elcruxio

Weird. I checked and it was only 400-500 meters vertical. Felt like more than that.

Leebo

46 is my terminal velocity, too much drag/bags/giant man to go much faster. Was fast enough on the karate monkey. NH I think, love those " trucks test brakes, 8% grade next 3 miles" signs. 1 lane each way, coming around the corner, much to close to the center line, I see a loaded, double logging truck coming the other way. Not good. Swung back to my side, held on tight, giant amount of wind blast, "little" bit of bike shaking. Got my adrenaline junkie fix for the whole trip on that one.

djb

Ive been down plenty of descents that were around there, but with the twisties always feels like more--doesnt really matter, main thing is that its a lot of fun, and again, neat to have a video of it.

DropBarFan

Anyone try the Peter Sagan top-tube crouch? Fastest but risky, tourists can still increase speed significantly by lowering shoulders to saddle level. BTW supposedly Marcus Burghardt broke 80 mph in the 2016 TdF.

elcruxio

I'm not sure if you're kidding or not. It's not really a technique anyone not getting paid should even consider trying. Obviously I've tried it (on a unloaded road bike), otherwise I wouldn't have such a strong opinion, but it's way too risky for anything recreational, especially with a loaded touring bike.
In the video I posted I tried to keep my nose to the stem in the beginning but it was just too much effort when the going got fast. When I got too tired and the going got too fast I had to adopt the normal drops pose with just slightly bent elbows.

Descending is fun and going faster is funner, but safety should really be a priority and all those gimmicky styles should be thrown in the bin.

djb

I come from a background of watching and doing a bit of motorsport, and still have the superstition of not liking to talk about dangerous stuff too much.

I guess I would say that yes, for a loaded touring bike, the toptube tuck thing is pretty redundant given the sail area of panniers, wont make a squat of diff or very little, and absolutely not worth the risk of handling issues.

doing it on an unloaded bike is another matter. So many factors that come into play for if its safe or not-- specific rider bike handling skillset, specific bike behaviour, road conditions, wind....you name it.

All I can say is that it makes quite a diff in top speed, but officially, should only be done by professionals on a closed course.

DropBarFan

I'm not suggesting it at all but with some folks on the thread reporting high speeds I wondered. Actually I'm not interested in setting descent records but was struck by how fast you passed riders with a more upright position. Even at 15 mph aero is the biggest drag which IMHO shows a plus for drop bars.

elcruxio

Oh I misunderstood then. I apologize.

I believe the main reason I went flying past the other riders was because I wasn't touching my brakes unless there was a corner requiring speed reduction. I'm not sure, but I believe the other riders were being a bit more judicious in their speed control. Also at times I was pedaling to spinout so that may have helped a bit.

My wife did the same descent, albeit much slower, and she sat on the brakes enough to turn parts of her brake rotors blue, which corresponds with a temperature of 300 degrees celsius.

Doug64

This is a video of my wife decending from the Old Mckenzie Pass. She was only going a little over 30 mph where she spins out with the gearing she is presently running. The fun part was me riding with one hand behind her, and trying to keep her centered in the screen of my camera. Right at the end of the video the steeper part starts, and I almost lost it trying to get a shot of my computer That is when both hands went back on the bars

djb

your first point touches on a super important point, and your second directly is related to the first and about the dangers of dragging the brakes on long downhills.

Like you, I dont brake unless necessary, and am constantly evaluating the myriad of factors to what speed I deem safe and comfortable to be at. Again, its just like downhill skiing, we are constantly taking into account how much we can let ourselves speed up to, so if on a bike and I evaluate that the road surface, side approaching risk dangers, and corners are fine, I tend to let the bike head to its terminal velocity.
In most cases its rare to get past 60kph or 40mph, but whether its 50k or 70k, if you dont need to bleed off speed, heck why not use it and safe the energy and go a bit further for free?

Like with skiing, I trust my instincts of remaining within a safety zone, ie that I KNOW from experience that going straight at X kph or around a given corner, that I have a certain percentage of wiggle room for both slowing down quickly if need be (ie, I know what my bike and its braking abilities are) and how much maneuvering time I have for an oncoming pothole, or how my bike handles around a given corner and how close am I to being 10/10ths.

