Touring - I feel foolish for asking...

I notice from pictures of tours I've seen that you guys go down some amazingly long and steep hills when in the mountains and it just seems to me that you either have to fly down the hill or you have to do a lot of braking. I was curious what kind of strain this puts on your brakes. I am sure it is personal preference when going down hills just like how people enjoy jumping out of airplanes and other people think those people are crazy. I guess there are very nice brakes that can withstand the friction but I just feel like you would still need to be replacing your brake pads a lot. I am thinking people brake if they want to be safe and others are just more courageous. I brake when I go down hills feeling that is smart but still feeling bad for my brakes. Just wondering what other opinions there are out there, if there is a thread out there with this same topic I will delete mine.

I tend to brake very lightly, enough that I'm confident I could make a panic stop if I had to. For very steep hills, I sometimes coast, brake, repeat.

I tend to brake very lightly, enough that I'm confident I could make a panic stop if I had to. For very steep hills, I sometimes coast, brake, repeat.


Yea see I was thinking about how people must have their own little techniques to the pattern of coasting and braking, it is definitely a personal preference thing then so I suppose people who brake a lot get better pads than people who are risk takers? Or am I beginning to generalize?

I figure you spent all that effort going UP the hill that you might as well have fun going DOWN the hill. I don't brake unless I think there might be cross traffic or something.

Right on, I feel the same way. Anybody know the top speed of a fully loaded tour bike down a mountain?

(Caveat: There are no mountains for hundreds of miles around me, but there are some longish hills) I get torn between (1) the desire to rest a bit and build momentum for the inevitably-coming uphill after the downhill, and (2) the memory of a high-speed front tire blowout that wound up hurting really, really bad.

Hence, my braking depends on the condition of the area I'm likely to land in - Smooth, grassy bar ditches let me fly more than glass strewn rocky ledges and concrete curbing..

Brakes? We don't need no stinking brakes! Withdraw all flaps and drag fins! Open the throttle, and yell YAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO as you roll down the mountain!!! :D

My worst on-bike (off-bike?) accident came when I didn't brake enough on a steep downhill and missed a tight turn going about 35. Amazingly, I did more damage to my bike than I did to myself. Lots of road rash and damage to my ego but nothing more than that. Considering how lucky I was that time, I have learned to keep my downhill speed under control and to brake often going down.

If there is a crosswind, descending can be very tricky and I keep my speed down even further.

Ray

Brakes? We don't need no stinking brakes! Withdraw all flaps and drag fins! Open the throttle, and yell YAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO as you roll down the mountain!!! :D

I ****ing like the way you think.

My worst on-bike (off-bike?) accident came when I didn't brake enough on a steep downhill and missed a tight turn going about 35. Amazingly, I did more damage to my bike than I did to myself. Lots of road rash and damage to my ego but nothing more than that. Considering how lucky I was that time, I have learned to keep my downhill speed under control and to brake often going down.

If there is a crosswind, descending can be very tricky and I keep my speed down even further.

Ray


Yea I have a lot of hills along the way, I will be safe and slow about it to make sure I get there in one piece and with all of my skin. Just seems like skin is kind of important, not to mention having bones that aren't cracked is kind of a nice feeling.

Anybody know the top speed of a fully loaded tour bike down a mountain?

Faster than I'm willing to go. I'm not sure which wins.....added weight vs. additional wind resistance of panniers, but that's why I like Kool Stop brake pads

Faster than I'm willing to go. I'm not sure which wins.....added weight vs. additional wind resistance of panniers, but that's why I like Kool Stop brake pads

Are those the bomb diggity?

One of the local riders crashed when on vacation on a mountain downhill. The brake pads overheated and lost traction. So don't ride the brakes on a long downhill.

My top speed going down a hill on my touring bike was 48 mi/h
That was fun :)

I rode through some really hilly areas, so I opted for disc brakes
You can't go full speed around turns, trust me, I tried and it ended badly

My MTB gets wobbly around 30mph. I've hit 31 partially-loaded, maybe 28 fully loaded. When I start hauling camping gear as well, we'll see.

