How Not To Descend

Watch today’s ToC stage of Quickstep rider Remi Cavagna descending off Mt. Hamilton if you want to see how not to descend. His line was crazy off but, what bothered me more was how he dropped his head and therefore his inside shoulder through the corner.

In contrast Alex Hoehn (chasing) looked solid, smooth and fluid.

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scary how wrong his body position is on the descent. I can’t watch anymore!

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Stuck at work and can’t watch. :frowning: But I hate descending Quimby. Tons of off-camber turns, and the road has weird bumps in it. The ToC just loooooves to send the riders down it, though… at least they can use the whole road and not worry about people coming up it in the opposite direction. Some of those turns would be a bit better if you could swing super wide.

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Hamilton a distant memory, and goes off the road!

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@bbarrera I’m watching NBC Sports Gold with Bob Roll and Christian VdV commentating. Some quotes: “I think he’s crosseyed to be honest…” “every corner is an adventure…” “it’s not a foregone conclusion…(that’s he’ll stay clear)” :rofl:

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same. Did you like that public service announcement they just ran? You called it! Amazing he only went off the road once, on the last hill/roller down to highway 101.

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I’m going to watch a replay/recording, how many KM to go when this descending scene gets started?

Thanks!

NBC Sports Gold public service announcement - fast forward to 2:49:45 for a 1 minute tutorial on how not to descend. Or as Phil Liggett put it “for anybody planning on being a professional, we’ll now show you how not to go down a descent”

No way you could be that bad of a descender and be a pro, I think he blew a fuse giving it everything on the HC climb.

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I think you mean 2:39:45

my timestamp for the public service announcement was from the live coverage. Still don’t have the replay in NBC Sports Gold app.

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If you don’t have NBC the ToC app is free and has the same coverage.

Oh, the descending was as awful as described. Sure he was exhausted but it was just bad. And I’m saying that as a mediocre descender.

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138km to go/top of Mt. Hamilton on…

Christian VdV said something similar and initially I accepted that. However, Hoehn was arguably more blown and descended beautifully compared to Remi.

every time they said Remi all I could think of was the animated movie Ratatouille and that first time Remy the mouse was controlling Linguini like a marionette LOL.

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With their focus on the Spring Classics, Quickstep is about the one pro team where you could get away with this.

Or maybe it’s a new tactic to get more screen time, like wild card teams in the breakaway.

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Trying to grab attention away from the GC crashing chaos at the Giro?!

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Yep that was it, unbelievable how poorly he rode that descent for a pro.

Just read another article mentioning that he was so crushed he couldn’t hardly raise his arms to celebrate.

Given he’s finished a Giro in one piece, won a stage in Alentejo, and won Dwars in 2018 I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt… safe to assume he’s a decent enough bike handler compared to the any TR forum commentator.

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@Tanner1280 Cat 5 to world tour pro it’s rare to see anyone point their head in the direction of the turn to the inside causing the entire upper body to be so horribly out of position. it was just so odd and rare. I’ve only seen a glimmer of it from Mike Rusty Woods last year at the pro level. Not as pronounced but it was there.

As for coming across the line I noticed he had to check his body position a bit to get his balance to take his hands off the bars. Based on what I saw today I think he is either a shitty bike handler or he was suffering from vertigo/dizzy etc…Given the level he’s at I doubt he’s a shitty bike handler so I have to assume there was something else going on. The whole upper body thing cornering was waaaaaaaaaaaay waaaaaaaaaaay off though. Not sure what to think. Very odd.

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Does anyone have a link for this for a UK viewer?

I’m a terrible descender and need all the tips I can get!