like a drinking bottle, a bag or a tyre inflator is safe. And always have another shift through all your gears while riding on the flat somewhere before you start to climb. If you can’t get bottom gear the whole experience might be ruined.
Physical preparation
Climbing some of the easier Tour de France mountains is within the scope of almost any reasonably fit and healthy person, given a bike that is in good condition, is fitted with low enough gears, and provided the rider takes his or her time. However, some of the bigger climbs, the most famous ones in fact, do require some physical training. And in any case, the fitter you are the more enjoyable the whole experience will be.
Without trying to state the obvious, the best way to get fit for cycling is to ride your bike regularly, but that doesn’t mean that other physical exercise is of no use. One of the biggest factors that will impact how quickly you can ride a bike uphill is your body weight, or more particularly your power to weight ratio.
There is no doubt that being active helps to keep your weight down, so any activity is good activity as far as this is concerned. Linked with a varied diet of good wholesome food, and perhaps a little restraint with regard to eating the classic weight-gaining foods like cakes and chocolate, plenty of varied physical activity is a good foundation on which to build some specific cycling fitness.
If possible you should add some form of resistance training to your varied programme, concentrating on your leg muscles. This helps to build up the power side of the power to weight equation. Then if you include three or more bike-riding sessions a week for about two months before tackling the mountain climbs, you should be ready. The bike sessions don’t all have to be on the road, although at least one should be. You can use a gym fitness bike or put your own bike on a turbo trainer and ride indoors.
Once you are riding regularly you should start to seek out some hills in your neighbourhood. The longer these are the more benefit they will have on your ability to master Tour de France mountains. You can also simulate long climbs on indoor bikes by upping the resistance on the machine you are using.
Whatever way you choose to begin your specific mountain climbing preparation, try to ride all the uphill parts on your routes by sitting on your saddle and spinning your legs in a low gear. Concentrate on relaxing your upper body and breathing deeply and rhythmically. Occasionally you should ride a hill in a little higher gear, both in the seated position and out of the saddle, to help build up some functional muscular strength. And there is nothing wrong with riding up a hill, turning around carefully at the top, descending and doing it again.
All the advice in the last paragraph comes from the man who many recognise as the best mountain racer ever, Lucien Van Impe of Belgium. He says; “I spent weeks before every Tour de France learning to spin my legs quickly on the climbs. I would try to match my breathing with the rhythm of my legs. When I was a pro rider I practised in the Pyrenees, but when I was a young amateur I trained near where I live in the north of Belgium. There are no mountains there, so I would ride up and down the same hill maybe ten times.”
Sit up to breathe easy – 2007 King of the Mountains Mauricio Soler shows how © Luc Claessen
Climbing technique
When Lucien Van Impe arrived at the foot of a mountain in the Tour de France he says: “I shifted to a gear that was lower than really necessary for the first part of the climb. I did this so I could concentrate on gaining control of my breathing at the start. If you don’t do that, if you go straight into a higher gear and attack a long climb, you will go into oxygen debt.”
If you can keep one piece of advice in your mind when climbing the Tour de France mountains it should be that piece. It is crucial to control your breathing. You can be the strongest cyclist in the world, but if you don’t get oxygen into your muscles you will have to slow to recover. And if you slow down when going uphill, gravity makes you stop.
Start each climb conservatively. After cycling for only a short time you learn instinctively what gear ratio you need on a particular day for a particular slope and in particular conditions. But at the beginning of a long climb you should use a lower ratio than the one you think you need until you are breathing deeply and rhythmically, and until your legs get used to the effort.
Then you can shift to the gear that you feel you can make comfortable progress in. But still err on the side of caution. Mont Ventoux, for example, takes an averagely fit club cyclist around two hours to climb. The Télégraphe and Galibier combination takes more than three. If you are inexperienced you could be climbing for much longer. It is essential then that you start every climb conservatively.
The more upright you sit on your bike, the easier it is to breathe. Mountain and hybrid bikes are set up to give their rider an upright position, but the dropped handlebars on road bikes are designed with the aerodynamics of speed in mind. Hold dropped handle bars on the flat upper part with your hands close to where the handlebars
