Why it is easier to get off the bike and walk up the steep road with it than riding it all the way up?
In: Physics
It doesn’t have to be.
The main reason cycling uphill can be harder is if you don’t have a low enough gear on your bike. In a high gear, it may take too much effort to push the pedals around even once. It’s especially difficult when you hit the “dead points” that occur when you’re having to push each pedal over the top of its revolution. Unless your shoes are clipped into the pedals, like you can do on race bikes (in which case you can pull the other pedal up with your other leg), it becomes very hard to generate enough force on the pedals at those points, to keep them moving.
In other words, you have to overcome the pull of gravity. On the flat, the bike does this for you as all the force of gravity goes through the frame and wheels. As you go up an incline, however, some part of that gravitational force is now pulling you down the incline. The steeper the incline, the greater this pull. To keep moving, you have to generate enough force to at least overcome this pull. How much force you have to generate depends not only on the steepness of the incline, but also on the gearing on your bike. A low gearing gives you leverage that allows you to pedal faster while exerting less force. It’s as if you’ve turned the steep climb into a longer, less steep one.
In a low enough gear, you can bike uphill as slowly as you would walk, and at that point biking should be no more effortful than walking – in fact it should be less as biking remains a more efficient method of travel than walking. However, another issue you may encounter is that a bike becomes less stable at low speeds. So if you have to bike very slowly, you may struggle to keep the bike upright, and that can also be a reason why you may have an easier time if you get off the bike.
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