Road Cycling - Fear of descending

So...I just bought my first road bike. Its a Trek 2100, and I love it. Its smooth, fast, light...and I'm pretty confident in the saddle (or out of it...). I do miss one thing from my MTB riding road days....the brakes. I just cant get over how much less braking power there is on my Trek, and it really makes me hesitant to choose a ride where I might need to venture a healthy descent. I'm already on 25c tires, so I have a good sized contact patch for a roadie (I'm not planning on going any bigger than that. In fact, I may move on to a 23c tire sometime soon)...I just dont have the same confidence I had before.

Any advice/suggestions?

Thanks,

Colin

go up, then down some moderately large, steep hills. do more and more hills until you feel more comfortable going faster.

when you're braking going downhill, at speed, try to stay away from using the rear brake too much, and try to train yourself to not grab a huge handful of rear brake in a panic situation. at speed, around a corner, if you grab that rear brake too hard, down you'll go. if i really need to control my speed on a descent, i hold the front down for like, 15 seconds, then let up for 5, then hold the rear for 10 if it's straight, then let off for 5, and go back to the front. that helps the rims and pads cool down...or maybe it doesn't and i'm totally out of my mind, but it makes me feel safer. and when i say "hold" the brakes, i mean very, VERY lightly, especially in the rear.

i used to be (and still am to some degree) scared of descending, but the more i do it, the more confidence i have. i always take it easy on a hill i don't know very well. get out there and ride. the more you do it, the easier it'll be.

Try lightly sanding your brake pads, made a fairly large difference to my road bike.
But I agree after a MTB the brakes on road bikes are a shock, the muscles in your hands will get used to the different action especially from the hoods given time.

Also coming from a mtn bike and having riden the 2100, what are the chances the brakes are crappy? The friendly LBS guy told me the brakes on the 2100 were OEM or generic and that the 2200 upgraded to Shimano brakes. Is there a big difference in the quality/performance of road brakes?

1 - try decending with your hands in the drops - safer because you get a more positive grip and there's much less chance that a bump will jar your hands off of the hoods. Easier to squeeze the brakes from there too. I think you'll feel more confident in this position (well, I do).

2 - make sure your brakes are adjusted right - new bike and your brake cables could have stretched and might need to be tightened up a bit.

Not sure, but I noticed a huge difference in braking power from the unmarked ones I got with my 105 equipped bike, to the ultegra ones... So there are better brakes available.

I wished I lived near some mountains so I could have a fear of decending. :(

stiffee... haha, I hear ya. That's why I moved from FL to CO :D

RoundTrip, your braking power shouldn't be an issue. IF you cannot come to a complete stop, under control, fairly quickly on relatively steep stuff, then take your bike to the shop! Something's wrong.

I assume you're talking about curves tho?

You need a few skills in your toolbox for twisties...
-- picking the right lines, start outside (near the the centerline) before the turn, move to the edge of the road at the middle of the turn, coast to the center again to finish the turn. Use the whole lane :D
-- brake *BEFORE* the turn! You can always accelerate in the turn if you want/need to, but braking hard *IN* the turn is dangerous (if you're leaning the bike over).
-- spot obstacles before you choose your path.

What do you mean by the braking isn't good? My Veloce brakes lock up if I treat them at all like my mountain bike brakes (which are LX), if they aren't gripping good get KOOL STOP pads, I'm using campy pads atm because my bike is new and it came with them but on my MTN bike I had KOOL STOPS before and they stop very well.

As for actual decending (this is coming from someone who has had his road bike less than a week, lives on the niagara escartment and rides alot of hills and has a mtn bike background) get in the drops and trust your bike. When I come flying down a twisty hill I remind myself how great colangos are and how great campagnolo rims are and how great vittoria tires are and how I wont have hardware failure :) After this discussion with myself get in the drops hold and and dont make any sudden corrections...smooth...and safe :)

smooth=safe
nervous jittery = road rash


Happy decending!
Chad

Oh, and one more thing:

KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE ROAD! I try to take one look behiond me before the descent to make sure the traffic will be clear and then start to hammer. Ideally, you don't want to have to take that glance backwards while you are flying down the hill at 40+ ... at least not on the roads in New England! By the time you turn your head forward again, you might not have enough time to react to a pothole etc.

