The Next Step...downhill, dual crown, getting shreddy!

[Irulan]

This looks awesome. Frightening, to be sure, but awesome.

The downhills (roads) give me particular trouble. I tend to walk the steep ones. At the same time, I would love to try this - partly as a way of getting over this ridiculous fear. Do they rent these types of bikes?

are you talking roads as in pavement, or fire roads?

If it's pavement, you in in the wrong sub forum.

For mountain bikers, the geometry of your bike can make a huge difference on how stable one feels on the downhills. Second is your skill set. The first two affect the third which is your confidence level. I am a big fan of going to lift serve trails, even riding the greens all day long, to get comfortable with speed. If you are a beginner who's not interested in downhilling per se, renting a downhill bike is probably overkill... unless you take the time to invest in the skill set to ride a DH bike properly. If fireroads on your mountain bike are an issue, you need some skills coaching, not a downhill bike...

[tangentgirl]

My issues are on the pavement, and totally in my brain. Haven't tried offroad for a long time. This just looked like a cool way to face any speed/downhill intimidation.

[limewave]

Looks FUN! I wanna try!

[ikkin]

try! you wouldn't believe what the loads of travel and really slack geometry of a downhill bike will do for you in terms of confidence with steeps, terrain and speed. obviously there's a bit of an adjustment period, but i'll do stuff on this bike that i wouldn't remotely consider doing on my XC bike. it's almost like the downhill bike does all the work for you...all you gotta do is hang on and feel comfortable letting it move beneath you.

most lift-served resorts rent DH bikes. like irulan said, skills development is important, and i wouldn't recommend a pure beginner hit a resort and start riding all the black diamonds right away, but i bet most of you are MUCH better riders than you give yourselves credit for. i was intimidated, too. and then i went to whistler, rode, went again, rode some more, and had enough fun that i bought my own "big rig".

i started riding my XC/AM bike faster and more confidently immediately after my first trip renting DH bikes at whistler. they are super complimentary skill-sets. and both really, really fun!

[Irulan]

I'm not a road rider... other than the confidence issue and braking, is there any crossover from road technique to mtb dh technique? As I understand it, the body positions are totally different, and any dynamic riding on a road bike is going to be much more subtle than a MTB...?

[Becky]

I'm not a road rider... other than the confidence issue and braking, is there any crossover from road technique to mtb dh technique? As I understand it, the body positions are totally different, and any dynamic riding on a road bike is going to be much more subtle than a MTB...?

For me, the crossover comes from reaction times and an improved ability to anticipate. Even though I'm going faster on the road bike (usually), my brain is better tuned to react if I've been spending time on the MTB.

Just my two cents...

[jessmarimba]

Becky, makes sense to me. It works in the same way that (for me) trail running and mountain biking are complimentary. But I'm not much of a road rider (or an anything rider at the moment ) so I can't really relate to that. Next year!

(My SO joked about getting training wheels for me for Christmas. At least, he'd better be joking).

[bathedinshadow]

I'm not a road rider... other than the confidence issue and braking, is there any crossover from road technique to mtb dh technique? As I understand it, the body positions are totally different, and any dynamic riding on a road bike is going to be much more subtle than a MTB...?

My roots are actually way back in BMX riding, but I've been into MTBing for years now. This past spring I started road biking for the first time because I had a major knee surgery and smooth peddling/roads was ideal for recovery. I get far more nervous about riding my road bike than I do DH MTBing. That is 100% because of cars. They scare the life out of me. Anyway, I really don't find much crossover at all other than cardio. I will continue road biking simply because it improves my cardio more than MTBing does. That makes climbing technical section on my MTB far easier. But other than that, everything feels different and I have different focuses. Road biking is fairly predictable and I feel like improvement on a road bike is mostly due to fitness. However, I've grown up on bikes and am naturally comfortable on them. So perhaps that would be different for somebody who is newer to the sport. I also don't ride clipless on my mtb, so that was an adjustment. So not much cross over in my opinion - apart from the obvious - that I'm riding a bike!