Cycling, cycling technique

A few simple suggestions:-

1. Keep body & head position low with arms close to body to reduce air resistance.

2. Keeping gearing low and your pedal revs up while climbing; once the climb is finished don't ease up but increase your gearing quickly and go for it. It is better to climb steadily and leave reserve for flat and downhill which often follow immediately after a climb (keeping air resistance down at high speed is very important).

3. Experiment with different gearing. Lance Armstrong 7 times winner of Tour De France used a lower gearing but higher revs relative to his competitors. Don't struggle in too high a gearing - it doesn't necessarily mean a higher speed.

4. Repetitive training on an undulating road with moderate climbs and descents over several miles is a good way to improve your gear selection. Time yourself and think about why one ride was quicker than the other. You can easily loose lots of speed by wrong gear selection.

I ride for fitness and don't claim to be an expert but have found the above helped me to improve my times.

Thanks for the advice I used to use higher gears uphills and struggled now I am using lower gears at higher revs and I have noticed my ability to climb hills, I would of found daunting, has improved a lot even in a short period of time. My cardio has always been fairly good so keeping up the revs is much easier, also easier on my knees then trying to use a higher gear.