If I'm a bit tired, and I know my reactions are a bit slower, I'll dial it back a tenth or two, or three, always wanting to have ample reaction time/road realestate/traction etc for an unknown factor---for instance, in Latin America, I always kept in the back of my mind that perhaps around this sight unseen corner, some oncoming car could be passing a slower vehicle right at me in a corner, so if my line of sight wasnt good, I always left extra reaction time and room to be able to get way the hell over to the side of the road if this happened (touch wood twice).

then we get to your wife overheating the rotors.
This topic always comes up-- about that if you drag the brakes, you're going to overheat stuff and get brake fade and potentially lose braking ability which could turn into a real kettle of fish.

Short, hard applications of brakes, with predominantly front braking power, slows you down very quickly, and then by backing off, the heat can dissipate.
Rinse, Repeat.

A lot of people just arent comfortable letting speed build up, and its easy to get suckered into doing the brake dragging thing because it feels safer, but it aint.
I've made this mistake in a car in mountains, and had to pull over as the brakes were fading.
I've also made this mistake on a loaded touring bike in the Pyrenees, fading my rim brakes so bad I just barely was able to stop before things got out of hand and bits of pad were balled up and falling off the pads.

but I learned from these experiences, although I realize that some folks just arent comfortable with going fast and it freaks them out. I have friends that do this, and I realize its not going to change, but I always feel its important to bring this up in discussions like this.

hopefully someone reading this will remember this and perhaps try the "hard braking" / no braking / hard braking thing--gradually at first, so that they get a feel for what their bike can do and become more confident in knowing how their bike can slow down.

and use front brake HARD,
not piddily hard, but HARD
you arent going to flip a loaded bike, and anyway, experiment and get a feel for how much you can brake hard with front

hilltowner

I wrote this about one descent I made. Probably the most recent one on a tour. There have been others that topped the speed of this one. This was a descent from Washington Pass on Rt. 20 above Mazama, WA. It was part of journey from Anacortez, WA to Havre, MT in Sept. of '17.

"The observation area was well visited despite the lateness of the season and the time of day. There were some spectacular vistas down the valley to the east and across the head of the pass to the south with Liberty Bell Mt. and the Early Winters South Spire rising high above it. The haze from the smoke of forest fires diminished the view of the peaks but it was a fine view nonetheless and inspiring and seemed tempting as a climb to an erstwhile mountaineer such as myself. Highway 20 went from the pass along the base of the spire and made a big hairpin turn, then disappeared down the valley to the left of my vantage point at the overlook. It had the appearance of an exciting descent by bicycle and, as it turned out, it was.

If there had been much traffic it wouldn't have been anywhere near as much fun but since there were few cars I felt comfortable putting my hands on the aerobars instead of the handlebar handgrips where the brakes are within easier reach. With my hands outstretched in front of me I'm able to assume a more aerodynamic posture but steering and braking are compromised. Neither can happen very quickly in that position. Since my arms are supported by pads it's more restful than a tuck so I can maintain the position longer, which was necessary in this situation since the road descended steadily for many miles. My odometer bespoke a top speed of 48 mph attained at some point. It had been exhilarating."

DropBarFan

I run out of gear around 33 mph; I was watching some videos of pros descending & they don't seem to spin out until around 50 mph. I like aero bars but over 30 mph I keep both hands on the main bar. Once read an article about pros having accidents while riding one or no hands...even nice roads can have those occasional little hard-to-see potholes that can cause a sharp jolt.

& yup, ski season is coming up, I'm aiming to try the advanced runs, maybe take a lesson or two for the moguls. BTW today I read an article about the trend for "uphill skiing" which can include alpine off-piste touring but also some resorts let folks ski up the regular runs which seems really hard!

chineezguy

On my fully loaded Easy Racer recumbent I hit 50mph on Highway 1 in Northern California.

Indigo82

Recently I have achieved top speed of 65 km/h (40 m/h) while coasting down the hill fully loaded. Then on the next downhill where the speed was 50 km/h (31 m/h) my rear inner tube developed something similar to pinch flat when I struck asphalt undulations perpenicular to my trajectory. It was unavoidable obstacle as the quality of road suddenly deteriorated entirely. After observing condition of inner tube it showed 4 holes in it. I had Schwalbe Marathon 26×1.75 tires. I guess that fully loaded at higher speed rear inner tube can be in danger if you hit something on the road. Losing control of the bike at such speed is entirely different matter.

elcruxio

Just out of curiosity, what kind of pressures we're you running and how much weight were you carrying?

