Hill Climbs are effectively time trials (fastest person from bottom to top wins) but with the exception of courses like Long Hill they hardly ever represent anything close to normal time trials. I suppose. It's tricky. Whenever I try and classify them as events I always get muddled up and confused.
'Imagine a sprint right, except it's not a sprint 'cos you have to pace yourself. But you're effectively pacing yourself whilst flat out. Except you have to maintain that for anything between 2-10 mins. And you can't go too hard anywhere in case you pop. But you can't take it too easy anywhere 'cos otherwise your pain face won't look good enough in event photos. Imagine letting off a fire extinguisher-bear with me on this-you have to judge your effort correctly/depress the handle with enough force to cross the finish line completely 100% sans doute spent/run out of foam just as the fire goes out. Too much effort/handle depression too early and you'll blow/die and too little and you won't go as fast as you could have done/be left with a useless half full fire extinguisher.'
Not sure if that worked. But hopefully you get the idea. Both about HCs if you didn't already know, and how difficult they are to talk about eloquently.
One aspect that sets them apart is the fact that thankfully pointy helmets and funny socks tend to not make experiences in 'proper' HCs (ooooo) with the emphasis being more on 'If I remove this spoke, the wheel *may* collapse...but hopefully I'll have gone up the hill fast enough to be at the top when it does.' and 'you drilled holes in your frame? But why?!'. Followed by 'Is that carbon?' *CRACK* But seriously, the possibilities for gravity defiance are in my eyes sooooo much more interesting than wind-cheating. Plus you don't risk looking like this:
Or this:
Although to be honest, digs at testers and Triantelopes aside, I imagine some people could ride for a Pro Team and still manage to look like they'd gone to a blind antelope for clothing advice.
I digress. Apologies to Testers/Triantelopes taking offence at the above.. I've got this whole inter-cycling 'hate' thing sorted: Mountain Bikers take the piss out of roadies in general, racers take the piss out of testers/Triantelopes and err...testers take the piss out of Triantelopes as well. I would imagine Triantelopes take the piss out of their non-tri running buds. 'Haha look at him, he hasn't discovered mechanical advantage yet...zoooom.' Or should that be 'zoooom....crash'? Sorry!
Where was I? No seriously. I fear people reading this may be slightly disappointed as it seems to be turning into more of a 'let's take the piss out of <insert breed of cyclist here>'.
So I suppose to sum not very much up, ride hill climbs. It's better than running and you won't end up looking silly.**
**Shifting Gear cannot take any responsibility for embarassment caused by actually looking silly as a direct or indirect result of reading this post.
