Today rode in a gran fondo. I rode with my alloy bike with gatorskins. I figured it’d be okay. Earlier in the race, was following a descent. I think I had tapped my brake, and my rear wheel kind of fish tailed skidded. It did this three times and I thought oh shit crash. I straightened out and went off the road into the grass and got back on.
For the rest of the day, anytime I descended, I kept tapping my brakes on the straight aways and rode the bends. I couldn’t get over the fear of slipping out.
I’ve had bolder days, but don’t seem to have it anymore. What do you guys do to overcome?
Well first off, NEVER touch your brakes in a corner unless you know how to (straighten out, brake, then back into the corner).
As a former motorcycle instructor, we spent a lot of time in instructing people on how to ride corners. Road Surface, tires, tire pressure, weighting, apexing and other items, most applicable to any 2 wheeled vehicle.
Practice is one of the things that we’d employ. For a bike, I’d suggest practicing on grass. It is slippery but forgiving. Find out what it feels like just before you go down. Go into your corner too hot, start the corner, sit up straight and brake, then back into the corner. Lots of things you can try.
It pays to have a short memory! Learn from the previous mistakes and forget the rest. The quicker you can forget what *almost *happened the better you’ll ride. I learned this mountain biking so the probability of crashing is higher, but the consequence normally isn’t as severe… normally.
Practice repetitively on the same descent over time. You have the confidence of knowing the surface, what’s around each corner, and how fast you’ve taken each part in the past. It allows you to go a bit faster each time, and log experience at these speeds and get comfortable.
I have a 1k climb that is about 10% grade that I use for hill climb repeats, but then also work to get faster bombing and cornering on the way back down. It’s great because I can do it 4-5 times in a session (vs. once for a longer climb).
Before we deal with the size of your testicles, there’s a few things you should do.
Check your tire pressure. If, like most people from a tri background, you inflate your tires to the max pressure on the sidewall then you will have traction issues. I would say for an avg size/weight person (65 - 75kg) you certainly don’t need to be over 110psi. What was your tire pressure?
Those Gatorskins? Take them off your bike and then light them on fire. They are the worst handling tire you could purchase. Hard, thick casing (prevents flats) which reduces traction. Get a Conti 4000s, MIchelin Pro Race 4, etc. - a tire that has a goal of providing grip in corners, not fighting off the advances of nails and glass.
Brake set up. Cheap brakes with cheap pads usually have no modulation, so you end up with an on/off brake feel. Both Shimano and Campy pads are good on their higher range brakes, or you can swap them out for a pair of decent kook stop (salmons are nice in the damp, black for rest of season). What are your brakes like?
Comment on the above and then can discuss the how-to of descending.
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.
How’s your fit? A lot of triathletes ride a zero-setback post on their roadies. If you have a roadie, it is designed to have the weight back a bit (in a road fit!).
Doing a 40/60% weight distribution, rather than a 50/50% (like many triathletes) really changes the handling of the bike. There is a magic setback on my bike where anything ahead of it and it’s squirrelly, and anything behind is stable.
I generally run my tire pressure at 110 psi. I am 200 lbs, and I always understand for heavier guys you go higher with psi. Please correct me if I am wrong. I’ve also under the impression that you lower your psi if it is wet conditions, which I assumed wouldn’t be. There were some run off spots here and there, which conveniently were on descents.
I also run Conti 4000s on my race wheels, but since I am not actively racing, been using the Gatorskins as a training wheel. I also now do most of my riding indoors, so it is also less of a thought. I had thought of swapping out my tires, but someone gave the advice of running the Gatorskins for less a chance of flatting. In hindsight, I think I would have been a bit better with the Contis.
My CAAD 10 is all Ultegra. My brakes are Ultegra and pretty sure the brake pads are Shimanos. Since I’m mostly indoors now, there isn’t much use on this bike.
Well first off, NEVER touch your brakes in a corner unless you know how to (straighten out, brake, then back into the corner).
As a former motorcycle instructor, we spent a lot of time in instructing people on how to ride corners. Road Surface, tires, tire pressure, weighting, apexing and other items, most applicable to any 2 wheeled vehicle.
Practice is one of the things that we’d employ. For a bike, I’d suggest practicing on grass. It is slippery but forgiving. Find out what it feels like just before you go down. Go into your corner too hot, start the corner, sit up straight and brake, then back into the corner. Lots of things you can try.
+100. Don’t brake in a corner, unless it’s a descending decreasing radius… but that’s a special type of corner anyway.
I find one of the most important things it to look through the corner and pick your line with your eyes and look where you plan to go. Once you commit, turn in and stay committed.
Next is to lean on that outside pedal, not the bars, or the seat. You don’t steer with the bars, you steer with your body and using your eyes.
Stay light in the seat and bars and focus your weight on the pedals. Relax your arms.
Also, learn to use both your brakes and even better, mostly your front brake.
ditto what one other guy said about ditching the Gatorskins. Horrible tire for traction. I had serious descending issues for a couple of years before I finally figured out I was freaking out due to feeling the tires squirm and slip underneath me. One crash too, where I slid out on a corner, fishtailed the bike twice, and then rolled the rear tire off. ouch. Conti 4000s or 4-season are what I use now for actual training. Gatorskins are on the commuter bike only.
