CYCLING TECHNIQUE

Triathletes don't descend very well, which is a good and a bad thing.

I should rephrase. On foot, they descend just fine. It's when they're on their bikes that the trouble starts. The bad news is that you lose a lot of time when you descend badly—and, worse yet, when you try to go fast with bad technique, sometimes you crash. The good news is that there’s a lot of time to be made up if and when you learn to descend properly. It’s time that does not require more fitness or more equipment—just a little nerve, a little smarts, and some practice.

Sure, there are fancy techniques that involve counterweighting and pretending you're a grand prix motorcycle racer, but the most important things you have to do are easy to learn and fun to practice. The first two things involve descending techniques. The third is how your bike should be set up and how you should comport yourself while on it. We'll talk about that later. For now, we'll cover the two important aspects of descending.

THE LINE: You've got your existential descenders. Those who live for the moment: "What, me worry?" If you always get left behind on descents even though you "go for it," you are probably in this group whether you realize it or not. The graphic below shows a fairly good line to take in a turn. Your turn should make the widest arc possible, except when you have to shorten your arc to set up for a subsequent turn. Therefore, you approach the turn from the opposite side of the lane. Notice I said opposite side of the lane, not opposite side of the road! OK, when I'm on a VERY rural road that I know well, and I can see what’s ahead, sure, I'll use the whole road. But I do not take chances with cars, and I can't imagine why you should, either.

Your intention should be to cut the corner at its apex, and then use the runout to continue your wide arc. But remember, as I said above, if you're on a particularly curvy road you might need to abort using the runout on the lower part of the curve to set up for the next curve. The rule is, always be set up for any curve in advance. This means that on a technical descent, if there are a lot of curves close together, you might have to think ahead and plan your turn with the following curve in mind.

The graphic at left is obviously just for illustration and does take into account things like the yellow line, and traffic coming the other way. What you see at left is representative of a LANE, not the WHOLE ROAD!

THE BRAKING ZONE: You'll notice this on the graphic. Just like everything else in life, preparation is the key. You should be doing your braking in advance of the turn, not during the turn. By the apex of the turn you should be off the levers and picking up speed. So much about descending fast is about the speed you carry out of the turn, and braking early earns you that speed.

This isn't to say that braking while in the curve is necessarily bad. It's just less desirable. But you might be forced to do so in order to set up for a subsequent turn, or if the turn you’re in has a decreasing radius (when the turn gets tighter as it progresses). These are the most fun turns, because they require the greatest skill. If you do find the need to brake during the turn, be Republican about it: "Brakes which brake least brake best." Brakes are like taxes. They take away all that speed you earned while riding up the hill. If you're braking during the turn, by all means brake lightly unless you've completely misjudged it.

The graphic just below looks almost the same as the one above, but the rider takes a slightly better line. In this case, the point where the rider's line is tangential to the inside of the turn is just slightly PAST its apex. On a curvy road this will give the rider a better setup for his next turn. This is a little trickier, because the rider is actually aiming for a point he may not even see prior to the turn itself.

I think the main thing holding people back on descents is the fear of flats. That's a legitimate worry, because if you get a flat at high speeds you might fall hard. But you aren't going to get as many flats—in fact not NEARLY as many—while descending. I frankly am not sure precisely why this is. I just believe this is the case because of the absence of flats during descents in my more than 20 years of riding and racing. I don't think that's just luck. While I can't be sure, I think perhaps it is because no part of the tire contacts the ground for very long during a high-speed descent, and so is not as prone to a penetration by a thorn or a piece of glass.

Also, speaking with honesty, I take the calculated risk. The upshot is, I tend to go for it on descents. But I'm talking about technical descents. In this case, one is not normally reaching speeds of more than 35 or 40 miles per hour. I have no interest in high-speed, straight, tuck descents where I'd be going 50mph+. There is no skill involved in that and I, personally, take no pleasure in the thrill. I'll do it in a race, but not in training.

If you do flat during a high-speed descent, don't panic. Brake ONLY with the wheel that isn't flat. It's a good idea to practice remembering exactly which lever brakes which wheel. It sounds sort of stupid to say that but it's amazing how, when you get a flat at high speed, you just flat-out can't remember.

