When To Get Low – Practice Like a Pro #64

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THIS EPISODE:
Generally speaking, we aim to ride tall in order to conserve energy, stay relaxed, and maintain access to as much arm and leg travel as possible. However, there are a few scenarios in which we will find ourselves getting low on the bike!

Upon entering a steep descent
Through a steep descent
During an off-camber turn

Watch the video to learn why!
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ABOUT SIMON LAWTON
Following his own Pro Downhill mountain bike racing career, Simon Lawton (Owner and Founder) has spent the last 25 years analyzing the top riders in the world to understand the tiniest details that contribute to their greatest successes, and also any weaknesses that are holding them back. With an exceptional understanding of kinesiology, Simon has developed his own teaching curriculum that explains the incredible relationship between human and machine. He has trained top pro mountain bike racers across the world, and his foundational techniques apply equally to beginner riders. His on-bike drills allow you to break down complex skills on the bike and develop correct techniques.
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ABOUT LINNEA ROOKE
Linnea has been racing locally in the pro category, but prior to Fluidride, she had almost no formal training and was held back by major gaps in her technique. While she was able to carry speed well on straight downhills and high-bermed turns, she lacked foundational cornering skills and was timid in the air. In Feb 2020, she met up with Fluidride to help with a filming trip in Baja, and was fascinated by Simon’s teaching methods. Wanting to be part of this mission, she left her career in healthcare in July 2020 to officially join the Fluidride team as COO. We started filming this series to document her journey of cleaning up bad habits, adding new skills to her toolkit, and chasing her dream of riding with style.

Linnea is riding an Evil Following V3! https://www.evil-bikes.com/collection…

Are you ready to ride bikes today So this morning I figured we’d talk just for a few minutes about stance we’ve been kind of getting into the body position that sort of thing and so the thing I wanted to address this question I get a lot is when do we try to get low

On the bicycle like when is it that we should keep our Center of Mass low I often talk about keeping Senator Maslow like when we’re jumping in terms of just thinking about being grounded in our feet but what we’re going to actually talk about today is the actual position

Of our upper body and our and our legs relative to the bicycle in three certain circumstances okay right so we’re going to talk a little bit about moving into descents being honesty percent and being in an off camera turn so let’s take a look at all three

All right I don’t know if this is going to really be possible but we’re going to try this Renee are you ready to ride bikes today um might need more protective gear for this you might this is good this is a good spot to warm up you think you can get on

Your bike here sure let’s give it a try take the elevator to the top the place to start they’re almost vertical do I have the brakes do you I got brakes and you got brakes and you can step on the pedals too see if it works don’t be scared

So now you can just step on your right foot on that pedal I think we’ll see what happens I want to relate this to some experience in my life but I I don’t think [Laughter] you might all right you like your riding position there most okay so where would you be on your

Bike can you can you find a position here I’m really far back you’re really far back right so look at can you look up so right here you’d be really low right yes I mean I don’t know if this is a position you’ll actually get when you’re

Right even if I straighten my legs I’m really low you’re really low yeah so this is a good example here because your bike has moved forward in front of you you’re you know your hips are trying to maintain their stance over the bottom bracket but the bottom bracket super far

Back compared to the bicycle right so you’re you end up looking very very low but really even with a tall stance in your legs you’re ending up low but you’re not trying to be low here right yeah can you bend your knees here a little bit a little bit not very much

Right because you actually need the clearance I have almost no room here yeah so you need the clearance there so it’s just kind of interesting how we can look low in certain circumstances but you’re not necessarily trying to be low right so now let’s actually practice writing down this because I think it’s

Going to be a lot easier than doing this I don’t know if I’ve ever actually written down this oh that is actually looks worse from the top nice one of the other places that we get tend to get to move forward is when we’re moving into a section right so you’re

Moving into the through this attack position at the top of the section so not only are we are we like looking relatively low kind of relative to the bike as we go down something steep again because the bottom bracket has changed in location to the rider you know on the

