Originally Posted by
kindablue
I think thats what we all do.
I do anticipate what gear I'll need to go to, but thats about it (e.g. going into a corner in a crit, I usually shift down to accomodate the loss of speed)
One trick is to shift up a cog or two so you can pedal through the turn without having the pedal drop all the way down when you're leaned over the most. We're talking some low rpms to keep pedal "above bottom dead center" time to a maximum. Basically you enter the turn as you're starting your outside pedal power stroke and you slam the shifter as you dive into the turn.