My usual morning routine usually involves a cup of terrible instant coffee and some doom scrolling of various social media channels. Today however I didn’t need the caffeine injection as a new video appeared on SAFA Brian’s YouTube channel overnight of Tom Pidcock flying down the Tuna Canyon descent in Los Angeles. It’s such spicy viewing that my coffee went untouched for fear of reaching a new max heart rate.
Pidcock is already well known as a fantastic descender, perhaps the best in the peloton following his victory on stage 12 of the Tour last year, all set up by a breathtaking descent of the Col du Galibier . While his latest downhill escapade isn’t under race conditions this time, it’s certainly at race pace.
The Tuna Canyon descent is a one way road (fortunately, for safety reasons) to the west of Santa Monica, CA, that, according to the Strava segment, drops 396m in 4.33km. The average gradient is -9.1%, but according to the on-screen telemetry it hits -16% in places. Windy, narrow, technical, and with broken tarmac, it’s a remarkable piece of bike handling to watch.
At just after the minute mark, a right-hander causes Pidcock’s rear wheel to skip out, sending my heart rate through the roof, goodness knows what it did for his. The slide is quickly caught by the Briton, though, before carrying on undeterred. The only reaction comes in the form of a shout of ‘Oil’, which is a term gleaned from the British road racing scene, […]
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