Old 11-20-08, 04:23 PM
  #17  
8Lives
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Location: Berkeley, CA
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The single biggest thing you can do to improve confidence is to look way down the road and all the way through the corners. I am a pretty good descender thanks to track time on the motorcycle, and learning to do the above is the single most important piece of advice. Looking through the corner will tell you if the corner is decreasing radius, opening up or immediately followed by a tighter corner without a good brake zone between. A nice trick on the road is to look at the white "fog line" or the shoulder and the center line. If you look through the corner and they look like they are are getting closer together than it is a decreasing radius turn. If they are diverging than the corner is opening up and you can let is go a bit (or a lot).

I also use less than all the lane - I try to keep my line to half of the available lane to give me some room in case a) a car is over the double yellow coming up (happens all the time on Grizzly Peak) or b) there is crap in the road near the apex. Even using lees than the whole road I regularly hit the high 40's on these local descents (and over 60 on South Park Drive).

Otherwise relax (really) and keep you butt off the seat a little and weight back when you are braking. I prefer to descend in the drops for a few reasons. I like the reach and pull angle on the brakes. I feel like I can shift more weight on and off the front tire. And I find that if I hit something on the road I am quicker to grab back on, reducing the time you have a nasty wheel shimmy..

Oh, and get all your braking done before you lean into the corner. I trail brake everything, but that is a much more advanced technique. and never, ever, no matter what grab a bunch of brake in the turn. Just lean in and commit. Chances are you'll be fine, especially at the relatively low speed you are going (I know it feels fast, but the bike can handle much faster if you let it). And if you do crash a low-side is infinitely preferable to a high side anyway.

Last edited by 8Lives; 11-20-08 at 05:01 PM.
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