Originally Posted by
choddo
Steady state, I agree this is a good representation of the physics. What I am struggling with a bit is that lighter riders also tend to accelerate more slowly at the start of descents. Perhaps they just don’t put as much power into getting up to speed and if everyone coasted they would be more on a par.
For sure they would both start off rolling from a standstill with the same initial acceleration, but air resistance is building in proportion to the square of speed, so will soon start to take effect and slow the lighter rider more.