Ride report
4
min read
What 48 hairpins do to your left hand
We counted the clutch pulls on one Stelvio descent. The answer is why we now ride the first week of the season with the levers adjusted in.
Noor rode sweep on the first 48 of the season and counted. Two hundred and eleven clutch pulls between the summit and Trafoi. That is a pull every 70 metres, for forty minutes, on a cold morning.
Why it matters
By bend 20, most riders are gripping harder than they think. They run wide, and they blame the bike. It is almost always the hand.
What we changed
We now set every lever in by two clicks before a pass day, and at the top of the Stelvio the briefing is one sentence long: shake out your left hand. It sounds like nothing. It takes the run wide out of bend 12.
Written by
Noor Haddad
Sweep and support van
Ride this road
48
One road, one morning.