1 Sliding room
One tip is based on your positioning in the group when you reach a climb. And it applies to training, sportive or racing situations.
If you know you're coming up to an ascent, even if it's a short one, focus on starting it at the front of the group.
That way, you have sliding room; the ability to slide back from the head of the group to the back but still remaining with the others.
In a large group there may be a considerable distance between the front and back, especially when it gets stretched out on a climb. So the sliding room can be quite significant.
If you start at the rear and begin to fall back, you'll find yourself losing contact immediately. At least if you start at the front, your time in the group will be longer.
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And on a shorter climb the sliding room you give yourself may be the difference between getting over the climb in the group or off the back of it.
Starting at the front also gives you the added advantage of not getting stuck behind back markers if a split occurs in the group. If you're at the back, chances are you'll move backwards at the same rate as those just ahead of you.
But because the strong riders are usually at the front, if you start there you'll be on the right side of any split; at least for a little while.
Starting at the front, you can slip back through the group by riding the climb slower than those around you. And hopefully by the time you reach the back, you will have reached the top of the climb.
At the very least, sliding room will limit the distance between you and the back of the group when you get to the top.
2 Pacing
You should also try to ride a climb, especially long ones, at your own pace. If you try as hard as you can to hang in as long as possible and then blow up, you really can get into a bad way and lose a lot of time.
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Physically blowing may then cause you great difficultly for the rest of your ride. You should also try and spin a gear rather than trying to push a big one, and stay seated in the saddle.
Even in pro races, where riders are much stronger and very experienced, getting pacing wrong can be a disaster.
Riders can power through the early stages of a climb only to fade and lose a huge amount of time before the top. And in many cases even the race isn't over at the top of the climb, the riders have gone into the red to such an extent they are spent and continue to lose time.
There is absolutely no point riding flat out to hold a wheel on climb only to be dropped and need a lot of time to recover. In many races there is a regrouping after a climb, especially early in a race.
In a sportive you should try and come to an arrangement with a buddy to ride together and then stick to that plan. That means you can help each other, keep each other company and make sure neither of you goes crazy up a climb by getting carried away in the moment.
3 Mental approach
Try breaking the climb up in your mind to parcel it into manageable chunks.
You can do this by picking a spot on the roadside - a road marking or lamp post - and focusing on getting that far with the group rather than thinking of the daunting entire length of the climb.
When you reach the marker, then pick another in the distance and immediately switch your focus to it. This technique can help prevent you becoming mentally defeated by a long or steep climb.
Very often riders get dropped because they crack mentally; either on a climb or in a line-out on the flat.
Very often its the thoughts of the effort to still come or convincing yourself the pace is never going to ease off that results in riders throwing the towel in.
If you can develop mental processes to trick yourself into not thinking too far ahead and taking suffering one short spell at a time, it may just get you through the hardest section of a climb.
But don't forget the second point above; don't ride yourself into the ground just to stay in a group on a climb, especially in a sportive and especially if there is still a long way to go.
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