Sometimes, when cycling, you’ve got to get over the hump.

When I first began riding, getting over any kind of hump felt very hard. I read various cycling websites and books for hints about climbing. One source said, shift into harder gears as you near the top of an incline.

WHAT?! That seemed to me the opposite of what riders needed to do; namely, to shift to easier gears on the way uphill. But I know a little better now.

About two and a half years ago, out of the blue, I found that I was pulling up on the handlebars and easing my weight on the saddle when “climbing”. I noticed that this let me push harder on the pedals. It’s harder on my legs; but I seem to be able to climb more effectively when I do it. And it does, indeed, help me to get over the hump if I shift to the next hardest gear as I near the top. It gives me more to push against; and that provides a boost.

Another tidbit of advice for climbing is: don’t let up your efforts until you’ve finished the climb, that is, wait to relax a bit until you feel gravity starting to pull you down the incline. I’m finding that it’s true.

Not that I really ought to hand out advice on climbing. The humps I know are simply places where pipes go over the levee. Our terrain is flat, flat, flat. What would I do if I wound up living in the Ozarks?