The Secret of Going Down Hill Fast

Ever wondered how Tour de France riders & other cyclists seem to be able to descend hills so much faster than you can? Well read on ….

The secret of all fast descending, whether on a bike, ski-ing, motorcycling or whatever - is to be fully under control. “Boring” you all cry, but the moment you’re not completely in control, you’ve crossed that safety line there’s a good chance you will end up exploring the hedgerow.

Going fast downhill requires a combination of several things; braking, balance, reading the bend & using vanishing points.

The first rule is never to go so fast that you can't stop within the distance you can see. This also means remembering to do most of your braking when the bike is upright and travelling in a straight line i.e., before the corners not during.

Whilst it’s not ideal to brake in the turns, in reality you’ll probably have to do this, so practice it. The important thing is to be smooth and to try not to apply the front brake at all whilst banked over. If you slam on full brakes you’ll lock the wheels and be quickly collecting gravel rash.

Position your hands so that you can easily and quickly apply the brakes. On a race bike this means having both your hands covering the brake levers from the drops to lower the chances of being shaken off or if the road is straight you can ride on the hoods with your thumb & finger lightly touching underneath

Before entering each corner, select the best position to see as far round it as possible and to straighten out the bend. This can mean moving towards the middle of the road (or even to the right hand side on lanes) to increase visibility round the bend and to increase the time available for braking. (See also vanishing points).

Look through the bend, and daft though it sounds, look where you want to go (how many times have you looked at a rock, then ridden over it whilst thinking I’ll miss that). If you don’t look where you want to go, you will end up making slight, twitchy, unsure, unstable mid-course corrections for every little ripple you see three feet in front of your bike.

Having selected your corner approach position in the road & reduced speed if necessary move the pedals so that the foot to the outside of the bend is at bottom centre of the stroke.
(The most common mistake is to have your centre of gravity on the inside of the bend, i.e. on the inside of the plane of your wheels. If you stick your inside knee out like motorbike racers do, this is completely and utterly wrong for cycling, as it reduces your cornering power. It is doing the exact opposite to what you want).

By weighting this outside foot, you can use it to control the degree of banking, leaning the bike into the corner whilst keeping your body upright. There are 3 advantages to this;
1. It keeps the centre of gravity over the wheels.
2. It keeps your eyes level.
3. Your upright body puts gentle pressure on the inside of the handlebars tightening the cornering radius.
With practice, you’ll also begin to feel your tyres ‘grip’ the road surface – similar to a skier’s outside ski cutting into the snow and ice.
Once you are round a corner move the bike back towards the middle of your lane or into position to see as far round the next corner as possible.

Keep scanning the road ahead, not only for all manner of hazard’s from sheep to potholes & gravel to cars but also for subtle clues about what’s coming up:-
Dustbins on the pavement – dustcart round the next corner?
A row of telegraph poles sloping down to the road you're on – junction ahead? They tend to follow roads.
9am or 15:30 approaching a school – brats running about and Chelsea tractors driving wildly?
Damp autumn day and trees ahead – good chance of slippy leaves
Farm track coming down the hill – good chance of gravel in the road
You get the idea…

With multiple bends, sweep smoothly from one to the next staying off the white line as the paint is more slippery than tarmac when it’s damp.

Practice getting the precise moment to begin pedalling out of a turn for maximum speed - but be careful not to catch the inside pedal on the ground if you are really leant over!

Don't forget to look back quickly to check for cars wanting to come past. A quick look back also signals your intention to move out.

Eventually you reach speeds where you just can’t chase the gear round so keep the pedals horizontal and tuck your knees into the top-tube. Take your weight off the saddle slightly, by standing a little to use your legs as a suspension system and keep the elbows bent. This allows the bike to pitch slightly over rough surfaces and also allows you to move back on the saddle to increase stability.

It’s important to stay relaxed and that you can move the bike round the road without getting tense. If you start to tense up you’ll transmit that through the steering and could soon end up wobbling around. Tense up enough and, the bars will start to wobble uncontrollably as you hang on for grim death. Braking will just make things worse - much worse. All you can do is try to relax, look where you want to go and slide back off the saddle to push the centre of gravity back from over the front wheel. (A loose headset can bring it on as well – so check it).

Vanishing Points

The trick to descending through bends really fast is to learn to read the bends and anyone who’s learned to ride a motorbike in the UK in the last few years will have learnt all about Vanishing Points. Using these is drummed into all police drivers; it’s why they can always out drive you in a chase.

The vanishing point (or convergence point) is the last part of the road surface you can see before it disappears out of view, which most of the time is the point where the road surface disappears around a corner. Ok, so how does that help?

Well it works like this:- Ride your bike to a rural environment, and find a right-hand bend, (for this example). Ride towards the bend and stop on the near side kerb about distance 50m before the bend starts.

As in the diagram, from your position sight an imaginary line from your head, passing through the last bit of visible offside verge to a point where the 'line' meets the near side verge. If we label these points A, B and C in the order of appearance, C is the point where your line ends against the near side verge and is your vanishing point, B is the vanishing point of the offside verge and A is your eye.

Whilst keeping your eye fixed on point C, ride forward a bit towards the bend and watch what happens. You should see that point C will 'move away' from point B or, put another way, the verge on the far side of point B will begin to open out as you begin to see more and more of it. It is rotating around point B.

When point C is moving at the same speed as your approach, it means that your speed is appropriate for that bend and you should be able to negotiate that bend safely at that speed. Of course the verge doesn’t physically move, it’s just that you begin to see more and more of it revealed

In Motion:- Now go back and approach the bend again, this time without stopping. Watch for the movement of point C around point B.

Ride the bend again now deliberately approaching it too fast (within reason!). You will see that all the time that you are travelling too fast for the corner, points B and C remain static relative to one another (or if you are way too fast point C seems to come towards you).

With a little practice, your brain will want to reduce speed for the corner if you do not see the convergence points (vanishing points) moving relative to your distance from that corner.

Two words of warning: -
1. Make sure you use the road-edge and not the hedge (refer to the diagram) because where the hedge line sits back from the edge of the road this will give a ‘false reading’
2. Once the points indicate that your speed is appropriate for the corner, don't take it for granted! You have to keep watching for the slow moving tractor as well.

Now all you have to do is put it all together and practice it...

The best advice I was given about that (again from a Police motorcyclist) was to practice descending fast whilst giving a running commentary about the hazards you see coming up before you. It really focuses you into what’s happening around you and to the road conditions but you may want to try it alone….

The author has a PB of 61mph descending after climbing Switzerland's Furka Pass, a descent/climb of 886m in 12.5km (7.1%).

R L Carter 2006