I crave it usually once a week. Descending an Hors Catégorie mountain is akin to deluxe accommodations at a five-star hotel. Unlike anything else you do on a bike. Pace lines. Hill repeats. Recovery spins. Time trials. They are nothing, I mean nothing compared flying down a bona fide, legitimate, oh-my-god alpine-quality mountain. While climbing is all about suffering and acceptance, descending is the reward. But that comes with stipulations. The contract between a mountain and rider is strict. You must stay hyper alert, even if you just tortured yourself beyond repair and turned your body inside out to reach the top of a peak. At 5,000 feet, air thins. Go up near the 10,000-foot level, and hard breathing is de rigueur. The brain has to adapt. To ward off complacency, a little cold water over the head helps bring you into the present. Picking your line on narrow winding roads at 7% to 10% and 40 mph+ (70kph+) requires near perfection. Judging your speed into hairpin curves leaves scant room for error. Cross the double yellow line, you could plow into the front end of an approaching car, truck or motorcycle. Hug the shoulder too closely, and you might nail a piece of fallen rock the size of a fist, a patch of silt and water flowing from a stream, melting snow or even runoff from an aquifer that has spawned algae on the tarmac. As a book title says, every second counts. As does every inch and centimeter. Cattle guards. Branches. Cracks. Potholes. They can launch you places you don’t want to be.
Descending isn’t for the timid. It’s an acquired taste. Descend with the best, and you learn quickly how fearlessness is a necessary trait. That, and trust in your equipment and how it responds to your commands. I’m no world-class descender. But I choose my moments to carve and lean, relying on my machines, reflexes and eyes to deliver me to the bottom in one piece, satisfied and euphoric. The promise of a beautiful mountain descent keeps you coming back for more, no matter how difficult the ascent, or how brutal the conditions. Descending season is almost upon us. Go ahead. let it fly. Fly like wind. The video below is part of the descent of Palomar Mountain, my all-time local favorite mountain. No commentary. Just the wind. Flip video camera mounted to right leg. Note that alternating shots are result of left and right turns.
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