Unfortunately I’m still a comparatively poor descender (compared to actual cyclists), but that’s mainly because I have lost all desire to exceed my comfort zone of safety. Get rid of the Gatorskins!
As I’ve read through this post I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t recall ever seeing a book or other reference material with really good tips and techniques for cornering on a bike (and that’s really what this is about, carrying speed through corners). BUT, I have seen that for cornering on motorbikes. Check out books by Keith Code.
They’ll talk a lot about the basics but other items such late apexing (something I think everyone should do regardless of the vehicle they are in / on) but strangely, I don’t see a lot of late apexing when I’m watching the pro tours. They are taking a tighter line than I think they have to but heck, they are Pros so they must know what they are doing. To “late apex”, visualize a nice steady state corner (don’t think about decreasing or increasing or combination radius corners, they are handled differently), most people will hit the lowest inside point at about 1/2 ways through the corner. Late apexing tells us to delay the turn in and stay wide, then turn into the corner. Once way to think this through is to draw a corner on a piece of paper and then take a ruler and position it how you think you’d take the corner (I know, we can’t really go straight but this is just an illustration), now, move the ruler “around” the corner, delaying the start of the turn. What happens is that by delaying, you can see more of the corner and you can give yourself more time brake while you are heading straight (if you have to) and as you come off the lean, and pass the apex, you can start to apply power again. Sorry, crappy description but hopefully you get the idea.
Looking ahead, as someone else stated should be done all the time. You should be setting up mentally for the next corner, not the one you are in, you should have already figured out the current one.
If you were on a motorcycle with same braking power and more importantly acceleration power of someone on a bicycle, late apexing would not be the fastest way through a corner on motorcycle.
Just imagine a motorcycle going down a straight, during the entire straight it is accelerating and reaching a higher speed. So braking 10 feet later does not only mean you covered that 10 feet faster than the person that braked faster, that later 10 feet was covered faster was covered faster than the previous 10 feet, since a motorcycle is still accelerating. A bicycle is different since it generally gets up to speed and then you stay there, you are not constantly going faster if the straight is of any meaningful distance. In addition a bicycle has much dimished braking capability, due to the higher cg compared to motorcycle, relative to cornering grip. So it makes less sense to sacrifice speed during the corner, which happens during a late apex. A similar thing with accelerating out of the corner, it is good to be going straigher sooner on a motorcycle, because you can not accelerate near you max while cornering on a motorcycle, but you can get close on a bicycle. Not to mention you are dealing the physiological cost of powering the bike that is not present on a motorcycle (if you are running low on fuel late apexing would not be fastest), so maximizing the speed in the corner is beneficial on a bike.
You see this all the time in auto racing, high downforce cars will take a very different racing line than lower downforce cars, or cars that have excess power to grip take different lines than cars that have less power versus grip.
As others have stated, It’s not really about cajones.
get comfortable and relaxed
gator skins are terrible handling tires, and this is a part of the problem
proper pressure (trial and error)
technique - same concepts from mountain bike cornering applies. Basically, look through he corner, outside pedal is at the bottom with most of your weight and drop your heal, lean the bike but don’t lean your body (keeps your center of mas over the tier/road interface).
I could find a road bike video, but mountain bikers exaggerate the motion so it’s a better illustration:
Late apexing was not primarily about speed but about seeing what was coming up. On a closed course where you know the corners (and there are flags if there is an accident ahead, or oil or debris on the track), it becomes a strategy (who can go deepest into a corner to get the preferred line).
Late apexing lets you see more of the corner and this allows you more braking time IF you need it. Out on the road with a motorbike, it lets you see the tourist coming over the line on a left handler so you stay wide, it lets you see the mountain goats, spilt Molybdenum (that one happened to me but there were flaggers there) etc before you commit.
Today rode in a gran fondo. I rode with my alloy bike with gatorskins. I figured it’d be okay. Earlier in the race, was following a descent. I think I had tapped my brake, and my rear wheel kind of fish tailed skidded. It did this three times and I thought oh shit crash. I straightened out and went off the road into the grass and got back on.
For the rest of the day, anytime I descended, I kept tapping my brakes on the straight aways and rode the bends. I couldn’t get over the fear of slipping out.
I’ve had bolder days, but don’t seem to have it anymore. What do you guys do to overcome?
Hey Fatass… that was only one of your problems at GFNY :)… and that is said with love buddy!!
I am sorry if I did not read all the previous post, but don’t buy it… it took me a year to really buy what I had red 1000 times. Please just follow this advice for a few weeks…just look forward. You are not looking not looking out far enough. Trust your equipment…assuming it is in good repair. Stretch your view out…not where you will be in 4 seconds, but where you will be in 10 seconds. look thru the turns. Your peripheral view will pick any issues as you pass them. You are looking at you front wheel or too close out…it is all about trusting yourself and looking out. Please, please, please…just keep pushing your view forward. You will feel so free and fast once your get it…