LeeG

Pretty sure you can’t “make up for time lost on climbs and the flats” by going faster down hill. Look at where you spend the most time riding and that’s where time can be cut, if it matters. Using hp to push a non-aerodynamic rig downhill is a waste of effort. Sure you can spin up and go faster on an aero rig but a few minutes going 30 mph instead of 24 mph won’t make much of a difference compared to a few hours going 12 mph instead of 10mph.

Indigo82

I was carrying around 20kg at the back and I'm not sure about exact pressure. However, the tires were inflated more to the maximum allowed values than underinflated.

Leebo

48 mph on my loaded karate monkey. Love those signs that say 8% grade next 4 miles,

Tourist in MSN

djb

Hey tourist, where was that photo taken? 13% for 3 klicks is a fair amount.

All this reminds me of on a trip, schlepping uphill in rather hilly country, when an oncoming motorcycle rider waved and then pointed to the ground as he went by.
I was confused, thinking at first something had fallen off my bike or was hanging, but checking didn't show anything. Continued on for a short bit and then the road started going down, and I realized the nice guy had been just giving me encouragement trying to get across that the road would start going downhill soon and I'd get a break from the hard work.

made me smile because of his nice gesture, which he thought up in just a few seconds

Carbonfiberboy 

We've hit 50 descending on our loaded tandem. Could have gone faster, but it's not a good plan to overrun one's brakes by too much. We seldom pedal on downhills to go faster. No point, We coast whenever we can when touring. When unloaded, we just air brake and save the brakes for the corners, but with that much more to stop, I don't feel comfortable about letting it run. We run a tire size and pressure combo that doesn't pinch flat and use tires with reinforced sidewalls when loaded. That's a bit trickier on a tandem. We wind up with tires which are not at all comfortable on cobbles but have never failed us.

GeorgeBaby

I used to control speed at about 40MPH, and try not to get past 45MPH -- I start to feel the front end get light. I'm older now, and would probably slow down by another 5MPH.

Buddy Hall

Fully loaded on my customized LHT, I have hit 45+ mph on downhills in the Appalachians, and once in Utah on the Western Express route. I'm a little crazy sometimes, and like to hit Warp 2 or 3 on steep downhills, but really that's too fast for a sane person. I'm an older guy, not so fast anymore on the flats or uphills, but I work well with gravity on the downhills! While riding the Transam route solo out west, I had a near-miss with a squirrel early one morning at high speed - it occurred to me that if I hit a deer (or even a chipmunk) while zooming down a continental divide pass, I could run off a cliff and into the woods and die and not be found for a long time - if ever! So I set myself a self-imposed speed limit of 35 mph, and found I could easily stay under that speed just by changing positions and using the wind resistance as needed. I have excellent hydraulic disc brakes, and I could scrub speed quickly if that suicidal deer were to attempt to ram me while I was cruising downhill at 35mph. There's really no good reason to exceed 35 mph on a loaded touring bike - but the odds are I will do so sometime again! Play it safe is my advice (do as I say and not always as I do),

Buddy Hall

djb

I can relate, as I am similar.
the main thing is proper judgement and good eyesight combined with reacting quickly if circumstances merit slowing down.

don't worry about squirrels, I've run overt one on a lightly loaded mountain bike, and just held steady and weight back a bit at the instant. In the short time to react, I clearly had time to run through options, and swerving and crashing i just dismissed right away. Sorry guy but I'm not crashing.

Doug64

My wife and I were on the Trans Canadian Highway descending into the South Saskatchewan River Valley, just north of Medicine Hat, Alberta, when I hit a large piece of metal laying in the road. I was going about 35 MPH. It blew out my front tire, and had me scrambling for a couple of seconds. My bike is a good solid touring bike, and I was able to come to a fairly smooth stop. The tire was fine, 32 mm Schwalbe Marathon, but the tube was trash. The rim had a large bulge in the side wall. Amazingly, I tried putting in a new tube, and the tire seemed to seat securely on the rim which was still true and round. I was able to ride into town, but could not use the front brakes.

I called the shop that built the wheels and and asked about beating in the bulge, and he did not recommend it. Luckily, the shop in Medicine Hat had one wheel that would work on my bike. It was a good time to take a rest day and explore the area.



The bulge is located near the 9 o'clock position. It even affected the top side of the rim.


I almost cried when the mechanic cut my hub out of the wheel: Velocity Dyad rims, Wheelsmith DB spokes, and an Ultegra 36 spoke hub. Really a nice handbuilt wheel. That is my bike with a new front wheel on the work stand.