Jesus Villarreal writes:
| Katie write:
|
| Barring doing stupid things.
|
| You can go faster down windy roads on a bike than in a
| car.
|
| -Katie
|
| I edited to suit my thoughts, but, it seems to me as though you are saying
| one thing and then saying you can do it in the next sentence. Going fast
| down a windy road does not seem like a smart thing to do, since most of
| those windy roads have large trees right next to the pavement, and sometimes
| steep drops that are 100's of feet down. What would happen if that road had
| one tiny slick spot where a car had dropped some oil, and you rode right
| over it while on the limit of adhesion on those tiny little hula hoops bikes
| have for tires. Maybe I'm getting old, but I won't be going fast down any
| windy roads on a bike for fear of not going home in one piece.
It's not hard on a twisty enough road to beat a car or motorcycle
descending on a bicycle. Remember those little tires only need a little
rubber since we are not a 3000lbs car. I've chased caught and passed
cars scraping body parts trying to hold me off on down hills. We only
need 6" of good pavement. On the same basically 2 lane roads
in our car I've had to pull completely off the road since some car
was in our lane! With my bicycle I can squeeze around them and
have more room to apex turns better.
I have more trouble on our tandem since my stocker refuses to help me
sprint around cars. Tandems go even faster since they don't weigh
much more but you have twice the rider weight for gravity to help
and you have the same wind drag as a single.
Local drivers that do those roads every day are harder to catch.
The main advantage to a bicycle is the light weight to flick it.
Transition time is the biggest limiting factor to descending fast.
Proper descending technique will save you from gravel, tire blow
outs, clipping a pedal etc.
Doug A.
|