These pages give you advice on how to improve your descending when cycling downhill. It is important that you read the first brief section on safety and you should also read my legal pages before I get you inspired with this article!

Safety First

I hope you never ever ride your bike without first checking its mechanical state.  Now that you are about to go a lot faster than you can on the flat, and perhaps eventually round mountain hairpins too, your physical safety depends to a very large extent on your bike working correctly, and not letting you down.  That problem you’ve been putting up with on the flat would probably lead merely to a bit of inconvenience there.  But its final failure during a fast descent could lead to you being seriously injured.

So, are both wheels correctly locked in place, and do both brakes work properly?!  Look closely at those brake shoes.  Do they need replacing?  Are they correctly aligned so that they will rub correctly on the rims of the wheels?   Are both tyres in very good condition, with no nicks, and are they inflated to the manufacturer’s recommended pressure?  Am I personally free of any factors which may affect my judgement: alcohol, drugs, my emotional state?  Remember also to wear your helmet, and your protective glasses.

Whenever you start riding, get into the habit of checking that both brakes work correctly. Do this, even after a short break say at a cafe.  The padlock and wire loop may have saved your bike from being stolen, but someone may still have damaged something, or a child may have twiddled with something.  Sometimes, even just knocking into a bike may move the little lever which adjusts the brake to rim distance - and you may have no effective braking on that wheel.

Descending at speed during an italian stage race

What do you do if one brake becomes inoperative?  You NEVER ride it down hill.  OK, if you MUST ride (say because to stay where you are would lead to even worse trouble - perhaps because of the onset of seriously bad weather), then you must think of the consequences of the second brake failing. 

This means devising some means of perhaps using your foot to apply direct friction to the tyre should the worst happen. 

In any case, you must travel very slowly indeed, because if the second brake fails you may need to abandon the bike.  It may seem unlikely that this will happen, but why take the risk?  You’re probably better off walking.

So please take note of the fact that although I am known as a fast descender in a race, I actually put safety first.  Indeed, when I’m out training, I never go at top speed unless I can see very clearly that the road ahead is completely clear, and even then I leave a margin for error, as explained below.

The Secret Which Lies at the Heart Of Descending

The secret of all descending - on skis, roller-blades, bikes or whatever - is to be fully under control.  The moment you feel that you’re not completely in control, you are already over the safety line.  So bring things back under control as quickly as possible.  Even though I may be descending very quickly indeed, I'm always under complete control.

Your First Serious Descents

If you’ve never gone fast on your bike, then approach the higher speeds progressively and in a safe environment.  Find a suitable straight hill or series of straight hills where the traffic is fairly quiet, and where it is unlikely that people or vehicles will enter your hill from the side.  You don’t want last minute distractions when you’re still learning.

Quickly check-over your bike, then think about what you’re going to do.  As soon as you begin to roll forward, check each brake.

Position you hands so that you can easily and quickly apply the brakes.  On a racing bike this means having your hands on the fronts of the drops, with at least a couple of fingers lightly taking up the slack on each brake lever.

As you go progressively faster (which will take several descents), get used to keeping relaxed.  Make sure that you can easily look behind, and that you can manoeuvre the bike without getting tense.  Find out - gently at first - the effectiveness of the brakes in slowing you down.  Knowing what you and the bike can do is all part of retaining complete control.

When I was a child, I led my little brother down a hill.  I went ‘no hands’, sitting up.  What I saw as a gentle descent, he saw as a terrifyingly steep slope.  Whilst I was entirely at home, he was already over the red line.  He lost control and went into the roadway face first; an accident he still remembers well, and whose scars he carries to this day.  OK, kids do silly things, but the point I wish to hammer home is that we must all proceed downhill at our own rate - and under full control.

Look Well Ahead, and Anticipate Problems

I take every corner carefully.  Here in the mountains it's not unusual to find a big lorry taking almost the full width of our narrow roads.  Practice taking the corners nice and smoothly - not in a series of wiggly turns.  If you slam on full brakes you’ll lock the wheels and be quickly down on the roadway.  So whilst it may be ideal not to brake in the turns, in reality you will have to do this, so practice it.  Get you head up, and look well ahead - right round the turn if possible.

High Speed Descending

Your ultimate speed down a hill (assuming no pedalling) is determined by the balance between the component of your weight which is driving you down the slope, and the aerodynamic resistance which is holding you back.  Frictional forces are insignificant.

