Going fast downhill, any tips to make it less scary?

pedro-paul

markhewitt1978 wrote:

I love long fast downhills on a gentle slope, you can get up a good amount of speed. The ones I don't like are really steep downhills, I feel like if I leave go of the brakes the bike is immediately getting away from me, so I end up crawling down riding the brakes in terror .

One of the best decents I've done is from the Monnaber tunnel down to Soller on Mallorca (it's an HC climb going up), it was not too steep that it was scary but really long and really fast - at least fast by my standards!

However going down here: http://goo.gl/maps/iHlPI on a sportive I've never been quite so scared! I even stopped at one point to gain my composure!

I done it last year while in ,mallorca nice wide road gradual bends and steep , held back a bit as I did not know what was to come , but this spring I`ll let it go a bit more , seems to go on for ever ... just like the decent to sa calobra !
hard work coming back up though , got whipped by a bunch of Germans and I was wearing a union jack /british cycling outfit ..let the side down there!

elderone

I dislike descending so much I convinced myself I prefer to climb. This time of year take extra extra care going down hill as its slippery out there.

mcnultycop

I had my first road bike ride (being an MTBer) on Sunday. Only local just to check fit and not even clipped in.

It is terrifying. The tyres are tiny and the brakes don't appear to do anything. This was on relatively flat roads. I'm not looking forward to proper descents.

Peddle Up!

mcnultycop wrote:

I had my first road bike ride (being an MTBer) on Sunday. Only local just to check fit and not even clipped in.

It is terrifying. The tyres are tiny and the brakes don't appear to do anything. This was on relatively flat roads. I'm not looking forward to proper descents.

Balls of steel