How To Sprint Faster, Climb Better, Descend Smoothly & More

Five easy steps to improve your cycling and reap instant speed.


Selene Yeager |

To be clear: Improving your fitness, raising your lactate threshold, and building your ability to produce enough wattage to toast bread (or at least your riding buddies’ legs) takes time and hard work. There’s just no shortcutting that. What often gets overlooked, however, is all the little (call them marginal, if you must) gains you can make by refining your technique and becoming a better rider overall. Working on these skills now can make you faster on your very next ride.

With that in mind, here’s one quick change you can make to each riding skill in order to ride faster and more efficiently.

1. Sprint Faster

Gear down a hair. One of the most common mistakes riders make when initiating their sprint is tossing it into a huge gear before they jump, which actually leads to a slower blastoff than they’d get out of a lighter gear, says John Verheul, head coach at JBV Coaching. “That big resistance may feel powerful, but remember power is force times velocity, and that second component is worth a lot,” he says. “Most people accelerate better at a pedaling cadence of 100 rpm than at 80 rpm. Even muscular, weightlifting track sprinters don’t start the sprint at 75 or 80 rpm, nor do fast road and criterium sprinters.”

Practice once a week: Perform six to 12 super-short sprints, working on good form: Hands in drops, elbows bent, and butt back over or on the saddle to keep your weight centered over the bike, says Verheul. “Keep training sprints to 10 seconds – or roughly 15 to 20 pedal strokes, which is easier to count – that way you don’t build up lactate. Take two to three minutes to recover between each sprint to let you fully recharge ATP (your muscles’ turbo fuel) and hit top power every time.” Try starting in different gears; try some seated to sit and spin; try some standing; and perform some where you stand to accelerate for 10 pedal strokes and then sit to spin it out.

RELATED: This is Your Body in a Sprint

2. Climb Better

To climb a hill faster, you often have to start slower so you can ramp up your pace as you get closer to the top instead of fading back to a grind. Exercising this discipline is nearly as hard as the hill itself for most riders. But it’s well worth practicing. Just as with sprinting, the first step is starting in an easier gear. Punching a tall gear—no matter how good you feel at first—into a climb is a recipe for cooked legs. Click into a gear you can spin at least 70 rpm and keep your effort level below threshold, at about a six effort level on a one to 10 scale. As you work your way up, gradually tick up the pace, increasing your effort to a seven, then to an eight. When the top is within sight, get out of the saddle and crank it over the top.

RELATED: 6 Steps to Faster and Easier Climbing

3. Shift More Seamlessly

Good shifting can make you faster in a matter of seconds. Seriously. “Ask yourself, ‘Am I always in the most effective gear for what I’m doing at that moment?’ If not, why not?” says Verheul. “Modern drivetrains have all the gear range you need, and they all shift seamlessly and conveniently if properly maintained. It’s a matter of making it second nature.” The goal is to getting your hands to shift in sync with what your legs need and your brain knows is correct based on what you’re seeing and feeling. Practice, practice, practice. “Find a rolling section of road and practice over and over shifting smoothly to stay at a constant rpm, even when speeds vary widely,” he says. “That’s not necessarily your ultimate goal, but it’s a good drill to learn the skill of shifting at the right time so it becomes intuitive.”

4. Descend More Smoothly

Ironically, some of the best climbers lose the most time on the descents, because they never bother working on the downside. Obviously, if all descents were a perfectly straight line, it wouldn’t be an issue. It’s those corners that cause a quandary. To carve them more confidently, concentrate on one thing: Your weight distribution, says Verheul. “Put your inside hand on the drops and the outside foot down with the crank at 6:00. Those two points are where 80 per cent of your weight should be, with the remaining 20 per cent on the saddle.” That position keeps enough weight on your front and rear tires to help them grip. You want less weight on your saddle than your outside pedal because your leg is better at absorbing little bumps and keeping tires on the ground than your butt is, says Verheul.

RELATED: Everything You Need to Know About Road Racing

5. Brake Smarter

Learning to scrub speed rather than treating your brakes like an on or off switch will go a long way in helping you maintain a brisker pace overall and, more importantly, ride more safely. “Learn to feather your brakes and have some nuance,” says Verheul. “Figure out how many fingers you need to modulate your speed and keep the others wrapped around the bar.” Practice pulling lightly and evenly to control your speed, even pedaling while lightly feathering your brakes, to finesse your speed rather than slowing way down and having to accelerate back up to speed over and over, which wastes energy. When you do need to make a hard stop, put your weight back on or even behind the saddle to counteract the forces pushing your body forward as your bike comes to a halt.

READ MORE ON: hills Skills strength

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