Riding at a Downhill bike park in Ontario, Canada.
How is my riding? Do not hold back on criticism.
byu/MacMountain88 inMTB
by MacMountain88
Riding at a Downhill bike park in Ontario, Canada.
How is my riding? Do not hold back on criticism.
byu/MacMountain88 inMTB
by MacMountain88
12 Comments
Well you turned off the actual trail onto a maintenance road.
Nice bike!
New rider? You are slicing through turns rather than attacking the berm or lip and you don’t lean into the corners so a lot of momentum is lost because you brake at every entry.
I’m also basing this on the camera angle but you are seated the whole time? If you have a dropper post you should be dropped fully on the descent and standing so you can control the bike better and go faster.
Looks like fun to me
As others have mentioned you’re not in the berm but kinda next to it. Try leaning the bike under you and riding around the lip of the berm instead of turning next to it. It’ll be scary because all you’re thinking is that you’ll ride right off the berm but in reality you’re not.
your riding is alright. Are you a new rider?
You can definitely work on turning corners. In this video you are slowing down way, way more than necessary and you just rolled through the turn. Some things to work on is to lock out the arm that is the direction you are turning (If you are turning right then lock out your right arm and if you are turning left lock out your left arm) and then keep the other arm bent so you can lean your bike the way you are turning. Also try to bend your knees a bit when you do that. This makes turning way easier. If you want to carry speed through a turn don’t break as much and kind of pump the berm as you go into it, around the middle of it, and out of it so you can carry more speed through it. Its okay to break before the turn to get at the right speed but never break in the middle of the turn because if you do that and accidentally lock up your back wheel the bike can slide under you and you can tip over.
Another tip is when you break NEVER lock up the back wheel. When I was listening to the breaks in the video I could hear the back wheel lock up a couple of times, this may sound crazy but when you lock up your back wheel it actually takes longer to stop or slow down and it definitely makes it more risky to do so. This is because if you lock up your back break you lose a ton of friction on your back wheel so you just keep sliding and that can one, wear out your knobs on your tires and two, cause you to crash and you can get really hurt from that. I have seen a guy break his shoulder from that.
This might also sound crazy but it is actually harder to ride slower. When you are going fast your suspension does all the work for you and you can carry more speed through turns, trails, and jumps! It can be scary at first but once you get comfortable with it, it’ll 100% be worth it. Just try and get to know your bike and know how it works. This is one reason you should also get a bike with FOX suspension (Preferably FOX 38 which is what I run) and a coil shock. My bike, The 2024 Rocky Mountain Slayer uses a coil shock with Rocky Mountain’s Smoothlink suspension platform, and runs FOX 38 forks. I really recommend that bike it is super nice, check it out.
Practice turning and not locking up your break until you are comfortable with that and you’ll get faster and it will be a lot more fun to ride. Keep shredding dude, you’ll get the hang of it!
3rd person is best for giving advice but. My best advice for new riders.
LOOK UP, i can’t tell if you are doing this, but as you approach a corner, do not fixate on the beginning. Once you are in the corner, you should already be looking at the exit of it.
Next, pedals flat always.
For your body position, there is attack and neutral. Neutral is just comfortable, tall, and easy to maintain over long times. Attack you are low on the bike for max maeuverability. In attack position You want to focus on elbows up (as if you are performing a bench press or a wide stance pushup) and butt back. It can help to think about keeping your chin over your stem.
It is difficult to gove advice to novice riders since of course just about everything can be improved, and the teaching cornering technique is really hard even in person.
I can absolutely recommend having a few beginner and intermediate lessons. I have had coaching throughout the first 5 years of my mountain biking. In the last about year and a half, I’ve quit my team since I wasn’t getting much advancement from it anymore. I’d say it made me much better overall, though.
Your squiggly. Pick a line and ride it. Plenty of great and basic material in riding lines into and through corners. Read/watch them.
You are looking 3-5’ in front of you. Stretch your view out. When you enter the berm, roll your eyes through the corner to where you want to exit, (eyes will have caught the apex). Everything on that bike will follow your eyes. That is where a chunk of speed lies. Master that and you will get quicker and more comfortable.
Figure out your balance on the bike and just keep riding and you will be fast before you know it!
Cornering needs a combination of 1) leaning the bike like 2-3x further than you are and 2) the confidence to hit the turns and let the bike tires do their thing.
Practices taking turns at a comfortable speed, but “pushing” the bike into the corner and fully extending your elbow on the inside corner, using the bar to lean the bike. Get comfortable with separating the acts of leaning and turning.
I wish my area had some nice trails like this where you get that feel of the outdoors and you’re off-road but you can take an easy ride. Don’t get me wrong. I like getting banged up. That’s why I’m in the sport. But some days I would just like to take a nice nature trail ride. In my area. There’s nothing like that all of the mountain bike trails. Even the ones labeled green are littered with giant rocks, steep drop-offs, then steep climbs and tree roots and limbs everywhere. You could never just flow through it like this guy is just riding casually. With nice winding turns for a relaxing ride like this. Half of the time when I turn on my local trails I have to lock up my front brakes and lift my back wheel off the ground just to make the turn because it’s so tight. It’s good when you’re in the mood for that. But sometimes it’d be nice just to take a chillaxing ride in an off-road environment
Nice Sight! I’d say learning to enter berms with speed and not braking in them would help but that comes with practice! Best I would say is just keep riding as much as you can and ride that trail until you master it.
That’s my truck at the bottom of the hill! blue cap on black.
More experience is the only thing that’ll help you, stay safe and keep riding. You’ll gradually get faster as your fear goes away.