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Descents are Not for Recovery. Recovery Ales are for Recovery.

Ivan Basso rips it up on the way down.

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.

Rule #93 // Descents are not for recovery. Recovery Ales are for Recovery.

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.

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

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View Comments

the-farmer says:

Oct 9 2013 at 12:30 pm

Fuckin A, downhills are where I get to make up time. I climb like a totally not scalded elephant and not even well for my weight! Stick that in yer pipe and smoke it stick insects, mwa ha ha ha !
wiscot says:

Oct 9 2013 at 1:03 pm

Feeling pretty left out of things here. I live in SE Wisconsin. Not much on offer in terms of descents that last more than 30 seconds - if that.

Frank, I think you mean "piss-taking" not pissed taking. Take the piss properly FFS! And by the way, what the hell does GIF mean?
Gianni says:

Oct 9 2013 at 1:09 pm

Nothing like descending with better descenders to understand why you suck. Do you go into blind corners without touching the brakes? I just can't do that and I lose a little on each one. Getting aero and not touching the brakes into corners can open up big gaps on those with active imaginations.
eightzero says:

Oct 9 2013 at 1:36 pm

The V-locus of descending is quite different. Descending is all about survival. Gonna be killed on a bike on a mountain? Yeah, it's gonna be on a descent. It all just happens so much...well...faster. My heart rate really doesn't drop much on a descent only because they scare the living shit out of me. It's a little fucked up that I relax MORE on the climbs.
robditch says:

Oct 9 2013 at 1:45 pm

@wiscot GIF: Think of it as a animated photo. Tbh, as a great piss taker, I kinda like 'pissed taker' no?
LadyV says:

Oct 9 2013 at 2:42 pm

Great, ya'll had to go and squeeze the last bit of enjoyment out it. Descents are not the recovery. They are the reward for all the huffing and puffing or to use G'rilla's analogy, the orgasm.
wiscot says:

Oct 9 2013 at 2:59 pm

@robditch

@wiscot GIF: Think of it as a animated photo. Tbh, as a great piss taker, I kinda like 'pissed taker' no?

Still unclear ion the concept!

Would that be a pissed piss taker? In the UK (where I'm from originally) "pissed" most often means drunk rather than upset. Being pissed often leads to taking the piss with the party on the receiving end of the extraction becoming pissed at having the piss taken.
frank says:

Oct 9 2013 at 3:08 pm

@brett

Descending has never been about recovery for me either, it's always a time to put the hammer down... cornering at speed, knee out slightly, in a tuck, hugging the apex, it's a beautiful thing. Maybe there needs to be Enduro-style road races...

There are. They are called Gravel races!
frank says:

Oct 9 2013 at 3:11 pm

@wiscot

Feeling pretty left out of things here. I live in SE Wisconsin. Not much on offer in terms of descents that last more than 30 seconds - if that.

Frank, I think you mean "piss-taking" not pissed taking. Take the piss properly FFS! And by the way, what the hell does GIF mean?

Fucking Siri is useless. So much for ranting at a mate on the internet using the voice feature while driving!

Graphic Interchange Format.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Interchange_Format
Elric says:

Oct 9 2013 at 3:25 pm

I'm convinced that I learned more about descending when MTBing in Colorado on hard pack gravel. 3k FT drops in 4 miles will do that for you.