[Eustache]

Hello,

I’m sharing a practical trick to preserve your knees when doing Muscular Endurance work such as Weighted Hill Climbs.

The method proposed in TFtNA reduces knee injury probability by dropping weight at the top of the climb (either water or rocks usually) and walking down with a light pack as a consequence.

This trick goes one step beyond by allowing to use a mountain bike on the way down. The idea is to carry your mountain bike on your pack on the way up and use it downhill once on top.

To carry your bike one needs only a pair of adjustable hiking poles and slings. Put the poles inside the pack so as to form a “X” with pole picks heading up outside on each side. This way you can use a simple sling to hang your bike on your backpack. If needed adjust weight by putting more rocks/water inside the pack. See photo to have a better idea.

Of course, with a light MB weighing > ~10kg you should be at a point in your progression of ME where it makes sense !

I’m using this trick for a couple of sessions now and it combines fun and knee preservation, all of which are great morale boosters for your training 🙂

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[Zuko]

Zuko on May 21, 2019 at 7:35 am #22305

nicely done!

[todd.struble]

todd.struble on May 21, 2019 at 12:24 pm #22307

This is great, can you post a few more photos or a link to an album? I’m not sure I get exactly how the bike is attached to the poles, and how the poles are “inside the pack” without it opening up.

I toyed with the idea of a folding bike, a mountain skateboard, and others to implement this idea, but never pulled the trigger. I figured I could use the muscular endurance/strength training effect of going downhill a bit slower. It definitely compromised getting some elevation when time was limited though.

[pshyvers]

pshyvers on May 24, 2019 at 1:19 pm #22458

Very creative! Todd, you can see he’s girth hitched a sling to the head & seatpost each. The slings loop over the pole spikes.

I guess a possible downside would be losing the eccentric training for your legs (which crosses over to skiing), but it certainly would make the training day a lot more fun!

[sam.ley]

sam.ley on May 26, 2019 at 2:33 pm #22544

I love it! I might try it out next week, there is a great MTB ride near me that has a steep and deeply unpleasant climb, followed by a long and awesome flow singletrack descent. Just hiking the ascent with the pack and making it a Z3 weighted climb would be ideal. I’m sure I’ll get some strange looks!