cyclezealot

Do as one likes. On a fast descent I missed a small rock. Went for a tumble and shoulder surgery was the result.. If the descent is straight, I am OK. But, if it is switchbacks and steep grades, I encourage my group to have a cup of coffee and wait. If they so choose.. Or else, meet you on down the road..

SharpStone30888

When I started riding my road bike (august 09), I slowed down alot for corners. I read that confidence is a major factor in your ability to turn. Since I have been riding my bike handling skills have increased dramatically; helping me cruise through those turns faster.

I never hold my quads to the top tube, hmm, I guess it would be to steady any wobbles.

Also with braking.... do not brake in a turn, you dont see race car drivers braking in a turn, they brake before, and accelerate through the turn.

carpediemracing 

The most important thing is to have confidence in your bike. Stable and predictable front end, good front wheel, good bars, etc. I find transferring weight forward is good, it helps plant the front wheel. My favorite bike so far for descending has been my SystemSix. Rock solid front end, I feel like I can put the wheel anywhere at almost any speed.

The next thing is to have good technique and a good set up on the bike. A SystemSix with a stem pointing to the skies won't be very stable feeling. You need to have a nice, balanced position on the bike, with a decent amount of weight on the front end. A longer, lower stem will give you loads more stability at speed (and make the bike very lethargic at under 5 mph).

As far as confidence, etc goes, I think that feeling comfortable and stable on the bike will help immensely. Think about driving a car. You get in a clapped out 1972 Pinto and get it up to about 100 mph and it won't be very fun. It'll shake, drift around, etc. Heck, one of the tires may go. Now get into virtually any modern car (made in the last 5 or so years). Pretty much any of them will feel solid, secure, and stable at 100 mph. Get into a nicely isolated luxury car (Lexus, BMW, etc) and 100 will feel like, oh, say, 65.

And that's the secret.

If you feel like you're going 65 but you're going 100, you're comfortable.

Now you need to apply that to cycling.

First, don't look down. Look way forward, way down the road. You don't care about the cracks under your tires, you're looking 5 or 10 or more seconds up the road, finding a line before you need to react aggressively to avoid problems. Looking down emphasizes speed (try looking down next to the car when you're a passenger). Looking forward makes things seem slower.

Second, blind corners fall out of this rule - you can't see more than a second or so on a hairpin turn. So ride with a bit extra on hand, a little bit of shoulder, a little more room to the sand there. In CT there are virtually none of these turns - I've only run into them in CA, like Palomar. I can descend as aggressively as I want on all the roads around here except three - two steep descents end in stop signs, and one has a blind 90 degree bend at the bottom of the steepest part of the road.

Third, if the bike feels unstable, you need to slow down. Something isn't right. It could be you (somewhat likely), the bike (less likely), or the set up (extremely likely). A high bar or a short stem go a long way towards making a fast bike feel unstable. Hold the drops - holding the tops or the hoods sit you up high, mimicking a poor position. I mean, yeah, sit up if you need to air-brake a bit, but you need to be in the drops when you're "at speed". That position should be the most secure, the most stable position you have on your bike. (Note I didn't say "most comfortable").

Okay, that's that bit.

On turns, I would avoid generalizing that you brake before ALL turns. Unless you're descending down zig-zagging city blocks, Manayunk (and turning into side streets), or doing switchbacks on Palomar, then you need to avoid braking in the turns.

However, if you are simply going around sweeping turns at less than totally insane speeds (60+ mph), you can probably brake pretty hard and still stay on the road. I regularly brake on long sweepers. I figure a sweeper is a bend in a road that you can drive a car at 50-60 mph if necessary, but you'd drive 35-45 if you were following the speed limit. I remember I took an exit ramp behind the pro baseball stadium in San Diego - I was going 57 mph, took the exit, and realized I couldn't do anything except turn. I think the speed limit was 35? That's the kind of speed difference we're talking about.

Also, tucking vs not tucking. People have said that it's just too risky to descend in a full tuck, where you hold the bars next to the stem, your head is way over the bars, your butt is over the top tube, and your knees are clenching the top tube. A variation would be to hold the drops, your elbows tucked in, leaving you in a position to immediately bail out of the tuck and into a standard maximum braking position (hands in drops, fingers on brakes, butt over the back of the saddle).

Incidentally, if you haven't practiced maximum braking technique, you need to do that the next time you ride outside. Stopping a bike is different from stopping a car, and if you don't know how to stop your bike, you're endangering yourself and others. /End Stopping Rant

Tucking will gain you a lot of speed, typically 5-10 mph. You're way more aero in a tuck than pedaling. It's also very stable.

It takes perhaps 1/2 second to move from a tuck to a full braking position. In 1/2 second at 60 mph you go about 45 feet. That's not very far if you can see 300-400 feet. After reading comments about the full tuck, I went out and consciously went into the tuck and back out. In this part of CT, I rarely got to the next driveway before I got in and out of the tuck.

Therefore it's not unreasonable to go into a tuck to increase speed and stability.

I'm sure there are other things but I want to go ride

cdr

mustang1

Go at a speed that's comfortable for you. Then next time, add about 10% to the speed. Repeat.

JacoKierkegaard

Unclip and "Superman" it with your legs out behind you. See HigherGround's avatar for reference.

LesMcLuffAlot

Don't ride them like this guy.....

HigherGround

That cat just used three of his nine lives.