One of the local riders crashed when on vacation on a mountain downhill. The brake pads overheated and lost traction. So don't ride the brakes on a long downhill.

Good good, this is what I wanted to hear... brakes can overheat and now I know. Thank you.

In the Rockies, we went somewhere in the 40's maybe 48 mph or so. The extra weight is offset to some degree by the drag of panniers and stuff.

Just like in a car on extreme grades, you to need to use the brakes in a way that doesn't overheat them. I typically use one brake fairly hard for a few seconds, coast a bit, use the other, coast a bit, etc. If there aren't intersections or turns I tend to let it roll pretty good. I never just keep the brakes steadily applied. If I am worried about overheating the rims and pads I stop for a bit. The worst was a descent in the Appalachians where the grade was in the mid to upper teens and the curves were tight and constant.

You can keep speed down some by sitting upright for more wind resistance.

In the Rockies, we went somewhere in the 40's maybe 48 mph or so. The extra weight is offset to some degree by the drag of panniers and stuff.

Just like in a car on extreme grades, you to need to use the brakes in a way that doesn't overheat them. I typically use one brake fairly hard for a few seconds, coast a bit, use the other, coast a bit, etc. If there aren't intersections or turns I tend to let it roll pretty good. I never just keep the brakes steadily applied. If I am worried about overheating the rims and pads I stop for a bit. The worst was a descent in the Appalachians where the grade was in the mid to upper teens and the curves were tight and constant.

You can keep speed down some by sitting upright for more wind resistance.

Good advice as always.

Fast is OK. The main problem is road condition, you can pretty much become detatched from the surface riding the right hand margin if it is crazed. So when possible I move to the smoothest part of the road. If you are then forced over for whatever reason, you can loose control if you end up on the washboard surface again after having gained speed above what you could originally handle there.

Despite the happy talk, it is possible to end up brakeless using normal good quality brakes, which is why tandems have three brakes, including often a drum brake. Since my personal and gear load is well into what the industry probably considers a tandem load ie one person 155# and one person 95#, we have people here who weight that much, it makes sense to me to back up the bike with some redundant braking. It also makes sense to mix it up with different styles of brake that have relative advantages in mud water, long hot decents etc...

By the way, while I have seen some of those western roads that seem to have long smooth decents, and are a different world, just in my experience in the east I have never seen a bike doing 50 anywhere. I have been through some of the popular passes in NH, and the Rockies with huge drops, and I sure haven't seen any cyclists doing 50 there. No doubt it happens and maybe particularly if you have smooth mountain decents in areas not prone to freeze thaw road destruction, but people shouldn't get the sense 50 mph is the norm. Though, I read something where Jobst Brandt said that they hit 55 on every trainning ride. They get a lift inland in whatever part of Cali he lives at, and on the way back out they hit the high speeds every time, not loaded of course. He talked up the technique for holding the "bars" at the stem (?, can't remember), or whatever it is one has to do in order to keep the shimmy from building.

By the by I found this interesting Wiki account of the kinds of speeds Tour rider hit:

"On July 18 during the fifteenth stage of the 1995 Tour de France, Fabio Casartelli and a few other riders crashed on the descent of the Col de Portet d'Aspet in the Pyrenees. Casartelli sustained heavy facial and head injuries and lost consciousness. While being flown to a local hospital by helicopter, he stopped breathing and after numerous resuscitation attempts was declared dead. Many have claimed if Casartelli had been wearing a modern bicycle helmet his life might have been saved, but the impact was not exclusively to the part of the head protected by a helmet, and an impact at nearly 100kmh (60 mph) has more than twenty times the energy a typical helmet is designed to absorb.[1] Gerard Porte, the Tour's senior doctor, claimed that protection was academic since the fatal blow was to an area of Casartelli's head that would not have been covered by a helmet."

Fast is OK. The main problem is road condition, you can pretty much become detatched from the surface riding the right hand margin if it is crazed. So when possible I move to the smoothest part of the road. If you are then forced over for whatever reason, you can loose control if you end up on the washboard surface again after having gained speed above what you could originally handle there.

