Intense Downgrade Experience for Trainee

There are ABS which operate too fast for a human to physically keep the wheel turning. You take the service brake to the floor and leave it there. There will be a whole lot of buzzing and maybe alarms but you will have some form of steering and so on.

There are two forms of braking on the mountain you can call it snub but most call it stab which was being correctly used more or less. The other form is thermal braking where you put on just enough application to gain just enough speed control and bleed off the gain in temperature with airflow theoratically you can do this a while. Particularly if you have snow or rain to help cool it. At some point it will reach thermal overload and begin to fade, glaze etc and you will smoke. (Beyond it's ability to stop now, leave off them and drift while maintaining air flow between pads and drums. never stopping for about two hours or so until they cool that means about 30 to 35 with 4 ways on even when it's flat)

I prefer to use jacobs all the way down and no braking whatsoever, ensuring it's cold and ready for action when you really need it.

 

You would have loved the old Allegheny eastbound on the PA Pike in ice. Come in rain on the west end come out on top of a downgrade winding on ice. SURPRISE!

I am not sure if they changed the geometry or approaches to that tube in some way in the last few years or so.