The final part of descending well is a discussion of how your bike is built and prepared. There are certain things that, by themselves, tend to make a bike a better descender. Long chainstays and low bottom brackets will cause your bike to carve a turn with confidence, and you'll enjoy the way a bike built like that descends. Suspension is good for descending, and so bikes like Softride will descend nicely if they're set up right in every other way. But the most important thing is to have one's weight centered over the bike. If you feel that your weight is too far forward when you're in the apex of the curve, that's a problem you need to fix and a re-fit is in order.

Road race bikes retrofitted as tri bikes are notoriously bad descenders. These bikes invariably place too much of the rider's weight over the front wheel. You can learn to handle it in a descent—but hopefully there's a future bike purchase not too far over the horizon.

The other setup I don't like for descending is a properly fitted tri position with road race bars as the "base bar." With such a bike the hoods position is too close to the rider and the drops are too low. Again, your weight will be too far forward. There are a few situations in which this will not be the case: if the bike is set up correctly for the road bar position, in which case it's going to be a bad tri setup; or if the bike has "shorty" bars, like the Cinelli Corna, in which case you might be OK in your descending position but may have a bit of compromise in your aero position ergonomics.

The best descending bikes are road race bikes set up for nothing but that. On such a bike you should descend in your drops. If your brake levers are not easily reachable, if the position is ungainly or uncomfortable, if it is anything but perfect—get it fixed.

The other kind of bike that can work fine in a descent is a tri bike fitted with a pursuit bar and clip-ons. Preferably the pursuit bar will give you a position somewhere between the drops and the hoods. This position must do double-duty as both a descending and an out-of-the-saddle climbing position, so although it's not perfect it'll have to do. The important thing is that with short-cockpit tri-bikes this hand position should be far enough in front of the body so as to nicely suspend your weight between and over the wheels, not over your hands.

Personally, I like either Syntace Space Levers or Dia Compe #188s as brake levers on a pursuit bar. Any sort of regular road-race brake lever has a handle with a curve that matches the arc road bars make. Pursuit bars don't curve. With this sort of brake lever you risk running out of "throw," i.e., your lever can bottom out against the bar and you won't have enough braking power.

Finally, on the subject of brake levers: An otherwise very fine company, Profile, sells the most godawful things on the market today. These levers are conical, and they look vaguely like the thing I used to have on my garden hose as a kid before the watering "gun" came into fashion. The thing about descending is that you've got to keep your weight balanced over the bike, and you are in an almost constant state of lightly pressing against the hooks on your drop bars even when you're not braking. When you are braking on a descent your body's inertia must be counteracted—that is, your bike is stopping but your body wants to keep going. You do this by bracing yourself even more vigorously against the hooks. The problem with the Profile levers, aerodynamic though they might be, is that it's very difficult to brake while bracing your weight. They might be good on a flat course with few turns, but they'd make riding quite difficult where I live.

Do not be afraid of slick-tread tires. In fact, if you want to descend and corner your best, this is what you want on your bike. Also, wider is better. There is nothing slow about a wider tire, say, 23mm, and it'll allow for better descending and handling. I would never race on anything other than 23mm tires. Speaking of rubber and wheels, it is an absolute fallacy that 650c wheels are slower at cornering. Do not fret if you own such a bike; it'll go down a hill just as fast as its large-wheel cousins.

There is one immutable fact about the art of descending and the practice of such: You've got to go up before you can come down. This intimidates a lot of people. Me, I live in North San Diego County and you can fairly neatly categorize the cyclists who live here. The weaker riders ride the coast, where it’s flat, and they stay weak. The stronger riders ride inland, where the hills are, and they get even stronger. Don't fear hills. Learn to love them. After a while you won't just like riding down, you’ll like going up, too.

And I'll tell you how to do that, too. But that's later.


DESCENGING FURTHER


But wait, there’s more! (You probably thought I already gave you all the keys to the descender’s realm.) Hey, descending is a fine art. You’ll be held in high regard on your group rides if you can effortlessly glide around corner after corner, steadily stretching your lead over the pack.

But there are a few more things you ought to know. First of all, the sorts of descents I PERSONALLY favor are NOT the high-speed screamers. Those take no skill. Below is a shot of one of the best descents you’ll ever find, and the photo doesn’t do rural North San Diego’s Lower Couser Canyon justice. But if you can descend this curvaceous lip-smacking 6 percent grade at 35mph, you’re considered pretty darn good. If you crash you probably won’t die at this speed, which is one of the bonuses of choosing to descend hills of this nature.