Cycling Training: How to Climb Faster

Written by:

Adam Pulford

CTS Head Cycling Coach

Updated On

June 1, 2026

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RPE: Cycling Training: How to Climb Faster

Nearly every cyclist wants to climb faster, but most cyclists focus on the wrong things and miss out on a lot of potential uphill speed. Yes, high sustainable power and relatively low body weight are key components of cycling uphill faster, but there are skills, tactics, and fueling strategies you can use to go faster with the power and body you have right now.

Pacing Strategies for Maximizing Climbing Speed

Pacing is the first thing to discuss because it’s the biggest mistake I see with cyclists on long climbs, rolling hills, and steep and short walls. The fundamental principle of pacing on climbs is: Start easier than you think you should, then build into the climb.

“How easy should I go at the start of a climb?” That’s the trick, right? If you start too hard you ramp up energy demand too fast, blood lactate spikes, and fatigue builds up quickly. You’re forced to slow down dramatically until your body can process all that lactate. But if you start too easy, especially in group rides or races, you get dropped. Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) is the best guide for establishing your pace on climbs, particularly because RPE remains accurate even after fatigue influences your heart rate or altitude influences your power output.

Your initial pacing on climbs depends on the expected duration of the effort. When you are trying to go fastest, here’s how RPE maps to starting pace on different types of climbs:

• Long climbs (30–45 min): Low Zone 4 (91–100% FTP) should be sustainable for the full climb. Start at an RPE of 7. It should feel easier than you expect. Let RPE drift to 8 in the middle of the climb, finishing at 9.
• Medium climbs (15–20 min): High Zone 4 should be sustainable for 15-20 minutes. The start will feel challenging at an RPE of 8, building to 9-10 by the top.
• Short climbs (5–10 min): Short climbs are going to be hard from the start, starting at RPE 9 and Low Zone 5 (106–110% FTP).   
• Very short climbs (3–5 min): There’s no easy way to go fast on short, steep climbs. You must start hard, RPE 9–10 (High Zone 5 (110–120% FTP).

Keep in mind, the pacing strategies above are meant for times when you want to maximize climbing speed, not when you’re pacing to conserve energy. If you’re climbing hills during a Zone 2 endurance ride, shift into easy gears and keep your power output in Zone 2 (maybe high Zone 2), stay at a conversational pace, and remember that the goal isn’t to climb super fast today.

Pacing Strategies: Do Your Homework

Before you step into the ring, it’s a good idea to know as much as possible about your opponent. You may not research every bump in the road, but you want to gather information about major climbs and even small hills you expect to be pivotal in events.

Key information to gather includes:

• Total length and elevation gain
• Location of steep pitches and flatter sections
• Any downhill segments mid-climb
• Expected wind direction at key points

Tactical Climbing: Learning Where To Leverage Power or Conserve Strength

During training, we often use uphills to help athletes achieve high power outputs. In group rides and events, or when you’re chasing Strava KOM/QOMs, the goal is to go fastest, not necessarily record the highest power. To go fastest, you must apply your fitness to the places where high power output makes the biggest difference in speed, and that sometimes means backing off slightly in other places.

Here are the four guiding principles for high-speed climbing: 

1. Give high effort on steeper sections. You can’t push over your limit, but you want to focus on maintaining power, momentum, and speed on steep sections. This is where those efforts are rewarded, and where slowing down costs you the most time.
2. Float on the flatter sections. Ease off slightly when the pitch lessens. Don’t back off entirely, but dropping 5-10 watts can help you process accumulated lactate and slow your breathing, providing enough recovery to give a better effort on the next steep section.
3. Pedal into downhill sections before letting up. Pedal into mid-climb descents to carry momentum into the downhills. While you might coast for part of these mid-climb breaks, pedaling lightly also facilitates circulation to help you process lactate more rapidly.
4. Push into headwinds, ease into tailwinds. Let the wind do work for you when it’s at your back; drop 5–10 watts and maintain speed. This is especially important on long and winding climbs where the wind shifts frequently as you ascend.

Climbing Out Of The Saddle: Use Your Body Weight Strategically

Fast climbers alternate between seated and standing positions. We have an entire article and Youtube video on seated vs. standing climbing, but I’ll summarize here. Standing up on the pedals lets you leverage your full body weight, but the downside is that it’s a less sustainable position than seated climbing. So, you have to be strategic about when you stand up.

Steep pitches are the best times to climb out of the saddle. You can use your bodyweight over the pedals to maintain power output and momentum. To get the most out of standing up, shift into harder gear as you rise out of the saddle to compensate for a drop in cadence and to take advantage of the added force you can produce with your body mass. 

Don’t make the mistake of sprinting just because you got out of the saddle! Unless you’re specifically trying to accelerate or attack, getting out of the saddle is just a way to leverage your bodyweight and engage slightly different muscle groups. If anything, it’s better to use the time out of the saddle to use less effort. Straighten your leg and let your bodyweight and skeleton to create force for the downstroke. 

Tactical Fueling to Climb Faster

Hard climbing days often throw people off when it comes to fueling. When you’re riding hard on a climb, it’s easy to lose track of time and forget to eat or drink. When you’re going hard it can also be difficult to reach for food and uncomfortable to eat it. Sometimes riders will think “I’ll eat/drink at the top or on the descent”, not recognizing the climb is going to take 30-60 minutes, and then they run low on energy before the top. Similarly, you’re likely to sweat more profusely on climbs because there’s less airflow at slower speeds. As a result, hourly hydration needs can increase during hilly events and days featuring long climbs.

