I've heard, but never tried it. Get a motorcycle. Practice going down hill on it. Get used to the speed, how fast things come at you. They say it really helps but like I said I've never tried it.

On the curves try shifting your weight to the 6 o'clock pedal which should be outside or top as you lean. In theory, it lowers your center of gravity.

When you start getting grippy with the brakes, remind yourself that all you're really accomplishing is that if you crash, you'll crash at 32 mph instead of 35 or so. Point being, braking is no substitute for riding the bike. Think about your line, your weight distribution, relaxing, and anticipate changes in the road upcoming. Think, don't obsess.

Beyond all of the more technique based tips one thing I'd recommend is making sure your brakes work flawlessly. You need them to pull strongly at moment's notice and to believe in their ability to do so in order to let go. On the same note maybe some of those people you're comparing yourself to are a bit crazy. Always better to stay on the safe side if on open roads.

the biggest thing you can do is descend more. Seriously. The key is confidence and skill, neither of which you can get without going out and doing it.

Dan has an article about taking the apex of a turn (in your lane of course.) - some of this comes from KNOWING THE ROAD you are descending. If you don't know and can't see if a road switchbacks on itself it's a lot harder (read: dangerous) to bomb into it.

As for letting off the brakes... do your braking BEFORE you start turning. If you need to shave speed IN the turn, you took it too fast for your current skill. Weighting the outside pedal does wonders

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My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com

When you crashed last year, what caused it?

I think a lot of people don't really know how to handle a bike and screw it up when they panic. Practice cornering in an empty lot. Mark spots and do slalom around them, trying improve your speed and time.

Braking is another thing. It you go heavy on the rear brake you will skid. The front brake is what slows you down, but you can't really use it if there is debris on the pavement. And do all your heavy braking before you enter the turn.

Practice descending behind someone else who you know is a faster descender than you. Use them to tail closely and follow their braking points and line. I occasionally ride with a coach who is exceptionally quick downhill and sitting on his wheel allows me to nail the perfect line, which is how I like to practice and improve.

Might be obvious but pick a distance 50 or so feet out and plan like you are there already. Don't brake in corners brake before them or after, sight ahead of your turn, if you see something in the road don't stare at it as you will probably nail it. This helps me the most, sighting ahead of where you are and acting like you are there helps for me, probably a terrible explanation... Like others said use the 6 o'clock function on the inside leg and lean in, surprising what you can turn with body weight. Also follow someone that is a really good descender and see if you can stick with them, if you can't ask them how they descend at the bottom of the hill. I also find standing slightly and gripping my seat nose with my thighs helps a little too. And if you are super light, eat more! ;)

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Beyond Aero

"Grind it til' you find it..."

I'm no pro mechanic, but I think I could figure out how to take your brakes off for you...

Get a seat dropper post like Vincenzo Nibali:



I posted this before:
Couple key things I do that help me:
Look as far into the curve as you can and don't focus on the ground <5m in front of you.
Relax your upper body and grip on the bars
Outside knee moves in to touch the frame and rotate your hips into the turn slightly.
Think about shifting and moving the bike beneath you to make the corner versus you sitting rigidly on the bike turning/leaning.
For me, keeping my head horizontal helps. I avoid tilting my head into the corner.

Here are the things you need to know in order to corner quickly downhill:
1) The shallower the turn, the faster you can take it.
2) You need a slower speed in order to initiate a turn than you do to maintain it
3) Braking while turning at speed is bad for your health - very easy to lose control and have the bike slide out from under you, especially if it's wet
4) Braking while turning is bad for your speed - having initiated the turn (see 2) you want to be accelerating out of the corner, not slowing down further

What this means in practice is:
1) Brake before the corner. Your ideal speed as you hit the corner is the highest speed at which you're comfortable initiating the necessary turn.
2) Pick a line that makes the corner as wide and shallow as possible i.e. go wide as you approach the corner, turn across the apex, and go wide again as you come out of the corner. The shallower you can make the turn, the higher the speed you can carry going into it
3) Once you have initiated the turn you want to maintain the same amount or a reduced amount of steering until you're coming out of it again. Pick the right line and you should only have to make very minor course corrections as you go round
4) Don't touch the brakes while turning.

Execute the above correctly and you'll be going round corners smoothly, quickly and safely, and you'll be accelerating out of them. Where things tend to go wrong is in carrying too much speed into the corner. This means you can't initiate a steep enough turn to get round the corner, so you have to hit the brakes halfway round in order to turn more sharply, and then you come out of the corner with no momentum.

The first thing you need to do is get used to braking before the turn, and picking a good line. Once you've got that sorted and you're sweeping round the corners nicely, you just need to gradually push the envelope in terms of figuring out just how fast you can be going and still initiate the right amount of turn to get round the corner. Stay relaxed, make sure your eyes are up and looking around the corner, and get that bike tipped nicely over and you'd be surprised how fast you can get round without losing grip once you're off the brakes. Of course you have to adjust for rain, road conditions, tires, etc.

To become a better descender, simply go skiing in the off season!

Learn to ski if you don't ski already. Get used to skiing fast. Join a recreational/masters ski racing group, particularly one that does giant slalom or SuperG.

With skiing since you have no gas pedal, so you learn to only brake as little as absolutely necessary. Giant Slalom racing teaches you all the skills you need for riding a bike fast downhill, with mistakes being far less dramatic than screwing up on a bike (or motorbike).

I'm an ex-pro skier, and I'm AWESOME downhill on a bike. The skills translate very well. If only I could climb. :-(

If you don't want to do that, then downhilling has two critical components.
1. Put 95% of your weight on your outside pedal. (minimal amount on your hands, just enough to control the bike) (minimal on your seat, just enough to steady you on the bike)
2. Look at the exit of the corner. This is VITAL. If you look at the ditch, that is where you will go :-)

Oh yeah, you should finish braking (almost completely) before you lean the bike into the corner.

