I'm generally pretty cautious on downhills and tend to stay on the brakes too much and get left behind while everyone else zooms off. I 've been reading up about the correct technique , using the front brake , keeping weight back, looking where I want to go , and practising on some smaller hills.

So today I went down this hill, nice smooth road with a sweeping bend, no potholes etc, little traffic, about 23% gradient ( 229m descent over 1km ) , no brakes...it was all going fine until I applied the front brakes about three quarters of the way down ( there is lights controlled intersection at the bottom) and got major speed wobbles. At this stage I was going about 73k/hr and was only using the front brake , so I kept steady pressure on the front and also light braking on the back . Thankfully I slowed down enough to stop at the intersection,but was very wobbly the whole way down and only just avoided coming off .

Any suggestions what might have caused this, mechanical problem ( wheel not straight/balanced), going too fast, wrong technique - should I have braked harder or let off, something else ??? Please help . How do I respond if it happens again?.

I have had a minor problem with speed wobbles before and had my bike looked at the mechanic said it was fine, get a second opinion??

Note to the gods of cycling....Thank you, thank you, I thought I was going to loses some serious skin there

thanks for you help : )