Another mistake athletes make is underestimating their caloric expenditure during hilly events and long individual climbs. On a hard day, I recommend athletes consume carbohydrate calories equal to 50% of their hourly kilojoule workload. You can read more about this framework here. That means, if you’re kilojoule workload is 600 kJ/hr, you want to consume around 300 calories (75 grams) of carbohydrate per hour. During hilly events and long individual climbs, your hourly kilojoule workload is likely to increase above your normal endurance ride workload. It’s important to adjust your calorie intake accordingly.

Nutrient timing matters for fast climbing, too. When you take in carbohydrates from a gel, a packet of chews, or a sports drink, it takes about 5-10 minutes for that fuel to be available for working muscles. So, if you know there’s a key climb coming up, make sure to fuel before you get to the base of the climb, and then stay on top of your fueling all the way up.

Key Workouts for Riding Fast on Medium and Long Climbs

Pacing, tactics, and fueling are important, but fitness is still king when it comes to cycling uphill fast. If you have 6-10 weeks to train before a ride or event featuring climbs lasting 15 minutes or more, you have time to increase your Functional Threshold Power (FTP) with some targeted workouts. Generally, the recipe would be 2 interval sessions per week with a long ride on the weekend and any additional rides during the week as Zone 2 endurance rides. The three workouts below form the backbone of climbing training for medium and long climbs.

Climbing Workout 1: Backloaded Threshold Intervals

This workout is great for increasing FTP as well as practicing your pacing for medium-duration climbs. The intervals are 15 at Low Zone 4 (91–100% FTP). At the start, it should feel like a 7/10. Then, over the final 5 minutes, build progressively to Mid Zone 5 (100–110% FTP), which means finishing at an RPE of 8-9 out of 10. The point is to internalize what “starting easier than you think” feels like, and then experience the controlled acceleration at the end. Take 5-7 minutes of easy spinning recovery between efforts. Beginners should aim for 2 efforts, intermediate riders can do 3, and advanced competitors should aim for 4 intervals.

Climbing Workout 2: Under-Overs

This is a classic climbing workout because it addresses the need to surge and recover while maintaining a constant effort. The intervals start with a period at Low Zone 4 (under threshold) then accelerates into Zone 5 (over threshold) for a minute or more, before returning to Zone 4 again. You keep alternating like this until the end of the interval. A good starting template would be: 4 minutes under, 1 minute over, repeated four times, which adds up to a continuous 20-minute effort. Recover for about half the duration of the interval (10 minutes for the template just described), and repeat. Beginners should aim for 2 intervals, intermediates 3, and advanced 4. This workout teaches your body to process lactate and continue producing power during a sustained effort.

Climbing Workout 3: Frontloaded Threshold Intervals

This is a race-specificity workout. Sometimes the peloton charges into the climb and you don’t have the luxury of starting easy. To prepare for this, you need the ability to produce a lot of lactate very quickly, and then back off slightly and maintain a high power output while processing that lactate. So, these 20-minute intervals start with an effort in Upper Zone 5 (115-120% of FTP) for 1-2 minutes. Then you step down to Low Zone 5 (106-110% of FTP, still above threshold) for a few minutes, before settling into Zone 4 (just below threshold) for the final 15 minutes.

Make no mistake, these intervals hurt, but they can mean the difference between climbing at the front of the group or watching the peloton leave you behind. Recovery between intervals can be longer than with the other workouts described here, even as long as a 1:1 work-to-recovery ratio. 

Coach Insight: Fast Climbing Isn’t Just About Power-to-Weight Ratio

I coach plenty of 40-plus and 50-plus Masters racers who would never be mistaken for super-skinny, lightweight climbing specialists. Most are heavier because we’ve prioritized strength training for the performance and longevity benefits that come with added muscle mass and bone density. They still train to go uphill fast because races still include climbs and they’re not going to just hand over the victories because lighter riders have a weight advantage.

Heavier riders sometimes get hung up on the weight side of the power-to-weight ratio, forgetting that they typically have a power advantage over lightweight riders. The key is to use that brute force when it can make the most difference. Keeping the pace high before and between climbs can wear down the lightweight climbers. Pushing the pace over the top of rolling hills makes lighter riders work harder and scramble to get into the draft. And power-to-weight ratio is a bigger advantage for lighter riders on long climbs, but brute force can swing the advantage to heavier, more powerful riders on short and steep hills.

More than anything, you just can’t give up on climbs because you’re heavier than the rider next to you. On courses with variable terrain, everybody has their share of advantages and disadvantages. Focus on your advantages, make the most of them, and you can win! 

The Bottom Line

You can find more speed on climbs without adding a single watt to your FTP. What it takes is:

• Pacing intelligence: Start conservative, build deliberately, finish strong.
• Tactical prowess: Push on the steep and the headwind; float the flatter sections and descents.
• Research: Learn everything you can about major climbs or smaller hills at critical points in competitions.
• Smart fueling: Climbs take more time and more energy, so your fueling and hydration strategies must adjust accordingly.
• Train for power: When you combine smart tactics and good pacing strategies with superior fitness, even heavier climbers can be competitive with lightweight climbing specialists.

Smart racers win races, even if they aren’t always the most powerful sprinters or the lightest climbers. You win races by knowing when and where to apply your best efforts and tactics, and having the confidence to go for it!