Bicycle so the bottom bracket is now kind of behind the saddle which has us kind of outstretched and has this kind of low but we’re also getting this as we move into the section right so as we move in we’re kind of starting in a tall position here and we’re moving through

Our attack position so momentarily on the top here we’re low and then as soon as we drop in we’re low for a different reason because of now our arms are have moved forward and this is putting us into position where we’re low again relative to the bike so we actually get

Two low moments I like that going down here moving in and then also as we’re moving through if you’re enjoying these lessons we have a full online school at fluidrideonline.com All right we got a new off-camber turn for you today so we’re going to give this a try here coming through so standing on definitely a little bit of a bank here and the idea here is on off camber is that we need to drive our traction points in hill right so we’re

Going to be swinging that right hip out slightly so for you being left foot forward this will be your back foot turn that outside hip will be swinging out as you come through and down here into a position kind of like this and this is the reason that we get low here is

Because we’re driving this outside knee forward and there’s actually some twisting and so that rotation is going to basically mean that my body is lowering it’s going to make me look quite low going through off camera turn and this is kind of cool because on an off camera turn we’re really

Trying to get the tires to dig into the ground and so we want a low Center of mass but again we’re not really thinking about get low and twist we’re thinking about driving forward creating some rotation and all those things are conspiring to help us get low so what we

Find in all these situations is the movement that we have to make is the actually the thing that’s getting us low giving us a low Center of mass and really helping us through all three of these situations right so we’re not trying to get low I feel like there should be a good

Soundtrack right now we’re not trying to get low but it’s a byproduct of correct body position and driving your knees forward and twisting exactly so so don’t don’t even worry about it when you come through just make a good off camera turn and uh we’ll see we’ll see what happens all right nice

This is return yeah it almost felt a little bit of drift you got a lot of drifts look at this first thing in the morning beautiful pnw loam it is great dirt right now Beauty let’s do another lap through ah it was wicked that was sweet I went

For a little extra drift wow look at those yeah like I like to say don’t be Thrifty get drifty love it All right so here we’ve got a we’re opening up the turn a little bit so we had a cool turn there it was working but it’s just a very quick moment so here we want to create a little situation where she’s having to hold a little bit more in this

Off camber so we’ve set it up here so she can come in nice and fast and she’s going to be making an off-camera turn up this hill all right so yeah so here in this off Camp return it’s a pretty short turn so there’s just a moment where you’re kind

Of driving forward obviously we’ve worked on off-camp returns a lot in the past so we have a lot of good examples there as well of kind of like interns where you have to trap a little more where you’re down and you’re kind of holding the bike down through the turn a

Little bit longer but this is one of those situations again because of the hip rotation looking in hill where I want to go all these things conspire to bring the height of my head down and bring my body a little bit lower right and we have the same thing on a steep

Descent bikes out in front of us so arms are extended which makes us feel pretty low kind of over the back tire or over the seat or wherever we are in relation to the bicycle we had our attack position moving through into a steep descent moving

Through kind of with some speed to allow ourselves to create enough elbow Bend to deal with the upcoming descent right so we’re moving into this position here and again looks like we’re pretty low but that really important takeaway here is that we’re not coming towards something

And thinking okay I need to get low and then rotate because those two things don’t actually work so well together it’s them rotating and getting that gets us low we don’t want to think about trying to get low and then trying to rotate it’s just not going to work for

Its deep descent we’re not thinking about just coming into this deep descent low we’re coming in tall we’re moving through our attack position letting the bike roll into this deep descent and now we’re in this position where we’re staying balanced over the bottom bracket so again we’re not thinking Get Low

We’re just ending up there yeah all kind of makes sense yeah well and what’s cool about all of this technique is that it feels so light and effortless when you do it correctly because you’re not muscling it around you’re not squatting you’re not hinging you’re not pulling or

Pushing exactly these are all just moments in time and we’re staying in this Dynamic State and we’re starting in our strongest position here just in a standing posture right we’re always returning to the standing posture but we’re not trying to make a shape and hold it we’re just moving through these

Various spaces momentarily thanks so much you’re welcome foreign