[joyj2nd]

I am not into racing/professional cycling. But two honest questions:

1. Some positions look super forced. Do cyclists really hold their body in this position?

2. When it is going down steep my major concern is to be TOO fast, not too slow. I mean what kind of speed to they have on they way down?

In fact, when I was in my mid teens, I cycled over this mountain in France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Ventoux

Once you are at the apex, it is down for like 20km. Your biggest worries will be your breaks. We were a group of youngster and some had back pedal brakes. Most of them went up in smoke. They had to use a rope to drag a small tree behind the bike as a way to slow motion in the end. No kidding.

[newsclues]

Disc brakes on bikes makes stopping more effective that a stick on a rope

[joyj2nd]

I mean, you drag a small tree beyond you to slow your speed. If your back pedal braked has become fully dysfunctional and your consumer grade front wheel cantilever brakes is all you have left for a 20km descent, good luck!

[joyj2nd]

This was a while ago. As far as I remember there was no bike shop on the mountain. Also doubt it would be easy to add a disk brake on a bike that has a back pedal brake.