My trouble isn’t with being a good descender; it is with cornering and stopping – and sometimes both. Or, as G’rilla puts it, “Descending is like sex; how good I am at it has nothing to do with how much I enjoy it.”
Descending is demanding and requires great skill. It is not a time for resting or taking it easy; getting down the mountain should be every bit as hard as getting up it. Merckx was himself a good climber, but his bikes were all designed to be stable and fast on the descents so he would be able to get off the mountain faster than the mountain goats he was chasing.
On the way down, we are compelled to smoothly spin the pedals at 120 or more rpms in pursuit of maximum speed. Once escape velocity is reached, we contort our bodies into the most aero tuck possible, causing our muscles to scream out in agony from the unnatural position. Cornering, we push on the pedals and bars in an effort to maximize friction between tire and pavement as an alternative to finding too much friction in the ditches at the roadside. The mind is consumed in the total concentration of keeping the rickshaw in one piece.
We hereby hand down Rule #93, plucked from the ether by @urbanwhitetrash in a moment of clair-V-ance after the VVhidbey Island Cogal.
Descents are meant to be as hard and demanding as – and much more dangerous than – the climbs. Climb hard, descend to close a gap or open one. Descents should hurt, not be a time for recovery. Recovery is designated only for the pub and for shit-talking.
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@piwakawaka
A-Merckx! There's nothing right about that.
@Fiery there's a reason for that, he's still pedalling, ergo he hasn't yet reached Escape Velocity & thus shouldn't be attempting an aero tuck.
@brett
The best part is where he holds up the bike like a grampa holding his cock and the mech disappears for an age before returning with not a wheel, but an entire bike.
You can't write comedy like that.
@Teocalli
I'd agree with @PeakInTwoYears that you don't want to be looking at a GPS to work out where a corner is going. Presumably you want to know so that you can judge your speed into the corner - not so fast that you run off the road or end up on the wrong side playing with the traffic but not so slow that the Rover driving OAPs start overtaking you.
The UK motorcycle police use a technique called riding to the vanishing point also known as the limit point as a guide to entry speed and when to start laying down the power on the way out. Obviously the second part is less important on a bicycle but the technique for judging entry speed is equally applicable to bicycles as motorbikes or even cars.
There are plenty of articles on the net explaining it but essentially if the point at which the edges of the road converge are moving towards you, you're going to fast, not moving you've got it right and moving away from you, you need to ma up and go faster on the straights. It doesn't need to be the edge of the road that you use for a visual cue, hedgerows, lines of trees etc may give you a better indication as you might be able to see them further through the corner.
@Fiery
That's not tuck position. That's yuck position.
That looks ridiculous....how can you possibly generate any power like that?
.......I bet we will see Sagan doing that sh*t next season.
As someone commented to me after our recent descent down Macquarie Pass (12k's of some sweeping bends and a lot of hair pins) "one has to reach a point whilst descending where the thrill overtakes the fear and just go with it".
@frank Michael Rasmussen: surely one of the least-missed riders ever. Any other nominees? (COTHO is on the list, of course)
Colorado taught me this rule. Pushing it hard down a canyon for 20K is satisfying. One more tip I learned besides outside pedal, inside in the drops - relax the outside shoulder to center your weight.
These posts, these videos, have given me a new perspective on descending. This old dog can still learn some new tricks!