March 16, 2010

Learning to Descend

I don’t have many responsibilities while on holiday and this is fabulous, for the most part.  But, if you know me, you understand that I am a person who likes to have something to do, something to accomplish.  This being said, I have given myself an assignment for the remainder of my Mallorcan holiday: Learn how to descend.

My holiday-assignment was an easy one to settle upon given that I am riding my bicycling in an incredibly mountainous place, doing so with an excellent teacher, and am really sick of getting dropped (on the downhills).

The adventure to Sa Calobra made me realize, once again, that I have a huge deficiency; descending.  Cornering, comfort at speed, the over-use of brakes, a bad over-steering habit, poor line judgment and continually blaming my poor descending performance on having a compact crank (an excuse I can not and will not use EVER again).

The only way to practice descending is to descend and over the past two days, I have done just that.  I have ridden up a lot of hills and then, with much concentration, taken switch-back after switch-back, corner after corner, with ever-growing confidence.

Because it is late, I spent almost 6 hours in the saddle today and I am already a day behind on my blogging; I am going to post photos from Days 5 and 6 here.

Days 5: Formentor and Riding Solo




Day 6: To the hills, for more practice (and cafe con leche, of course)