This leads to the fact that heavy people naturally descend faster than light people.  If you don’t believe this, then take your car to the same slope and see what speed it descends without using the engine power.  It’s way faster, isn’t it?  For those of you familiar with School Physics, please don't confuse this 'descending' situation with that applying to falling bodies - which all fall at the same rate regardless of their weight (mass) - and which is to do with acceleration in a vacuum.  We're dealing with a steady descent where your weight down the slope is balanced by the aerodynamic drag, which is completely different.

In a race, we therefore concentrate on reducing the aerodynamic drag. This means having the pedals fore and aft, feet pointing into the wind, knees in, hands on the drops to lower the upper body, elbows in.  The head position is as low as possible - but you must never lose sight of the road ahead.

One step further may be considered; that is placing one arm alongside your body with the palm covering your buttock.  But you must be sure that you can bring your hand back quickly to the brake lever.  And you must feel entirely comfortable about riding the bike one handed!  You should only do this on straight sections where you can see well ahead.  Indeed, as you approach a corner you will usually need to slow down, so you can sit up.  This also allows you to see ahead better.  If you wish to stay in a higher position - because the road is steep, or you wish to see better - then consider moving your hands onto the brake hoods and operating the brakes from there.  But please only do this if you are certain that you can apply the brakes properly, as your brake hoods may not be well-positioned for this.

Cornering Requires a Special Technique

My father gives a demonstration!

Taking corners fast is a very special skill requiring a great deal of practice.  The most common mistake is to have your centre of gravity on the inside of the turn, that is on the inside of the plane of your wheels.  For instance, you might stick your knee out like motorbike racers do, or, if you’re not attached to the pedal, you might put your inside foot down towards the road surface.  All this perhaps ‘instinctive’ movement is completely and utterly wrong, as it reduces your cornering power.  It is doing the exact opposite to what you want.

Like the motorbike racer or the downhill skier, you need an exaggeratedly low centre of gravity in the turn.  But unlike the motorbike racer, your weight must tend towards the outside of the turn not the inside.

Your body has three points of contact with the bike: your backside, your hands - and your feet.  In the turn your feet are very important.  For a lot of cornering force, lower the outside pedal fully, and shift some of your weight onto it.  This will probably move your backside slightly to the outside of the turn, which is in the correct direction.

When necessary, use your legs as a suspension system.  Your machine will now ride out the bumps in the road, and your head will be steady, allowing you to maintain that all-important full control over the bike.

The optimum position is to have the bike itself relatively over-banked into the turn, with your head turned so that you can see well ahead, right around the bend.

If you’ve never done this before, it will be a bit of a revelation, as for the first time you will begin to feel the push as your tyres ‘dig into’ the road surface - analogous to the downhill skier’s outside ski cutting into the snow and ice.

You will not only be much faster, but you will also be safer too, as the bike will now take the precise line you demand of it. You must always leave a margin for error on the outside of the turn as you exit the bend, and you must never use this last bit of roadway, except to recover a serious misjudgement, even in a race.  In any case there may be grit lying there.

Another important advantage which comes from overbanking the bike, is that you can get into a turn much more quickly than you would if you merely kept your body weight over the cross-bar.  This technique even contributes to your safety.  You’re doing just what the skier does - which in our case is quickly placing the wheels out into the correct cornering position.

The time when you will be pleased to have mastered this technique is when you round a mountain bend fast, and are suddenly and unexpectedly confronted with the opposite turn!  You will rapidly be able to reverse the turn by rotating the bike under you.

As to such things as cutting corners off, using the banking of a hairpin to give you the maximum acceleration, ‘reading’ the road ahead; these things and other points are details you will acquire with thought and practice.  Shifting your weight fore and aft in the turn also helps - but it's too complicated to explain here.

Cutting off corners needs a very special care. It is all too easy to misjudge things and 'run out of road'. The best advice I can suggest is to not cut the corner until you can see the line out of it. So keep near to the outside until you can see the roadway out of the corner, then cut. That way you will avoid nasty surprises.

For racers, there is one abiding principle which applies to every 'speed' sport, and this is that the faster you come out of a turn the faster you go down the next bit of straight road.  You will also need to learn the precise moment to begin pedalling out of a turn - but be careful not to catch the inside pedal on the ground!  (And watch out if you are pedalling an unfamiliar bike - which may have longer cranks or wider pedals than you're used to!!).

PLEASE PUT SAFETY FIRST.  Unless it is a properly organised race, you must always think in terms of something nasty, just out of sight round every bend.

There is a lot more to say on the subject of descending, but I believe this is sufficient to get you going - SAFELY.

End of article...

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