Despite the happy talk, it is possible to end up brakeless using normal good quality brakes, which is why tandems have three brakes, including often a drum brake. Since my personal and gear load is well into what the industry probably considers a tandem load ie one person 155# and one person 95#, we have people here who weight that much, it makes sense to me to back up the bike with some redundant braking. It also makes sense to mix it up with different styles of brake that have relative advantages in mud water, long hot decents etc...

By the way, while I have seen some of those western roads that seem to have long smooth decents, and are a different world, just in my experience in the east I have never seen a bike doing 50 anywhere. I have been through some of the popular passes in NH, and the Rockies with huge drops, and I sure haven't seen any cyclists doing 50 there. No doubt it happens and maybe particularly if you have smooth mountain decents in areas not prone to freeze thaw road destruction, but people shouldn't get the sense 50 mph is the norm. Though, I read something where Jobst Brandt said that they hit 55 on every trainning ride. They get a lift inland in whatever part of Cali he lives at, and on the way back out they hit the high speeds every time, not loaded of course. He talked up the technique for holding the "bars" at the stem (?, can't remember), or whatever it is one has to do in order to keep the shimmy from building.

By the by I found this interesting Wiki account of the kinds of speeds Tour rider hit:

"On July 18 during the fifteenth stage of the 1995 Tour de France, Fabio Casartelli and a few other riders crashed on the descent of the Col de Portet d'Aspet in the Pyrenees. Casartelli sustained heavy facial and head injuries and lost consciousness. While being flown to a local hospital by helicopter, he stopped breathing and after numerous resuscitation attempts was declared dead. Many have claimed if Casartelli had been wearing a modern bicycle helmet his life might have been saved, but the impact was not exclusively to the part of the head protected by a helmet, and an impact at nearly 100kmh (60 mph) has more than twenty times the energy a typical helmet is designed to absorb.[1] Gerard Porte, the Tour's senior doctor, claimed that protection was academic since the fatal blow was to an area of Casartelli's head that would not have been covered by a helmet."

Ouch... good info, thank you.

My decending speed is inversely proportional to the distance I am from emergency medical services. But I tend to go faster loaded because I am more stable than on a unloaded road bike.

I am sure it is personal preference when going down hills just like how people enjoy jumping out of airplanes and other people think those people are crazy. I guess there are very nice brakes that can withstand the friction but I just feel like you would still need to be replacing your brake pads a lot.

I am more cautious than most and with a group others might end up waiting for me at the bottoms of the hills. I'll brake and coast. I'm also heavier than average with a fully loaded touring rig. When I get much faster than 35mph, I'll slow down.

With that said, replacements of brake pads happen less often than you might think. It obviously depends on the terrain, but on a recent 8000 mile ride across Eurasia, I replaced both front and rear brake pads twice.

It's nice to go fast once or twice just to see how fast I can safely go (which is just over 50kph), but after spending several hours climbing I don't want risk life and limb racing back down in a few minutes.

I hit about 81 km/h (about 58 m/ph) down the Appenines, I didn't see a single car the whole way down, it was probably dangerous but damn it was fun seeing the reaction of (oldie) roadies as I passed them down the mountain :)

On that same day I met some Belgians who trounced even that speed coming down the Alps a few weeks earlier and had video proof on their digital cams (riding one-handed!??)

I hit about 81 km/h (about 58 m/ph) down the Appenines, I didn't see a single car the whole way down, it was probably dangerous but damn it was fun seeing the reaction of (oldie) roadies as I passed them down the mountain :)

On that same day I met some Belgians who trounced even that speed coming down the Alps a few weeks earlier and had video proof on their digital cams (riding one-handed!??)


Lordy lordy, proof that you can do what the hell you want, depends on how brave you are. Glad to know your ok, I won't be trying that any time soon though. One handed???!!! Madness!

Dude, live a little, let it loose, and live on the edge! Nothing like flying down a mt pass going 65+ mph. Using your brakes is cheating your bike out of what it's made to do................ RUN.

