Originally Posted by GrannyGear
There was a time when I rode down hills faster than I do now. These days, I tap the brakes, sit up to catch wind, etc. sooner than I used to. I find myself gripping the bars a little tighter when the Cateye starts nudging towards 40 on straights--oftentimes much sooner depending on the road. I used to think "Wheeee!", now its more like "Holy S***.
Is there a deep, instinctual impulse to be more conservative as we grow a little more brittle, our reflexes slow, youthful indestructibility evaporates........or am I the only speed weenie here?
Asking not so much how you descend, but how you feel when the road's a blur....do you have thoughts sudden flats, of a possible sandy patch ahead, careless idiot drivers around the next bend, etc.??
Having a son paralyzed from a sporting accident and another from a fall, I tend to be quite conservative in almost anything I do while bicycling, including downhills.
I imagine that 38 mph is about as fast as I go, and, strangely, I feel safer on my mtn bike at this speed than on my roadie.
Yes, I think about ice, gravel, rocks, flats, blowouts amd funerals and hospitals. Perhaps staying many months with both sons at a rehab hospital and seeing all the devastation from sports injuries may have colored my perspective a bit, also.
I never had the advantage some do of going real fast as a young man, as I didn't cycle that way then. More like trying to be a mtn biker.