Want to finish long bike rides quicker? Get off and walk up hills

When was the last time you pushed your bike up a hill?

If the answer to that question is ‘you wouldn’t catch me pushing’ you won’t be alone but, according to one accomplished ultra racer and coach, you might want to rethink your strategy.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of seeing every incline as an opponent to crush without mercy – especially if you’re a road rider or from that background. However, Niel Copeland suggests that showing a little bit of that mercy to your own legs by opting to push now and then could actually see you finish a long ride quicker than if you’d ground your way up in the red zone.

He was speaking on this week’s Cycling Weekly Going Long podcast, where he talked to us about an ongoing ultra-racing career that so far includes podiums at the GB Divide and the Race Around Rwanda, as well as finishes in the Transcontinental Race, the Atlas Mountain Race and the Silk Road Mountain race.

As an ultra-riding coach, Copeland also offered up a number of eye-opening strategy tips, including how important the willingness to push your bike on hills can be.

“I get off and push all the time,” he tells us, and says that rider ego has a lot to answer for. “The biggest challenge a lot of riders have is managing their ego. Managing your effort, capping your effort, getting off and pushing, these are all really important strategies,” he said.

“You’re using your muscles in a different way, you’re stretching your legs out, you get a bit of respite from being on the saddle. Even on, say, a steep 20-minute climb you might only lose three minutes.”

At the Alps Divide last year Copeland had to face a hill very early on and, despite being fresh, he says: “I put my bike in almost its easiest gear and I tapped away and kept my breathing under control. And I’m riding alongside people and they’re puffing and blowing because they’re pushing too hard, and you know full well, fast forward 24 hours and they’re going to be in pieces.”

Keeping your output down from the start will prevent you fading in the later stages of your ride and help you produce your best performance, he says.

The key, he said, was keeping effort at the kind of low intensity that can be kept up indefinitely. This occurs below the first lactate threshold which compared to, say, FTP (functional threshold power), says Copeland, is “a much more important measure of what we’re capable of” in terms of ultra-distance type riding.

Copeland describes the first lactate threshold, also called LT1, as the point where your effort, and breathing ramp up from an easy, steady pace to something harder, and it tends to happen all of a sudden.

“It’s where you transition from endurance riding to harder than endurance riding,” he says. “LT1 is that sustainable pace. Assuming you’re consuming enough fuel, that’s where you can sustain your efforts indefinitely.”

Copeland also gives listeners some great tips on eating strategies to ensure they finish in the best shape. More on that in the podcast itself, but let’s just say he calls long-distance riding “an eating competition”, so it’s not about watching the calories.