RC

Keep in mind that the take-off speed in an ultralite airplane is about 25 miles per hour, which coincidentally is the speed on a bike at which 80% of your resistance is wind resistance, and I'm not talking about when you ride on those upright flat bars. Nor am I talking about wearing cotton and carrying big square bags. I'm not sure what the natural highest speed on a falling bike is, at 50 your 4 times the energy of the 25 mph bike with all that entailis for wind effects, brakes, surface roughness etc...

I don't ride the brakes and I try to be tucked, I guess we just don't have the big hills some of you guys have. And I will admit on a really tearing drop I don't crank the bike up. If I just climbed a hard hill I keep peddling just to help the old heart out. I don't climb up onto the pedals though and launch into a sprint.

It is interesting to consider that if the average helmet is designed to take only one twentieth of the loads involved in a high speed crash, what is the average brake system designed for. My own observation is probably something around 25 mph. I don't mean structurally is blows at that level, it just doesn't seem like the same set of brakes. A move from 18 mph, which is about my level road tail wind speed, to 25 mph which is pretty much what I take a lot of non-wonderful decents at, is an energy increase of 60%, doesn't take much to significantly change stuff.

I tend to tuck and/or pedal (until I'm going too fast), which has brought me up to some dangerous speeds. To scrub a little speed I'll sit up, to scrub more I brake lightly and early for turns.

Somewhere in Montana on the W->E TransAm route last summer I hit just over 50 mph fully loaded. It was windy and a little scary. After the hill I realized what a bad position it could have put my riding partner in, so I calmed down a lot on the hills. Even then, 40 mph was pretty common throughout the trip.

On a side note, my all time top speed is 55 mph set on both a mtb with slicks and my road bike on the same road. I like the speed.

Right on, I feel the same way. Anybody know the top speed of a fully loaded tour bike down a mountain?

At least 48 on the west side of Trail Ridge Road;) It's got a long straight after the Medicine Bow Curve.

http://www.rmnp.com/Maps/RMNP-Map-TrailRidgeRoad.JPG

Braking...whether on a road bike, mountain bike, or loaded touring bike...is all about technique. Lots of people drag their brakes all the way down a hill and then complain about how bad their brakes are. On downhills, let the bike pick up some speed, hit the brakes hard enough to slow the bike and get off them. Repeat as necessary. Constantly applied brakes result in lots of heat build up. Pulsing them on and off, lets the rims and brakes cool between application. If you really need to apply the brakes for the entire downhill, apply front to slow, then back, then front. Let one wheel cool slightly between application.

You can also use wind braking to help slow the bike. Sit up straight and it'll scrub a little speed off. Not a lot but sometimes it's enough.

For those squiggly lines - aka curves;) - on the left? I did those around 30 mph. Scrub speed before the curve, go into the curve wide (to the right), cut in towards the apex of the curve in the middle, and exit wide. As you go into the curve, swing the crank on the outside of the curve down so that your leg is straight and really stand on it. Force as much weight as you can onto that outside foot and push on the outside of the handlebar too. This sticks you to the road and makes the bike carve the corner...just like skiiing.

Don't worry that you are in the way of the cars. They can't go around the corner as fast as you can anyway. Let them try. Then laugh at them when they slide off the corner and end up upside down at the bottom of a cliff:eek:;)

Dude, live a little, let it loose, and live on the edge! Nothing like flying down a mt pass going 65+ mph. Using your brakes is cheating your bike out of what it's made to do................ RUN.

RC



Well its not exactly living a little when your brains are splattered across the road, in fact I don't think that is living at all. I mean, come on man, what if you were to hit another cyclist, pedestrian, or a car (eek) at those speeds, the damage would be terrible on both sides. I don't wanna sound mean here but nobody should ever mistake foolishness for coolness. I think it is smart to ride safe,going fast can be fun but 65+ is rediculous. I may just be a little old fashioned but does anybody agree with me here?

let 'er rip till the very bottom is my advice. A well loaded, stable bike does real well at high speeds. I've let go of both handlebars (keeping my hands positioned in the cradle of the drops) at over 50 miles an hour riding off the North Cascades highway and my bike felt SOLID with no wobble.

