motorthings

turn in later than your instincts tell you to (they will want you too turn in long before you can see the apex, as a way of dealing with your primitive and misguided survival instincts - which have evolved to walking/running speed, but not to bike speed).

beatlebee 

What about in large sweeping turns that are not blind? I regularly descend a mtn. that has many of these and you can pedal through all of them at +40 if not 45+mph. With a partner I hit 55 once. Is this technique irrelevant in that situation. Seems like the shortest distance is what is called for there.

mattm

Can't decide if this is 217 or 41 material..

Ferrous Bueller

Obviously, if you can hug the full inside of the turn, you should.
The 'turn in late' strategy is for when you need the whole road. On tighter blind turns, there is a tendency to cut in early, hit the apex without having changed course enough, and running out of road after the turn. Even pros do this.
Turning in late forces the rider to control the speed and angle of entry into the turn to avoid overcooking the exit later.

Nbob

Aside from the reasons already mentioned - the tactic described in 1) of the OP is most effective during a stage race because:If rider 1 is left alone up the road team 2 will be the only team interested in doing the work at the front of the peloton. However, if team 2 sends a rider up then points come into play for other jerseys. As an example:

There are 20/18/16 green jersey points for finishing the stage on the podium. Team 2 sends rider 2 up to rider 1. Rider 2 is currently in 12th place for the green jersey but a second place will move him up past the rider who holds the jersey on team 6.


Team 6 , probably with the teams who have riders challenging for the green , will have no choice but to put some of their riders up front to help team 2 chase. With more riders taking pulls at the front the pace of the peloton increases and rider 1 is " reeled in" because the other teams are chasing rider 2.

carpediemracing 

This applies only when you need a lot of the lane. On the super long sweepers where you don't need the whole road because you can hold the inside line all the way around then you should do just that.

However on switchback type turns where you have to think about braking then you want to optimize the turn for top speed on the next straight. Free speed is important on a bike because it costs you energy to accelerate the bike unnecessarily.

Therefore you want to use gravity to accelerate your bike as soon as possible so that you allow gravity more time to accelerate the bike for you.

The way you do this is to straighten out your line as soon as possible. If you turn in early you go wide at the "turn out" point - you're still not going straight long after the corner ends. If you turn in "center" then you'll finish your turn out as the curve ends.

If you turn in early then you'll start your turn out early and be straightened out before the curve finishes. At this point it's one of those "let the brakes go and let gravity take over", even before you get more upright on the bike. You might gain 1-2 mph for free on a regular apexer and 3-4-5 mph on an early apexer.

When you're solo it's only the speed that matters, how long it takes for you to cover a given amount of descent. In a group it's even more important - now there's a draft in play and if you lose it you're screwed. Diving into a 20 mph switchback is fine, especially if you are relatively close to a wheel when you exit it. Losing the wheel in front because you did an early apex (typically out of fear) and now you're royally screwed because now not only did you exit slower than necessary (due to the less than ideal line you took) but now you're also a bit off the wheel that's going to give you a draft.

Basically it comes down to this - late apexes should be your default line when setting up for a turn. You should practice this all the time - driving your car, driving the shopping cart, the vacuum cleaner, whatever it is, you should automatically do a late apex line whenever you're steering something. As a bonus a late apex usually gives you more warning in a shopping aisle so you don't run into someone going the other way. With cars it's great - late apexes allow you to really close up on traffic in front of you on an exit/entrance ramp for example, or let you get on the gas early when making a turn.

I need to finish the clip on the Palomar descent now that I'm allowed longer clips. It totals 33 minutes or so, split into two parts (the mountain proper and the descent down from the mountain proper). There are a number of switchbacks on the upper part, a couple curves that require a late apex on the bottom, and it's a great way of illustrating how on a not-straight-descent cornering technique essentially determines descending speed.

carpediemracing 

Found this too, talks about that stuff ^
https://sprinterdellacasa.blogspot.co...-descents.html

agoodale

^^ On Palomar I tend to take a conservative line. Too early or late of an apex and the crotch rockets will take it as an invitation to pass.

carpediemracing 

haha I think on the switchbacky side (the west one on the map) I've only really been passed by one guy while descending and he waited for me to clear the last corner before the cattle grates on the mountain proper, and he's on one of the clips I recorded (I have a low res seatpost GoPro and a hi res Contour helmet recording). I've seen the crotch rockets go blasting by me going uphill though.

I've never done the sweeping side of Palomar so I don't know about that side. I prefer the "mogul/slalom" type feel of the switchbacks.

beatlebee 

Thanks