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.??

It depends on the road, and how well I know it. One hill on my regular ride would probably get me over 50 mph, but, there's a stop sign at the bottom, and I take a left at it. Soooo on that one I start to tap the brakes at about 35. I'd rather go fast in my Vette anyway.

Well, I like to think it's the intelligence that comes with age...

I doubt I have ever broken 35mph/55kph. I am much more interested in keeping up a decent pace on ascents or into the wind than on maximizing my downhill speed. I feel somewhat insecure and unsafe at high speeds.

Even though I live in a flat part of the world, my area is blessed with short 50+ mph drops. Many (not all) are safe to just let 'er rip. I'm still a kid at heart and still get a rush hitting 50. :D

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.

It is not the hills that are our problem, it is the lack of length of them. If you want to know our highest speed it is 52.8 mph on the road, and 53.8 offroad. Yes the Tandem is faster off road than on road !!! Thing about speed is not the speed itself, but the sudden deceleration when you hit something. Last Autumn we had a front tyre blowout at 35mph on the Tandem and within yards we were bouncing down the track. My pilot lost his nerve after that and took it steady down all the hills, but part of that going steady was also the slippery nature of the trail this winter. That was until tonight. My Copilot on the Tandem has got his nerve back and this was evident by the speed everywhere, and the number of front wheel slides we had going downhill. Then the Final bit of Down hill road with 100yards between hairpins. I knew it was going to happen, but speed went up and we hit 30mph through one hairpin that has a suggested speed of 15mph for cars. Thank goodness he has his confidence back because we also lost the back end in a slide on that corner, but he did not panic and steered himself out of that slide and straight into another. Still did the last haipin at speed but as the road was clear we did use a bit more road than usual.

Speed is not a problem, but I can understand those that err on the cautious side. You normally find that the fast downhillers are the ones that are very slow or steady up hill, mainly because they know their weaknesses and make up ground on their strong points

You normally find that the fast downhillers are the ones that are very slow or steady up hill, mainly because they know their weaknesses and make up ground on their strong points[/QUOTE]

Ahhh.....that now explains why I'm zipping past all the folks going down the hills but they buzz right by me going back up the next climb. On second thought, it might just be the extra tire I carry around my waist!!

Gravity does work!

"Do Geezers Brake Sooner?"

Not this one :D

When I was young I flew down hills and gave no thought to it. Now that I am less young, I fly down hills and think about consequences and how painful they can be. Then I pedal faster.

I can't do the speed downhills any longer. In fact, I'm not real crazy about speed on the flats any more, either. I think that's why I want to now focus on hill climbing competitions -- it will allow me to still be competitive without the speed involved.

Come to think of it, this could be why hill climbing has gained so much in popularity -- the greying of one of cyclings biggest generations.

problem with falling at our age is that the repair period is a lot longer.
on a recent club ride a 18 yr old flew over his bike onto a rocky mountain side going down the scorpion's descent. he completely fractured his shoulder and femur bones. 6 months after the accident he is still recouperating. if that was me i would probably need 6 years to recoup.
besides i already know what it is like to fall so what's me hurry.

berts said it well. I'll keep up speed on straight aways, but drop on curves. You have less control and less safety wear with a bike vs motorcycle. Unless you like long periods of recovery, geezers have learned that continual enjoyment of riding is better than walking on crutches., ;))

Asking not so much how you descend, but how you feel when the road's a blur....1. do you have thoughts sudden flats, 2. of a possible sandy patch ahead, 3.careless idiot drivers around the next bend, 4. etc.??
To answer the questions:
1. ocassionally
2. only on curves
3. that's a given
4. wheel coming undone, frame cracking, animal crossing road, misjudging curve, water on curve, rock throwers. that about sums it up.
When I started riding again my confidence was so low I took turns very slowly - now I am more confident of my bike and myself so I manage a good but conservative clip going downhill.

I was always a downhill sissy, but now that I'm an OLD downhill sissy, I'm a bigger sissy than I used to be. I've sort of assumed there are a few reasons:
1. I'm smarter than I used to be.
2. I'm not racing anybody. Who cares if I'm not the first one to the bottom?
3. I heal slower than I used to, and have a lower tolerance for pain.
4. I've been over the handlebars/slid along the pavement enough. If I never do it again, that's fine with me.