Sometimes you can let it all out and sometimes you cannot. main state and interstate highway pass descents allow highway like speed on your bike if you've got the huevos.

If you need to brake, I find that a few seconds of firm braking, release, repeat technique works well with a loaded bike. the weight of full panniers allows good adhesion to the road without rear wheel lift. Even tight roads can be negotiated speedily with a well weighted, reasonably loaded bike.

I've got pictures and video doing 40mph one handed on a loaded touring bike more than once and done 50+ on some of Washington's roads but would need a helmet camera to get pictures of the speedometer at that speed.

One things for sure, though: Getting out of control at speed on the bike- something I've encountered during dirt road descents on loaded touring bikes- is always harrowing.

The bike starts to drift as the tires break loose and you find yourself approaching a too-tight corner sideways at 20 miles an hour....

Well its not exactly living a little....

Why not live a lot instead -- this guy knows how to make it count, however briefly --

(and if your chute fails, just cut it loose; it's a faster ride that way):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YziFeaukVeY

I've reached speeds faster than 70 km/h (43 m.p.h.) many times on tour without any worries at all. My bike's stable and I'm in control. But that's been on relatively straight roads with light traffic and in dry conditions.

I'll slow down considerably if I'm on winding roads or riding in the rain. If I'm riding downhill in the rain, I'm often riding the brakes to control my speed. This will wear out the brake pads in a hurry and it pays to stop frequently to check if the brakes are still functioning. I learned this by experience in summer. On a rainy day, riding on a 40-kilometre downhill, I wore out my brakes without realizing it. Later, on a flat stretch of road, after the rain had ended, I suddenly found myself without braking power. I'm still trying to figure out how I avoided a serious accident at an intersection.

No need to think about a maximum safe velocity. You will simply know how safe YOU feel on YOUR bicycle carrying YOUR load on THIS hill under THESE conditions.

There have been hills and mountains I have whipped down because my bike felt stable, there was no traffic, and surface was smooth, and the road was straight. The fact that I checked my brakes earlier in the day contributed to my sense of safety.

But I ride with a great deal more caution when there even one car in sight, or if the road surface is wet. I have never been so cautious as I was when descending the Gotthard Pass in Switzerland. There was plenty of traffic, the road was narrow and winding (99 hairpin turns!), the road surface was mostly cobblestone, and guardrails were few and far between!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

You need very decent brakes because in many cases the side winds come into play, as an example going down into the Imperial Valley in California this summer there is a 18 mile downward hill portion. With the crosswinds and thrucks very scarey. You have to stop a number of times to just rest your hands. On tours I bring extra pads and a small sharp file to tune my pads often.

Last month I crossed "La Cordillera de los Andes" (Chile - Argentina) and it was lots and lots of KMs DOWNHill (Argetina's Side :P), the road was so serpently that i had to brake way too much. The result: New brake pads gone.

I like to make a full speed downhill ride, but the curves were so tight that I had to brake on almost every one of them.

one handed at 81kmh? belgians are brave or crazy or just plain dumb or gots a good insurance.

hoooolllyyy shiat, i did 70km down some road in china and my hands weren't the only things clamped tight...

i had to cramp some other thing tight too or i would have dirtied myself
too young to die young

whats this thing about burning tires with rim brakes btw? ive touched my rims after long descents and never felt them hot or anything.... has anyone every smoked a tire? honestly now.

you either have to fly down the hill or you have to do a lot of braking.
yes

Take along 1-2 spare sets brake pads, you will go through at least one on your trip.

Coast the straight bits, brake before the curves. Less wear than braking the whole time.

My PB with a touring load is only 75km/h ;)

I hit about 81 km/h (about 58 m/ph) down the Appenines, I didn't see a single car the whole way down, it was probably dangerous but damn it was fun seeing the reaction of (oldie) roadies as I passed them down the mountain :)

On that same day I met some Belgians who trounced even that speed coming down the Alps a few weeks earlier and had video proof on their digital cams (riding one-handed!??)

