Originally Posted by
loimpact
To be fair, he might be talking about something as ridiculous as Mt Baldy....(a la Stage 7 of the TOC today). I know how ridiculous the descents are cuz I rode up this morning. (ouch!)
In this case, though (and only cuz I'd be just as interested to know myself) perhaps the better question is.....Is it better to FTP straight thru, or push it, then recover, rinse & repeat???
FWIW, I played the "tortoise" today which seemed to pay off. I brought quite a few people back who pushed past me lower on the mountain only because I decided to keep just below FTP. (Though it felt like he// regardless)
I saw more than one person walking their bike up today. (yikes!)
There are rules for that too :-).
Rule #23//Tuck only after reaching Escape Velocity.
You may only employ the aerodynamic tuck after you have spun out your 53 x 11; the tuck is to be engaged only when your legs can no longer keep up. Your legs make you go fast, and trying to keep your fat ass out of the wind only serves to keep you from slowing down once you reach escape velocity. Thus, the tuck is only to be employed to prevent you slowing down when your legs have wrung the top end out of your block. Tucking prematurely while descending is the antithesis of Casually Deliberate
. For more on riding fast downhill see Rule #64
and Rule #85
.