LOL, no way dude, on a 40 mile off road ride last fall, I was "flying" down hills, staying off the brakes on my lowly comfort bike!! A lot of the other riders told me I was NUTS but I just told them I LOVE flying down hill and mach 9, it's probably because I go so SLOW uphills that it makes up for it!! ;) We call downhills "Reward" and I LIKE Rewards a lot more than "Paying the piper" (uphills)! :D

I've got to admit, I love going down hills. In my area the fastest I get up to is about 37 mph. I don't know if I would be comfortable at 50 mph, probably not. Coincidentally all of the fast drop hills I ride regularly have great long curves. I love the sense of leaning in and swooping downhill.

Here's the single thought that always slows me down. It comes to me whenever the speedo goes above about 38:
"Everything on this bike came off a clearance table and was installed and maintained by me."
My record, achieved one time just so I could say I'd done it, is 50.4mph. There are hills here where I could beat that almost whenever I want. Not going to happen, though

You guys blow me away. My top speed ever this year was something like 25 mph. I don't do a lot of hills so this was on a flat road, but still. And that was probably with a tail wind. And when I saw that I was going 25 mph, I nearly did a double take. That was plenty fast for me. I can't imagine going 35, 40, or 50+ (hey, is that a pun in this forum?) on a bike. I guess I'm not only a geezer, a clydesdale, and an old fart, but I'm also a wuss.

But I have fun. :D

Whatever you are Gary, we'd probably run you for President if we were organized enough.....fortunately for you, we are an individualistic bunch of overly gassy geezers who have become a (loosely but affectionately) somewhat coherent community here online.

I've enjoyed the variety of responses on this thread and LOL at many of them and said "Damned right" to several others!

:beer:

I am definitely slower now, and hit the brakes during descents. Part of it is that at 300 pounds it takes me a while to stop from high speed, but I think age is part of it too. I did do 38 mph on one hill earlier this year.

In my young adult days, I rode my Schwinn LeTour IV regularly down a hill at 45 MPH plus, and I had to get seriously aero to do it. When I was in my downhill position, my sternum was directly over the nose of my saddle, with my arms stretched out to the bars.

It would scare the crap out of me to do that now... Then I kept trying to figure out how to get even more speed.

Funny, but when I was young and any injury would have been devasting to wife, kids, house and car payments, work, I rode down hills without a care in the world.

Now, with the kids grown and gone, house payments coming to an end, ect., etc., I've become so much more careful.

Seems a little backwards, doesn't it?

If one feels uncomfortable on fast downhills, then it is probably wise to be extra careful and watch the speed. No problem with that.

To paraphrase that immortal 20th Century policeman, Harry Callahan, "A good man always knows his limitations."

The title of this thread was such that I ignored till now. Simply, I "resembled" it & thought I should stay away so that I didn't unload on some young kid.

Anyway, I think Trnrtr summed uip my response: Even though I live in a flat part of the world, my area is blessed with short 50+ mph drops. Many (not all) are safe to just let 'er rip. I'm still a kid at heart and still get a rush hitting 50. :D

I would rather go doin what I waht to do, & doin it my way rather than full of tubes & drugs.

Just my $02. Ask me in another 20 years. With any luck, I will have the same response. Bob

I never brake because of age. It's mostly because of FEAR !!!!!!!!!!

Fear has to do with it, but perhaps experience and common sense prevail within that realm. I was descending yesterday coming off of a bridge with an experienced biker friend who was ahead of me. He accelerated like lightning, but I nevertheless visualized my gaining speed as that of an automobile and then thought how there is no metal surrounding me, in addition to the thought that most fatilities occur when a person is thrown from a vehicle. So, abject fear? No. Just some reconsideration and adjustment.

Well, if Einstein was right, if we all went downhill really fast all of the time, then this forum would eventually have no participants. :D That's why I personally chicken out when I get into the 50 mph range. Don't want to leave you guys behind. Or would I actually leave you ahead? :beer:

I love going fast. But I'll never be aggressive enough to be a racer. Disc brakes help, because they let me carry speed closer to the turn and brake harder when I need to. But I REALLY don't like sliding out in a curve, and speed makes me uneasy when I can't see around the next bend; so give me a straight downhill and I'll be accelerating the whole way, but there are times when I'll slow down too.