Sorry to be a pedant but 81 km/h is closer to 50 mph. 1 km = 5/8 mile. Or use google to convert for you.

Also if you have never neem fast on a bike going down hill becearful of your eyes. The wind will make them stream and then seeing becomes difficault. Also there have been cases of people sustaining some quite seriouse eye problems when bugs / debree have flown into their eyes. SO wear some form of eye protection.

Lastly to the guy that said his bike gets wobbaly at 30mph I would sugest that you check your rack and / or loading technieque, 30mph is a worrying speed for things to get wobbaly, fast enough to hurt but slow enough to easily reach even on a slight down hill.

Calculated it in my head, not that important. Still mega fast.

For sure. A white knuckle ride I bet!

It is the scientist in me that is all. :)

The only thing I hae read about / herd about any much faster is some tandem teams down long hills, the same weight as a loaded bike but less wind resistance. Read some crazy stories of 60 + mph. If you are on the back of a rig like that you must have some seriouse trust in the person up front!

Calculated it in my head, not that important. Still mega fast. Yes still mega fast, but 8 mph is a significant enough difference that the correction was worth stating.

Fast is OK. The main problem is road condition, you can pretty much become detatched from the surface riding the right hand margin if it is crazed. So when possible I move to the smoothest part of the road. If you are then forced over for whatever reason, you can loose control if you end up on the washboard surface again after having gained speed above what you could originally handle there.

Washboard and broken surfaces (not the same thing by the way) don't automatically mean losing control, even on a loaded bike. Even, stupidly, running off the road at 40 mph into deep sand doesn't mean you are going to crash.

The largest amount of weight on a bicycle - loaded or unloaded - is the rider. The bike might not have suspension but we come with our own so that's not that big a problem. Lot's of people think that they should keep their butts planted on the saddle at all times and this is the furthest from the truth. The first thing you should do when you come to a patch of broken pavement (we'll get to washboard in a second) coming downhill, is to get up off the saddle, bend your elbows (no death grip:eek:) and bring the pedals parallel to the ground. Your knees will be naturally bent at this point and you can lift yourself up off the saddle. I usually push back off the rear of the saddle a little to unweight the front wheel. The idea is to 'float' across the rough patch using the giant pistons we call legs;) The arms do the same.

If you have to brake, anticipation is key. Look down the road further then you think you need to and be ready for anything. Swerve if you can but if you can't brake hard before entering the rough patch and get off the brakes or, at least, lessen you pressure on the levers significantly as you enter the rough patch. You don't want to have the brakes on full in case the bike hops (which it might if you learn how to float well enough). You'd risk locking the wheels in the air and skidding the rear wheel at the very least.

On to washboard. Washboard is the natural wave phenomena that is set up from the suspension of an automobile on dirt roads. It has a very regular pattern and is seldom found on the downhill side of roads. I've only ever run across it once on a paved road (at the Eagle Ferry crossing on the Mississippi near St. Charles) but that was a very steep road and a very poor road base. If you do happen to run across it on a downhill, you should probably get to the proper side of the road first;) and you will likely be moving slower than you would on a smooth paved road (even I'm not dumb enough to bomb a dirt road on a loaded touring bike at close to 50 mph:eek:;)). However, if you do run across it, don't panic! Slow down gently to a speed you are comfortable with. One caveat, whether in a car or on a bike, washboard is usually better taken at a fairly good rate of speed. If you slow to the point where you are dropping into each trough and coming up on each crest, you'll end up going slower and slower and feeling every single one of the buggers. In a car (truck actually), I take washboard at as high a rate of speed as I can manage. The idea is to hit just the tops of each wave. The suspension doesn't have enough time to react and drop into the troughs. You can do something similar on an unsuspended bike but, of course, it's much rougher and harder to keep the speed up. On a bike, it's best to seek a smoother path without smashing on the brakes...gentle application is okay.


