Hello People just did a google search on the the new Merida 2010 bike's and its out first of all the new TFS 100-D nice colour cannot wait for it to come to INDIA (Bangalore)
Cyclists racing the Fred Whitton Challenge hill climb in the Lake District, Cumbria. Photograph: Anthony West/Corbis
My neighbour's bike sits rusting on his balcony, once a well-used Marin. He's pretty fit and tells me he rode it all the time when he lived in London. But as soon as he moved down to Brighton, he stopped. Why? The hills of the Downs.
And he's not alone. London cyclists talk about Highgate Hill and Muswell Hill with respect but down in Brighton, you can't go for a five-minute ride (unless you just hug the coast) without hitting an incline at least equal to those. And then there's another one. And another. If you want to ride on the south coast, you've got to start enjoying hill climbing – and, of course, the rush of the descent. But hills put so many people off. How can you encourage them into the saddle – or back into it – without coming over as some advocate of masochism?
Watching the Tour de France guys tear through the mountains of the Pyrenees at the weekend might serve as an inspiration, but for most of us they are from another planet, their body-fat statistics and weight-to-power ratio forbiddingly skinny. To be a top climber apparently, you need to weigh roughly twice in pounds what your height is in inches: so if you're 6ft (72 inches), you should weigh 144lb (10st 4lb). That's pretty skinny.
You can work on your technique to make it easier, and therefore more pleasurable, and there is a lot of advice out there. Here's some of it:
• Relax! Tensing up, craning your neck at the slope ahead and white-knuckling the handlebars will just drain your strength even more.
• Stay in your seat as much as possible (getting out of the saddle gives you more power but uses about 12% more energy, so on a long hill it's going to wear you out).
• Sit up as high as you can, and sit back on the seat.
• Find a gear where you can keep a steady rhythm of about 70-80rpm.
• Try to keep your heel parallel to the ground on the downstroke – don't stand on the pedals with your toes as this means you're using fewer muscles and have less power.
You could get one of those battery-assisted bikes if it is all too much like hard work. Or, as was suggested in a very funny piece I once read, you could remove all inessential body parts (kidney – you only need one; teeth; all body hair, nails etc) to make yourself that little bit lighter.
But at the end of the day, hills are a state of mind. What advice have you got for getting your head around them?