I've never been on a hill that lets me approach 60 mph, but 50 just means a nice hill, 40 for a small hill, and 35 for a sign sprint against the gang.

I'm with berts; the longer recovery time at our age becomes important. Injuries = less riding time. Less riding time = less fit. I still love the thrill of speed, but I'm conservative enough to rarely crash.

Problem with big hills where gravity takes over. I keep wondering what the hill up the other side is going to be like. It is a two edged sword though. The adrenalyn rush will keep the heart beating on the downhills, and the effort in going up the other side will help improve the cardio-vascular training.

One of the reasons I ride offroad is that when you come off-Mud is softer than tarmac. Mind you, the gravel rash is still the same.

Brake, schmake. I get 36 to 38 mph on every ride (great hill just a little ways up the road from my driveway) and 42 to 47 on many, depending on my route. But I do know these roads and hills. I used to be more aggressive on the downhill runs for the sheer joy of hearing the rush of wind in my ears and zooming along inches above the pavement until I figured out that it is really best to save something for the next climb, but I'm still yelling WHEEEEE at the top of my voice inside my head. If I wasn't stop drilled at the ears I'd probably have to ride back up to pick up the top of my head after the corners of the grin met in back!

But now I try to put the effort into carrying speed as high as I can on the next hill and twiddling up as quickly as I can because it has the biggest effect on my total elapsed time for any given ride. Still it is hard to beat a long downhill swoop on a well designed, smoothly paved, gently curving, lightly travelled road. And trikes are great for this. It is like riding a go cart and the low position vastly increases the thrill and the feeling of speed. There are very few places I use the brakes on the downhills.

Fast, you betcha!

I turned 50 this year, and I also hit a new downhill top speed this year.

To some of you, 48 mph is not that fast, but it's my top speed in 20 years of riding.

WE'VE had a few serious crashed in our 30+ years of tandeming. hAVING CRAQSHED AT 30+

In our decades of riding tandem, we've had a few serious crashes at high speed. Have descended often in the hi-40s and quite a few in the lo-50 mph range when conditions allowed.
Tandem crashed at 30+ mph on a down hill once and pretzled front wheel. 3 days later, with a new wheel, we were rding a 200-mile 3-day tour at the Grand Canyon.
However, crashed last year (at the ripe age of 72) on my Merlin single due to harmonic vibration. Had always successfully come out of the harmonics mode, but not this time. Descending a newly paved mountain curves canyon road in UT, was doing about 38 mph when harmonics hit. Whoaaa! Clamped knees to top tube, no effect. Sat upright to slow down and got speed scrubbed from 38 to 30 mph. Tried lifting butt up off saddle: no effect. By now bike was slaloming all over the road and into the opposite lane. Did not wish to become a hood ornament!
Knew if I touched brake it'd be down, but no other choice/ideas/options. Touched brake and did my usual paratrooper roll, but still busted shoulder in 2 places. Had to pedal out of the canyon for several miles before hitting civilization.
Since that day, have kept descent speeds below 30 mph on single and tandem.
Finally have to admit: we're not 'invulnerable!' Older/wiser? Maybe!

I only recently returned to cycling. But I know I am slower than when I cycled as a young man and I am much slower than my young sons. It has little to do with fear of consequences and everything to do with reflexes. I came to that realization about eight years ago when I took my Corvette LT-1, that I had owned for almost 30 years out for a spin, trying to recover my youth. I tried accelerating hard with a fast power shift only to find I could no longer control the torque, almost wrecking the car. As a young man I handled shifting like that whenever and wherever I darn well pleased. I had to face the reality, the Vette didn't fail, I did. I no longer had the reflexes to control a high powered car that required quick hands. That's when I sold the Corvette, something I had loved and thought I would never part with.
When I returned to cycling, I knew I would not have the speed of a young man, I just try to keep up with those my age and be satisfied with that. Thank you for letting me share that story with you at the 50+ forum.

My evolution as a cyclist has had an opposite effect on my speed. When I got back into cycling in the early 1980s, I was in my 30s and still a bit whacked. I tried to go as fast as possible all the time. I also crashed a lot. Broke bones, many stiches, road rash, etc. My 40s were spent learning to avoid crashing. I slowed way down. At 53 now, I have never been faster. I attack downhills and drop offs I would never have attempted even in my 30s. On pavement, I live for curving descents. One hill in particular, I am bound and determined to break 55mph. Just can't quite get there though.