Despite the happy talk, it is possible to end up brakeless using normal good quality brakes, which is why tandems have three brakes, including often a drum brake. Since my personal and gear load is well into what the industry probably considers a tandem load ie one person 155# and one person 95#, we have people here who weight that much, it makes sense to me to back up the bike with some redundant braking. It also makes sense to mix it up with different styles of brake that have relative advantages in mud water, long hot decents etc...

It's possible to end up brakeless but it isn't probable...not if you pay attention to your bike. Lots of people post that they can blow through a set of pads in x number of days in y given conditions but I've never understood why. Even when mountain biking, I seldom go through a set of pads in a year...much less days...and I ride in a mountainous state. I still have the same pads I put on my touring bike in 2003 before I did the eastern end of Lewis and Clark and I've used them the 2 years before doing the western end where they did just fine.

Brakes should be used in a manner that makes them effective without overheating them. Clamping on the brakes at the top of a 4 mile long descent and keeping them on for the entire time is a sure way to end up without brakes...whether on a bike or in a car.


By the way, while I have seen some of those western roads that seem to have long smooth decents, and are a different world, just in my experience in the east I have never seen a bike doing 50 anywhere. I have been through some of the popular passes in NH, and the Rockies with huge drops, and I sure haven't seen any cyclists doing 50 there. No doubt it happens and maybe particularly if you have smooth mountain decents in areas not prone to freeze thaw road destruction, but people shouldn't get the sense 50 mph is the norm. Though, I read something where Jobst Brandt said that they hit 55 on every trainning ride. They get a lift inland in whatever part of Cali he lives at, and on the way back out they hit the high speeds every time, not loaded of course. He talked up the technique for holding the "bars" at the stem (?, can't remember), or whatever it is one has to do in order to keep the shimmy from building.



Shimmy is possible with any bike but some are more prone to it than others. A simple tuck which you are describing won't make the shimmy go away. If anything, it would exacerbate it. Holding the bars close to the stem lessens the lever arm on the steering and makes control much more difficult. He may have been clamping the top tube between his knees to dampen the shimmy, aka death wobble. This helps on a bike that is prone to a death wobble. Not all bikes suffer from this however. My old Miyata got one around 40. My daughters Fuji gets it around 35. My Cannondale shows no signs of it at all.

Should people ride loaded touring bikes as fast as I have? Not unless they know what they are doing. Even then they need to weigh all the possible ways things can go wrong.

One thing I prefer to do on fast decents is shift up to the big ring and small cassette early, or even before the decent. I've been on some downhills and decided to start pedalling (either at the bottom, or just cause I wanted to up the speed), and if you are not in a gear for that speed... it's kinda unsettling. Like pushing down, and no resistance. Not saying I got wobbly... but wasn't comfortable.
Also, I have downtube shifters... so it's a little more nerve racking to shift at 40+ (or once at 50+).

Oh yeah, this isn't touring or loaded... just my old roadie.

i've done like 45-50 and i think some good advice is to NOT BE CLIPPED IN when going this fast. i've never worn clipless shoes, but did have straps and i took them out. if i'm gonna wipe out at that speed, i don't want to be attached to my bike.

...interesting... I'd have to think about whether I agree. Mainly cause my roadie shoes are super slick on the bottom and I run Egg-beater pedals... then I'd have to clip in at the bottom while <probably> still going quite fast.

i've done like 45-50 and i think some good advice is to NOT BE CLIPPED IN when going this fast. i've never worn clipless shoes, but did have straps and i took them out. if i'm gonna wipe out at that speed, i don't want to be attached to my bike.
Personally I would be sure that I WAS clipped in. But then I NEVER clip out until am ready to put a foot down now. Fast or slow, good roads or bad, dry roads or ice I stay clipped in. If I blow a tire, have a speed wobble, or whatever I want the best control of the bike I can have and to me that means being clipped in.

My reward for all the effort of climbing a mountain is the descent with little or no brakes when appropriate based on long experience.

As to speed, touring on our fully loaded tandem on the California Coast we hit 60 mph spinning out a 56x12 gear.

Full disclosure: The strong tailwind helped- a lot!