It is the right way (if you want to melt pads, wheels, and tubes)

Agree - and I’ve done that same descent. It’s technical but never have I been on my brakes the whole time (and I live in FL and not a good descender by any means).

Wouldn’t he boil the brake fluid/glaze the pads if doing the same strategy on discs? Meaning proper descending is critical regardless of brake or tube type.

Agreed - that’s a no/no for cars as well. Need to give the brakes a chance to cool off, rather than constantly building up heat.

He just needs to downshift. /pink

I’ll admit I am a terrible descender. I do not have many opportunities to build that skill. I was not literally braking the whole time. But I was braking into almost every turn and then letting off as soon as possible to try to manage heat.

What kind of bike are you doing your descending on ?

When you do descend, what kind of roads?

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Franco Balcom S road bike. It handles very well, on par with my first road bike— a steel Pinarello Montello SLX.

I rarely ride descents. But when I do, they are typically mountain roads with 5% - 10% grades and switchbacks on pretty good pavement. I probably get to ride roads like that a couple times a year.

Some of it could be technique, but then again, some descents are really steep. When I worked at Camp Pendleton in SoCal, I would go looking for super steep hills to climb in the Fallbrook area. I found a bunch that were RIDICULOUS, but the two worst were so steep you had to ride the brakes the entire way down. One of them, I had to go under a gate and when I leaned the wrong way, I actually burned my leg on the rim. I did not have any issues with flats though because they were butyl. That one was 21.6 percent for 800 meters. The other, Los Gatos Road in DeLuz heights has about .5 miles around 22 percent and hits a maximum of 26 percent. Take your fingers off the brakes for more than a couple of seconds and your speed shoots past 50mph and you will not make the next corner. I actually swapped out my fork so I could go disc on the front after that and never had any problems.

I have certainly had my Zipp rims too hot to touch comfortably for more than a split second, never yet had any tube/heat related problems.
With latex, the only flats I suffer are sidewall tears/cuts that no tube would survive.
I run the original Zipp rim tape with a layer of tubeless tape bead to bead on the front and two layers of tubeless on the rear.

True! If you don’t get the opportunity to practice it’s impossible. Every time I go up to a place to climb I always need a little time to get in the groove again.

I've had plenty of latex flats that butyl tubes would have survived. There's nothing more "deflating" than riding along and watching the little bubble-gum bubble of latex starting to blow up out the side of your tire while you try to pull over before it blows. And latex'll go through anything more than a pin prick.

And a butyl tube will do the same but no so obvious as it is black not brightly coloured.
In either case, when the tube is visible you need to boot it to pump to any reasonable pressure.

It can, but my impression is that latex can fit through impossibly tiny holes/cuts, while butyl is much more tolerant of little holes.

How much do you weigh? As my weight has fluctuated between lean and couch potato, my descending has become far worse because of physics.

I also hardly have any issues with latex on carbon rims but only in one exception.

Where I had no problems: in IMs Lanzarote, Kona, and Austria although there are some descents with heavy braking there (especially Lanzarote).

The exception: I did a steep Alp-pass last year (the Loibl-pass between Austria and Slovenia) a couple of times just to train ascending and descending with the TT-bike, and I got a couple of flats on the steepest (>15%) portions (the Austrian side): here it clearly was too much (I weigh 85 kg).

Where is there heavy braking required in kona?

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I am 84 kg now and was 80 kg a year ago when I flatted after a steep descent.

It is a skill & confidence thing for me. I was pretty good at descending in my youth. But, about 25 years without riding and now I do not have the natural sense of how the bike will flow through sharp corners I cannot see around.

You're right there is not a lot and maybe I should have left out Kona (and, when I think about it Austria), although a back door brag once a while is always good.
Anyway, it is hot in Kona and indeed the only location for a heavy brake is maybe the corner Palani-Kuakini, where you have to brake two times (first coming from Palani and then coming from Kuakini), although there is no repetitive braking necessary.