I think my main problem is just getting used to the different bike. I was so confident descending on my MTB....to the point where if I had to, I could clamp down to the threshold of lockup and never screw it up. I'm going for a ride in a few minutes, so I think I'll just practice braking in the hoods and try to get more comfy.

Thanks guys,

Colin

Practice in the drops if it's steep and fast - better place to be IMHO ...

Strangely, I dont feel that comfortable in the drops when I use the brakes. Seems like a strange reach. I'll learn. I rode today and already feel better. I'm just not used to focusing on the front brake. On a MTB that would be a one way ticket for a quick trip over the bars.

I'll get there. If the stoppers really freak me out, I might use it as a good excuse to upgrade to ultegra :D

I'm just not used to focusing on the front brake. On a MTB that would be a one way ticket for a quick trip over the bars.

I don't know what kind of MTBing you did but using a whole lot of rear brake or only rear brake during MTBing causes tail slides and trail errosion. It's really the same with MTBs, you derive most of your braking power with the front. You just need to modulate and shift weight better to keep yourself from going over the bars.

Thats a good point. I'm not completely stupid, but I guess my posts read that way. :p I never had a problem with going over the bars either. Actually, most of the time its happened have resulted in me damn near walking off the bike as it rotated. Thank god for toe-clips ;)

I just notice that my rear brake on my 2100 doesnt do much.

Stay in the drops, and push your butt back out over the saddle. Then try gripping the rear for 5 and the front for 5, etc. Just me, but I weigh 190 and in my mind it "spreads" the weight out over the bike. As you get more comfortable you can tuck in to the front a bit more.

I dont think road brakes should be as weak as many people complain they are. I have some 1989 RX100's on my bike with 105 pads, a pretty low-end combo, and I can skid the bike for a block if I want to. Stopping power is more than adequate and very comparable to a set of cantilevers. I think people often run their pads out too far from the rim which means you have to grab that much more brake just to get the pad to touch the rim, and by then you already almost have the lever to the bar.

anybody suggested getting new pads?

i was scared to death of descending and rode my breaks the whole way down the first two climbs i made..

then i decided to start over again.. slowly.... i'd go a little ways up the hill then come down... (without the breaks!) then a little further and a little further...

this past weekend i climbed and came down a hill at 38 mph (came down that fast.. didn't climb that fast!)

so my advice is baby steps! the fear will go away! and keep your eyes on the road!

If road brakes were as powerful as today's mtb brakes, road riders would be locking up and having off road excursions on a regular basis.

IN all honesty, you feel more comfortable with experience. At least, that was the case for me. On twisty descents I'm still tentative, but remember the rules of braking before a turn and finding a good line and go from there. I think what's helped me is the short 6% descent that I ride pretty regularly. It's only a couple of miles and it has two subtle turns. As you get used to seeing the speed increase and knowing how the bike responds to feedback at higher speeds, you'll be more confident and better able to take her though the twisties a little quicker.

Good luck and keep the rubber side down!

A couple of things for technical descents -


Follow a good descender down the hill, following their line. Have them go slower than they normally would so you can follow them down. Over time, this may take weeks, have them increase their speed.

Just do the same descents over and over again. After a while, you'll know the pavement and the turns and you'll be able to do them faster. The best descenders I know are the ones that have come down these mountain roads hundreds of times.

When I was test riding, I rode one that had no name brakes. Where I was test riding had a very steep hill. I could not believe how weak the no names were. They looked just like Shimano, but they sure didn't work like them.

Sand your pads and clean your rims. You will develop glazing a lot quicker on the road. If that dosen't work, I would test ride a bike with Ultegra just to see how they feel to you. Rember, you can't go fast if you can't stop fast.