NORTHERN PLANNER

Climbing hills by bike is one thing. Getting down again is something different altogether. 

The same hill I torture myself to get up, is also the slope where I teach myself to not hold on so tight and get down as fast as I can.

Because when you're confident riding a bike at 70kph, there is little else to fear. 

The more you loosen you're grip, the more in control you become.

 

Descending really is frightening. It's just you on a piece of metal, plastic and carbon, with the road underneath you a blur, the wind roaring in your ears, with scant protection except for flimsy lycra and a helmet.

Crashing hurts at the best of times, but when you fall at speed, assuming nothing gets banged up too much, you skid across meters of tarmac and the skin is grated off. 

So for years I was a nervous descender, always jabbing at the brakes, always holding on too tight. This perversely, made me fall off more, which in turn made me more nervous. 

Vicious circle. 

 

Until I decided to do something about it and began to not just climb to the top of my favourite hill with all I had, I started to make myself drop like a stone to bottom. 

I wish it were easier, but the only way to overcome your fear of doing something is to do it again and again. Take it from a nervous presenter, a shy introvert who fears crowds, a typical sufferer of imposter syndrome.

You have to do it, then repeat, then repeat. Then guess what? Repeat. 

 

Descending is an art, you need to let yourself work with the bike, not against it. The mind has to get itself to a point where it no longer fears the experience, solely focused on the task in hand.

You're holding the bars with the lightest of touches, trying to turn the bike with the body and mind, not the wheel.

You have to let go to be in control, alive to every sensation, every piece of feedback the machine and the road send.

The machine isn't the bike. The machine is you and the bike combined.

When you get to the bottom, its like waking up from a dream.

 

This is why descending re-arranges me. You learn to tell the brain to shut the fuck up and focus on the feeling of the wind rushing past, the rhythm of the wheels, the sensations of tarmac on the wheels, a soft focus on the road about twenty metres ahead. 

I suppose you would call it meditation. 

 

One of the hardest things is not looking at the road underneath, the focus needs to be what is in front of you. 

On my hill, the toughest challenge is the two major bends in the road. You can't swoop down in a straight line, you must get around the corners.

I used to brake all the way through both bends.

Then I began to brake just before going into them and then accelerate through, like you're supposed to.

The goal is to not brake at all, not even turning the handle bars, just guiding the bike around with your knee and core. I can do the first bend now, the second still eludes me. That one is close to the bottom and I'm going at nearly 70kph.

Soon. 

 

As with most things, the limit isn't the bike, its not my body. It's the arbitrary limits my brain sets on me. 

You don't descend with a bicycle, you descend with your mind.