Feel the pain of overweight cyclists

As a suffolk boy myself and being a bit tubby.. And now returning to cycling after a break of 15 odd years I can totally relate.. Hills I used to bomb up as a ten stone teen I now sweat my way to the top puffing like an old steam train.
But even after a few weeks on my old pro comp (soon to be updated/upgraded) I can already notice a difference in my speed on hills and my general fitness. All the advice I can give is push hard.. Focus on the top.. Stand up.. Sit down.. Stand again but never let the deadly Suffolk hills beat you!
Cheers Jim

Oh and don't forget.. If you do get stuck near the summit of one of these mighty assents... You can always call out Suffolk mountain rescue!

Can anyone recommend a decent, cheap wheelset for the larger rider please?
I'm trying to get my sister into cycling, but she's really big and I'm worried that she'll just trash the wheels on a road bike. Would a pair of Mavic CXP 22s take some abuse?
(My first plan was to get her riding my hybrid for a month or so, until she dropped a couple of stone and learnt how to use gears and roadcraft, but there's an offer of a used road bike come up and I know she'll be too excited to wait.)

Wiping the dog mess off your shoe is good advice. I've start using a wattbike (look them up) and it basically says my pedalling technique is pants. So it's all about the mess-wiping thing, at which point the display shows a big improvement. What I would say is that when I'm focusing exclusively on the mess-wiping thing, to the (perceived) expense of power in any other part of the pedal stroke, the computer say that I have good technique with power right through the pedal revolution. However much you *think* you're dragging your feet back in the bottom third, do it more.

A cheaper option to Wattbikes for working on pedalling technique - get a set of rollers

I have dodgy joints and the 'dog-mess' technique just makes them hurt. A lot.

Climbing is a combination of a lot of things and I'm sure I've missed alot but put very simply;

Diet - Eat healthier balanced meals, at first this can be miserable but after a while if you're making improvements on the bike you won't want to eat rubbish anymore. If you can give up alcohol and drink more water. Nutrition on the bike is also really important.

Technique - Ignore what the pros do or what other people on forums tell you to do! Read all you can on climbing techniques, try everything and adopt what works for you. Try varying your rides in terms of distance and difficulty and mix up where the climbs are on your ride.

Training - Again, read all you can on training techniques and pick one. If it doesn't work change or adapt it. You'll need to be able to monitor your heart rate to train meaningfully and I can tell you when I was starting out SST helped me. In my opinion Strava isn't an effective training tool, although it can be good for motivation if you need it!

The bike - As long as your wheels roll well and the gears shift nicely you should be able to improve on anything that fits you properly. Gearing can help but this is subject to your own particular power to weight, so you'll have to find out for yourself!

I won't repeat any of the other good things that have been said but will just mention one thing that is often overlooked but is fundamental to all aerobic sport.

Breathing.

Elite athletes are elite because they have bigger lungs amongst other things, so working on breathing is a kind of 'free' extra. There are machines, Power breathing etc., but I found it made me choke a bit or you can just practise holding your breath or swimming underwater if you want to vary your training.

For sure pedal stroke technique is very important with a high cadence (my natural cadence is 90-100) as the higher it is, the more the imperfections in your pedal stroke will come out usually resulting in a lot of bouncing around in the saddle. There are quite a few good videos out on how to work on pedal stroke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjdSJ-YrCcM

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P1j1j0ttVPU

but a couple tricks that I've found helpful are:

1) Spin quickly >120 in a really low gear downhill and as you start to bounce around on the saddle you'll notice where the dead spots in your pedal stroke are--mine tend to be not so much on the pull back (5-7 on the pedal clock) but the kick forward at the top just before you start the downstroke.
2) Unclip one foot and pedal only with the other foot. Another good way to find dead spots as the downstroke with the opposite leg isn't masking the dead spots in the clipped in leg.

Some experts recommend:
3) Shift up 1-2 gears too high on an uphill and the high resistance can show you your dead spots. This I think is less helpful simply because if you're a grinder, you're used to trying to muscle uphill with a low cadence so it may be harder to feel how your resistance around the circle is shifting.
4) I'm waaay to spastic to try rollers. I'd probably fall off and break my frame

@dottigirl: I had Mavic Aksiums for 5 years riding through rough, potholed streets and never had to true them (I realize I'm light but I've nailed quiet a few potholes dead center at 20+ mph). My husband is just under 90kg and he got some Aksiums for last winter and they're still spinning pretty smoothly. Also, in terms of your dodgy knees, I'm no spring chicken either but I feel that a higher cadence/lower resistance riding style is really gentler on my knees. Also having a pedal with a decent amount of free float really helps. I have Speedplay Frogs and Crank Brothers Candy pedals which both have ~6 degrees of float.

Personally I'm all for training at both low and high cadences.

Nothing builds climbing strength quicker than grinding up a hill at 40-50rpm... but you only want to do this in training, and make sure you balance it with lots of cadence work.

Don't worry about building muscle, as nothing you can do on a bike is going to generate anything to excessive. Look at most pro cyclists, they are tiny.

When I got back on my bike, a few years ago, I was heavy (100-ish KG). I started riding to work everyday, and though my body shape started to change relatively quickly, it took a long time to lose that weight. I'm still 78KG - I think that's my natural weight without stepping up the training to an intense level - but I have very few problems getting up hills now or keeping up with the fastest of club riders. I did a bunch of cat 3 and 4 climbs on Sunday, and made it up them all without any trouble (don't get me wrong, it still wasn't pretty, but it never will be -- I think it's like Lemond said, it doesn't get any easier, you just go faster).

Anyway, what I found was that when you start cycling regularly, you get a big appetite. You need to reign that in as quickly as you can, while making sure you do actually consume enough energy to do what you need to do without feeling tired/burnt out. Eat porridge, cereal, fruit, pasta, healthy meals etc. Don't use your cycling as an excuse to eat cakes/doughnuts/lardy breakfasts, though the occasional slip here and there won't hurt -- just keep it as a rare treat. Don't eat giant portions either, that's another easy trap to fall in to, and probably the main reason it took me so long to start losing weight. I'd also recommend avoiding alcohol as much as you can.

As for technique, I spin at high cadence up the hills -- I try and keep it at 100rpm as long as possible, but I'll slip to 90rpm at about 7%, and by 12-15% I'm down to 70 or less. However, I've got a good set of lungs (I do a fair bit of running too), and spinning draws on your lung capacity more than grinding would. It means your chest burns more than your muscles. If you can't do that, just grind out the low rpms. I stay seated and steady as much as possible -- standing gives you a nice boost, but uses way more energy and will burn your thighs. If you stand up to grab a bit of momentum/acceleration, sit down and get back in to your rhythm as quickly as possible. That rhythm is what gets you up a big hill in one piece

Also, I ride a 10KG alloy bike with heavy wheels -- that's useful, because if I'm slow up a hill, I can blame the bike