But go skiing instead. (not snowboarding, that's asymmetrical, while skiing is symmetrical, just like cycling is)

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

What does the seat post dropper do in regards to improving descents?

Is it a good idea to always make sure the inside pedal is at 12:00? Or at least not 6? Wondering because I was feeling really great about my speed, and then my inside pedal clipped the ground and I wiped out recently.

I raced a little and have done a bunch of track days on motorcycles. There is something to be said about the feeling of speed. Turns at 80-100 make bicycle turns feel tortoise slow. I always feel like I'm going so slow on a bicycle downhill. I typically descend very well and put no effort into it (helps that I'm fat also).

Weight the outside pedal (put it at 6 and unweight the inside) and the inside hand. The only reason your inside pedal should clip the ground is that you're pedaling while executing the turn... and that's only possible if you've slowed down sufficiently BEFORE the turn that you can accelerate through and out of it. If you're sufficiently on the limit, then just focusing on keeping a smooth line with weight on the outside foot and inside hand will get you through and you should not have your inside foot/pedal anywhere near the ground.

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Less is more.

Do rides that have multiple long climbs and also long descents.
Work on skills, technique and comfort.
Contrary to popular belief you don't have to corner super fast to descent fast. What you need is comfort and good judgement.

Well that post might not make much of a difference as it only moves an inch or so but.... Lower CG would be the primary benefit. I am not sure why Nibali uses it as I haven't seen him adjust it during the tour. He might prefer a lower seat when sitting in the peleton for comfort and rise it when he needs to lay down some power and be aero.

The only thing to add to others comments... lower your tire pressure and use good tires.

Light hands, heavy feet - from leelikesbikes.com. I've raced all over in my younger days, and nothing says it better. You can't ride "on top" of your bike and be fast and confident in corners, you got to rail it. Go to a empty parking lot, take a friend. Practice optimal, early and late braking lines (also applies for the next triathlete who wants to do a bike race...). Exaggerate the bike lean, shift your butt on the saddle, press the feet!

I've been skiing since I was two and am probably a better skier than triathlete and always wondered if there was some correlation between this and being an imo good or at least comfortable descender.

Exactly what I was going to suggest. Could even be a larger displacement scooter too. However, there a LOT more technique to making a motorcycle turn at speed tha na bicycle. On a Bicycle YOU are the heaviest part of the machine, so shifting your body weight has a major influence on the bike turning. ON a motorcycle, your weight in minimal, so you need to actively countersteer to make it turn-in above about 50mph. At lower speeds you can still mostly use body weight.

Another is to ride a MTB more.


What you need to learn is that unlike a car, the faster you go the MORE stable a bicycle gets. IT feels less stable because most riders get tense and when your tight, you don't move with the bike and are fighting it.

It's totally possible to take corners in the aerobars, fast enough that you could easily clip a pedal if it wasn't raised.

The most important things to remember are:
1) Set you speed before entry. Don't brake midcorner, better to just lean in and go with it (unless it's a loose surface)
2) Relax
3) Look through the turn, see your line, look where you want to go, not where you don't. Watch good motorcycle racers and cyclists, their head is cranked over looking way over to the corner exit when mid corner.
4) Relax, stay loose, but in control.
5) Weight the outside pedal. You weight should be focused on the pedals, not the bars or seat, if that makes sense. You don't steer a bicycle, you make steering inputs to get it to lean with you.

To improve your balance on 2 wheels, I like to tell people to take a MTB with flat pedals and go to a gravel or grass lot and practice skidding the rear wheel around then pedaling out of it. Also practice braking this way. Shift your weight back and brake hard in a straight line until your lock up the front wheel. Do it without shifting back and let the wheel come up a little, learn what that sensation feels like. Play around. Eventually you'll instinctively shift your weight back when braking hard and learn what the limit feels like.

Example of the difference between confidence and lack of or being cautious, or taking a less ideal line in a turn.... at IMWI, on a training ride, I took one of the tighter faster corners at 34mph on my 2nd lap.... on tri bike with a gatorskin rear and 10 year old Ultra 2000 in front. I felt like I could still go faster with a better line. Most will take that turn at 18-25mph. Factoring in exit speed and momentum, I estimated it's about a 30-60" difference over that 1 mile stretch of road with the same average power.

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

This, of course.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

ITT: Get a motorcycle.

Really?? Of all the ridiculous cycling and triathlon logic I've heard, this has to be the most outrageous. Buy a motorcycle to improve at amateur cycling? In terms of seconds saved per dollar spent this has to be at the bottom of the list.

It's one thing to get a motorcycle because you want one, or because it will make you happy, or because you'll spend less money on gas or something that has at least a shred of reasonableness to it. It's another thing entirely to justify a huge purchase by saying that you want to improve at descending--a skill which could be improved readily by practicing. If this guy's limiter is 100% psychological on a bicycle, what's to say he won't have a freakout on the motorcycle? I might think otherwise if OP were a pro cyclist who actually stood to gain real dollars from improving his descending. I hate to be the guy that tells someone his real problem is X when he posts asking about Y, but if you're looking at spending $5000+ on a motorcycle to "improve your descending" you would be far better off spending 1/5th of that on a PM, or a coach.

I'm not opposed to motorcycles, or people riding them, or buying what they want, just calling out what has to be the worst logic/weakest justification for something I have ever heard.

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I tweet!

Practice. Get a MTB bike. I started MTBing before road biking and descending never bothered me too much. I always figured a crash at 45 MPH would suck just as bad as one at 35 MPH so WTF.