The art of climbing – cadence, pace, breathing

In the relative silence of the Puy de Dôme, the extinct volcano where no cars, no spectators and only a few motorcycles are allowed to go up because it is a protected nature reserve, a true battle of climbers erupted last Sunday during the ninth stage of the Tour de France. The lone leader Matteo Jorgenson has a good lead on his pursuers, but there are still four steep kilometers ahead of him.

More than two minutes behind him, Michael Woods starts the final climb. The feather-light Canadian missed the connection at the front of the race earlier in the stage, he no longer sees winning as a possibility. That’s why he approaches the volcano like a time trial, albeit steeply uphill.

While Jorgenson’s cadence slowly becomes more and more difficult, Woods keeps moving well. Due to the lack of fans, television images clearly show how the distance between the two narrows little by little, faster and faster as the finish gets closer. Woods overtakes a number of pursuers, and with 350 meters to go he passes Jorgenson standing on the pedals – as if he were standing still. Moments later, the Canadian wins the stage, while the American is swaying and 36 seconds behind in fourth – two pursuers also manage to pass him.

“A work of art”, is how Romain Bardet, the French leader of DSM-Firmenich, who already won three mountain stages in the Tour in his career, describes the climb of Woods a few days later. “Riding up a climb in your own way and being able to make a difference, that is very difficult.”

As the peloton embarks on two tough mountain stages in the Alps this weekend, with ten categorized climbs, six of which are first and one hors category, the best climbers will resurface.

Ask some of them in the current platoon about their trade and they say they don’t know any better. “It is second nature to me,” says Sepp Kuss, the American climber of Jumbo-Visma who grew up in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and won a mountain stage to Andorra in the 2021 Tour. But being born among the mountains is not a condition. “I like the sea more than the mountains,” says Lidl-Trek’s Italian Giulio Ciccone, who won the mountain jersey in the Tour of Italy in 2019. He was born in Chieti, not far from the Adriatic Sea. “But climbing is in my DNA, I’m just built that way. As soon as it goes uphill, I feel good.”

Many factors play a role in a good climb. There are things that the riders themselves cannot control, such as the weather and the mountain itself, with its length, gradients, turns and variety. They have something to say about other things: shifting, their cadence, their position in the race, the feeling in their legs, the state of their head. And then there is the competition element: the riders not only have to deal with the col, but also with their opponents.

Aggressive run-up

Preparation for a climb starts well before the road starts to climb. Many of the climbs have been explored in advance, either by the riders themselves or by their team leaders. “With us, Grischa Niermann does an in-depth exploration of all stages,” says Kuss. The American himself looks at the height profile the evening before or on the morning itself. “A ten kilometer climb with an average gradient of seven can be gradual or very irregular. I want to have an idea of ​​what to expect.”

Ciccone rode up the Puy de Dôme a few weeks ago, the final climb of last Sunday’s ninth stage. “I do use the GPS on my bike computer during the race, but I’d rather have ridden it before,” he says. To visualize for themselves how it will be in the course.

Once it is on course, it is important to appear as fresh as possible at the foot of the climb. “Certainly in the Tour, the run-up to a climb is very aggressive. Then you’re already tired before you start,” says Ciccone. Riders and teams approach this in different ways: at Jumbo-Visma there are fast riders, like in this Tour Dylan van Baarle and Nathan van Hooydonck, who keep climbers like Kuss out of the wind and try to put them in the best possible position at the climb.

With smaller teams, such as Intermarché-Circus-Wanty, that luxury is not there. Their South African leader Louis Meintjes, last year second in the Tour stage to Alpe d’Huez, has to solve it much more alone, so he stays aloof from the jostling in the run-up. “Whether I sit a little more in the front or back makes no difference in my eyes. If you’re good, you’ll be one of the first to surface. I especially don’t want to waste energy unnecessarily, then you start with a backlog.”

When the road gets steeper and gravity starts to protest, powers have to be pedaled, but it’s more than that, says Kuss. “You have to know when to maintain your speed, when to speed up or slow down.” Only rarely does a race take place at the same pace, the American wants to say. Continuous switching is therefore a requirement, says Ciccone, who has specially designed a few shifters mounted at the bottom of its bracket. “Then I can also switch gears while standing, always a bit heavier. As soon as you sit down, you shift a gear lighter again.”

Although data has started to play an increasingly important role in cycling in recent years, the climbers say that they mainly do their work by feel. “I usually know right at the start of a climb if it’s going to be a good or a bad day,” says Ciccone. And Bardet says he barely looks at his computer. “You know when it’s not working. Then everything hurts.” Actually, feeling and data should coincide, says Kuss. “Then you can sense without thinking what a certain ability feels like.”

Now the slowburn in the legs, as Kuss calls it. The good climbers know how to find a cadence and pace that they can maintain throughout the climb. Mentally, this is where the riders need to focus. Concentrating on his breathing eases the pain in his legs, says Kuss. Meintjes also tries not to make it too complicated for herself. “For me, a climb means making a certain effort for a certain time, I stick to that.” They often get tunnel vision, the climbers say; they barely notice what is happening around them.

Sometimes that’s a good thing, because climbing stinks. To hot asphalt, to stale beer and stubbed out cigarettes, to sweaty bodies. “The Alpe d’Huez really doesn’t smell good,” says Kuss laughing about the mountain that always attracts thousands of cycling fans when the Tour passes by. And in the opening weekend of this Tour it was no fun when all those spectators lined the course, says Bardet. Basque country was smelly.”

But the riders can’t just focus on themselves. Their opponents are just as important, so their faces are scanned for a sign of fatigue. “Do they turn red, is their body language still good? So I try to see how they are doing,” says Kuss. The interesting thing is: the riders know this about each other. “It’s a mental game,” says Ciccone. “Everyone is trying to fool each other.”

The Italian calls his teammate Bauke Mollema the “master of the poker face”. “Bauke always looks like he is suffering. When he won the Tour of Lombardy in 2019, we had to release together in the final and he seemed broken. But a little later we came back, he attacked and rode solo to the finish.”

Like a train

Again, positioning is important. Especially if the road to the top is technical, with many bends, other riders can get in your way, says Meintjes. “If you don’t drive in front, you will be squeezed in the corners. Then you have to slow down and start again, which is more difficult.” The South African therefore prefers to cycle a few meters behind a group, so that he can continue to ride his own pace and lines. There is also an alternative, he says. “You can also start well and drive to the head in one go. Then you also have the space.”

Sitting in each other’s wheel to save energy, which happens regularly in the race, is less important on a mountain because the speed is lower and the road is uphill. A climb is fairer, the climbers say, especially when it gets steeper. “Then there is no longer any lee,” says Meintjes. “Then all strategy can go overboard, and you have to do it all yourself.”

Yet you increasingly see plowing like a train driving up (the beginning of) a climb. The former Team Sky did it with Chris Froome with great success, and Jumbo-Visma also positions all eight riders at the front if possible when the race starts a climb. This is how the art of climbing slowly disappears, says Bardet. “Nowadays, teams are just trying to drive a crushing pace uphill while checking their computers to see if they are driving the right wattages.”

It is what it is, says the Frenchman. But it doesn’t compare to the feeling you experience on that one day when everything comes together. “You feel that you are making a great effort,” says South African leader Louis Meintjes of Intermarché-Circus-Wanty, “but it doesn’t hurt”.

Then, all riders say, climbing on a bicycle is a magical feeling. “I can still remember the climb of the Mortirolo in the 2019 Giro, I had one of my best days ever,” says Ciccone about the mountain stage he won. “You feel so good that you can even look around you a bit. I was really enjoying it then.”