Cheers, Hank, however my wife & I are both in our late 60s and ride a tandem.... I would be deafened if I tried that and would have to live in the shed for a month.... The dangers of high speed downhills are far-reaching! Thanks for a great video
Was these overtaking maneuver really risky? Or was this calculated by a high skilled ex pro? Here is an example for hi risks in my opinion: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tM1NLT1W01E.html
Having the entire road allows you to carry much more speed through the corners. This not only gets you through the corners faster but sets you up to go much faster on the straights. Good job!
Surely Im not the only one who when on the flats at speed under my own power feels in control but that exact same speed going down a decent feels alot quicker.
That was thrilling to watch! The awesome drone footage really helped provide perspective. Nice work, GCN! And a beautiful bunny-hop over the wet spot, Hank! You were FLYING yet the TdF bros were 10kph faster -- just unbelievable!
I have a French friend who lives in St Jean de Maurienne in the region of Galibier. Last time I saw him he was 77 and had ascended four of the local Tour de France mountain passes that summer - by bike, that is - including Galibier.
Loved it! I am definitely not a speed demon on descents. The hubs told me recently that I’m faster going uphill than down. I think it triggers my absolute fear of heights
The ascent and descent comes after a long ride for hours. Ideal test would be spend that much effort and then start descending. He started fresh from top.
The camera on the front of the bike when Hank starts the descent and on the back at end 🧐🤔 I bet if he didn’t have to stop and change it he would have beat Tadej 😂
Yeah - I noticed that, too. Gonna chalk it up to supplemental shots taken later or something - 'cause I don't know how he could've considered it a non-stop run otherwise...
At the top of the descent the camera is mounted on his handlebars, yet by the bottom it's on the back of his saddle. Clearly some video trickery is going on here!
What a epic vid, the experiment is interesting of course - but can we take a minute for the feeling of this epic descent. From the flowy turns into the perfect hairpins with the most amazing views in the background. This is why i ride my bike in flat Denmark, so I can have experiences like this in the mountains.
Great video. Get Hank doing more of these and he'll be GCN's own Safa Brian. There are two things wrong with descending fast. You're so focussed on riding the road at speed, the optimal lines, etc., that you don't get to enjoy the scenery nor the twisty, winding road.
That was amazing! Without a closed road I don’t think you can or should go any faster. I was really scared for Hank. A close to head on with a climbing bike and those vehicles made it very sketchy. You Bunny Hopped the water! You did great Hank!
Everybody saying Hank did not ride safely, I think he did a great job there, most of the time you can see oncoming miles ahead , road conditions were good and at some point he had motorbike and drone support, possible radio warnings. And I mean he was 2 minutes slower, think about the speed they do at the Tour.
I think even a typical amateur rider or even amateur racer would've stuffed it trying to go your pace. That spot where the back of the bike tried to step out on you, you held it, I think a lot of amateur riders would've stuffed it in that spot.
Well done ... you were not on closed roads and not optimized for aero (3d camera for one). I think you could have beat Pogi under optimal conditions 💪🏾
Great job Hank! Those roads without guard rails make my sphincters clench up 😂. Don't see many like that in America. I'm jealous of all the famous roads that are overseas that are packed with cyclists and cars that are super aware of their presence. I'd love to get over there one day to ride, just maybe not as quickly!
There's time to save by dropping that jacket and not running cameras on the bike. At these speeds, both things absolutely slow you down materially. Now that wouldn't take you to the top 10, but you would for sure save several seconds. And I'm surprised you didn't do several runs.
I'd love to see a pro or former pro not from the UK come and decent an open UK decent on our terrible often wet and gritty, potholly roads. Somewhere in the Yorkshire or the lakes down a 25% slope
I hate this video, on open roads everybody should abide by the rules and yet I saw dangerous overtakings and lane invasion. Those kind of behaviour shouldn't be done or even promoted
The overtake was maybe a little bit dicey but the van driver slowed right down to let him pass, there's no problem with using the oncoming lane to gain vision around the corner or reduce your turn angle where you have vision already, it's a technique taught to motorcyclists and people doing advanced driving courses.
Unusually in South Africa I've been lucky enough to ride a mountain pass descent that been used in a pro race. The times on Strava warp the brain a bit.
80th ish still means that you were faster or at worst as fast as the slower half of the peleton. Surely the top of the leaderboard is populated pretty much only by TdF athletes. Even assuming many TdF riders don't upload publicly to Strava, this is still pretty fast for open roads. The amount of time you loose on not being able to take both lanes while cornering is massive. You have to brake more before, you are slower throughout the curve and you'll take longer accelerating back up (which might be cut short by the next curve). Probably ⅔ or more of you time loss comes from that.
4:07 I see you are using the insta 360, would be great if you added the stats especially speed. This can be done by connecting to Garmin or using the insta 360 GPS remote