Anyway, I have learned to ride inside my abiliteis but push them whenever I feel confident. If I am feeling tentative, I poke. But if I feel good, I hammer.

Age 54 here... I tap the brakes and keep it in the low 30's. I also quit flying aerobatics (pilot, former USAF), have decided not to skydive and neither do I drive 90 mph on the highways any more. Life isn't a dress rehearsal........so why take the extra chances..

I don't brake any earlier on hills or corners. I think that's because I know my limits well and I'm in contol of the situation. I do find that I don't ride as tight in groups as I get older. In 30+ years of riding I've just seen too many crashes and close calls. And in those situations I don't have any control of what others do.

SS

Yea, I think age probably would cause me to break sooner--oops, you said brake!
!!Happy New Year!!

I get nervous about 35mph. I ride on country roads a lot and have had deer, dogs, wild turkeys, geese, and other critters run out into the road in front of me.

I get nervous about 35mph. I ride on country roads a lot and have had deer, dogs, wild turkeys, geese, and other critters run out into the road in front of me.

My wife and I were hit by a deer in 2001 on our tandem during a slight descent. I was uninjured but my wife sustained some really nasty bruises where the deer hit her.

My speed depends only on having a long, straight, steep drop and a good runout. Thin air helps. My best speeds were in Colorado. 45 MPH on a loaded touring bike at 10,000 ft. near Loveland Pass and 70+MPH in a heavy fully faired trike on the I-70 frontage road going into Denver. 42 MPH coming off the Golden Gate bridge (near sea level) and 28 MPH at -280 ft. The touring bikes I use seem more stable at speed then road bikes. I take a few more risks when I have medical coverage.

The touring bikes I use seem more stable at speed then road bikes. .

Yes. My relaxed, sport touring Romulus descends with more confidence inspiring stability than my upright Specialized crit bike. Its somewhat longer wheelbase, marginally lower bottom bracket, etc. For climbing, however, I'll take the crit....until I run out of low gears LOL.

Ken....my eyes would be screwed up in fear at 70mph....I'd definitely need a change of shorts.

This thread came into my mind today. My daughter and I went for an ice ride. On ice braking can mean instant catastrophe. We decided to ride some old tote roads that had frozen over. Lumpy, rutty sheet ice with free running water under the shelf. We don't hit any serious speeds, maybe 20 - 25mph, but on ice it feels like 50. Anyway, I had dropped into a downstroke and I hit a rut. My instinct was to grab for the brakes, but this thread and the wise words of a better rider than I flashed in my mind. "Momentum is your friend". I rode it out, white knuckling it all the way to the bottom. Nothing like ice to keep you on your toes.

My wife and I were hit by a deer in 2001 on our tandem during a slight descent. I was uninjured but my wife sustained some really nasty bruises where the deer hit her.

I had a similar (though not impactful) experience quite some years back. I wuz lucky, but still spooked me for quite some months.

As for descending, it is IT! It makes all those uphills worthwhile. And it brings out the 'technician". Pickin the line, reading the terrain, finding the zone, the groove. But I do ride within the sightline and conditions. If the road is encumbered with crossroads and driveways, I keep the pace well under reasonable braking distances. If the road has very few intersections and driveways, as many of the mtn roads in this area are, then I ride to the sightline and conditions, especially when there's opportunity to carve linked turns.
The key is to do your speed control before you need it, especially before and not 'in' turns.
As for critters, most of what we can expect are the smaller critters and boids. Deer are common, however the very steep nature of our hills keeps them away from the roads and, unless they're directly above, will keep away from roadsides due to the difficulties the terrain presents.
Given this, the 4+ mile descents we have here are a huge part of the cycling experience.
I do love the descending.

i believe that there is a direct correlation between my age and my invincibility deficiency?

the older i get, the less bulletproof i feel ~ hence, accelerating ascent in age = decelerated descents.

in this forum, i recently read someone's coinage of the acronym, "LSD - long slow distance."

i suspect, as was the case in the late 60's / early 70's, i'll be doin' a lot of trippin' in the years to come - the long slow variety, of course.

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c267/sweetdaddyroses/10ldhipy.gif
*sdr*