And we wonder why drivers hate cyclists?

deeClimber

This helps me at high speeds on descents. Just squeeze the top tube with your knees and it really helps to stay stable and eliminate speed wobbles

carpediemracing 

Jeepers creepers.

Reminds me of a guy around here. Ultimately the landscaper who had parked his truck and trailer on a turn got ticketed, but that didn't help at the time.

https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...highlight=leap

cdr

C_Heath

use your BACK to hold the weight of your Torso off the bars.

cyclezealot

Considering the obstacles ahead, the cyclist Dude had amazing control.. Coming down switchbacks, have not most of us seen cyclists not able to hold their lane. Just not with the results ( so far) as shown in this video..

Edsplace

Time in the saddle on steeper descents. Watch videos of pros. Follow others with more experience. Pay attention to body and hand positions and how they set up entering and exiting turns. If you're riding with people, ask questions. Learn to use your brakes safely and efficiently. It's better to brake before entering turns rather than through them.

When I was learning to ski fast in the 70's, some of the books I read compared body positions of skiers and cyclists. Amazing how similar they are in the apex of a turn. I always enjoyed skiing fast medium radius turns and doing the same while riding my bike down moderate hills. It's great practice for feeling your tires on the road and how stable your bike actually is going fast and making turns.

In practice, sitting up with hands secure on the hoods and ready to break is a good place to start. Long straight sections are good to get comfortable with accelerations. By sitting up, your upper body will help scrub speed. As you get comfortable, practice with different tucking positions. Try the drops with a couple fingers touching the brake levers just in case. Go with your hands on the top of your bars and drop into a tuck position with your pedals at 3 and 9 then 6 and 12. Feel the difference.

There is a big hill near my home that used to scare the $%^& out of me. It's a 10 mile canyon at 6-7% with a narrow windy section in the 9-11% range. Oh and did I mention it is chalk full of frost cracks and pot holes! 1st time down it my hands were squeezing the brakes top to bottom and cramping by the end. In three years, I have since ridden it without touching the brakes, hitting the mid-50's frequently in the upper straights and even in the narrows.

Avoid taking in too much information. Just do it!!

Mitchxout

This is wrong. It's called trail braking and it's an important skill to have. Also, the long post above stated that bicyclists should lean the bike while keeping your body upright. This is stupid and dangerous advice unless you want to initiate a slide or drift.

Basil Moss

Agree with the first, not with the second point. Lean the bike slightly more than your body (unless you get to 45 deg, at which point lean the bike no further but continue to lean your body out). You don't want to run out of tread, but you do want to get the old gyroscopic effect with the wheels pulling you around the turn. To see what I mean, hold a wheel by the axle, spin it, and lean it to one side. It will steer itself. This is why you steer a bike by leaning it over, not by pointing where you want to go with your handlebars.

As to the brakes, I only use the rear in a straight line, on long descents, to save overheating the front rim. You can't brake hard with the rear because it locks so easily, and you can't brake moderately with both or the rear fishtails out. The front wheel will almost never slip except on gravel or mud, so use that most of the time. The fastest stop on clean tarmac is with the front brake only. We see the chump in the video above fishtailing because he is grabbing at both brakes at once. But really, you'll only get good when you start learning not to brake much at all.

nitropowered

this

zeo_max

Absolutely true.

Daytrip

I always assume I'll get just as buggered up at 45 mph as 30 or 35, so I just go for it. Maybe it's wrong, but it is exhilarating.

The dude in the video has no business being on the road. There's a big difference between being brave and f-ing stupid.

Kurogashi

The scary part is when you're on a bike path (waterfront trail for ex.) with a lot of people/kids. People usually pop out of no where which scares the **** out of me. I don't mind falling (not really) but if I hit someone, I won't be able to sleep at night. (and lawsuits don't help either)

plodderslusk

Jobst Brandt certainly has the street cred! Great advice on decending .

Uni-Vibe

Impact = mass X velocity squared.

Small increases in velocity result in big increases in impact.

You'll get much more buggered up at 45 than at 30.

Mitchxout

You shouldn't be allowed to give advice.

Daytrip

Uni-Vibe: Yeah, I was afraid of that.

thegunner

there's a factor of 1/2... just sayin' you're blowing this out of proportion hahaha

Kai Winters

Look down the road farther than normal. At higher speeds "stuff" comes up faster and rather than try to react at the last second see it sooner and start reacting then...more often a small shift of weight laterally moves the bike enough to avoid the obstacle. Keep your shoulders and arms relaxed. Also don't use the "death grip".
Start with a speed your comfortable with and repeat the descent with an increasingly faster speed. Feel how the bike responds and how you react. Think about how it felt and you reacted, remember and repeat.
It's especially important to feel the road and its' curves on a windy, twisty descent...

invwnut

His assessment was correct with regards to taking turns on a bicycle. Mitchxout.....you are not correct with your statement on turning. You want to keep the body upright as much as possible. If you lean with the turn too much you will initiate a slide or drift. A motorcycle rider can lean into the turn because the throttle is continually being utilized to keep the rider up. Keeping the body upright keeps more of the weight perpendicular to the force acting on the bike. I thought your way was correct until my coach and new riding technique books are favoring the leaning the bike method. I noticed when I mountain bike that I naturally turn it that way so I won't go down, slower turns. On the road the same physics applies.