Don’t Make These Common Climbing Mistakes | MTB Skills

Climbing isn’t particularly anyone’s favourite thing to do on a bike, but you’ve got to get up to get down. Be it a long, winding endurance climb or an arduous, steep and loose surface, every climb is unique and poses an interesting set of challenges to overcome. So, if you find yourself struggling to stay on the bike the whole way up the climb, we’ve got a series of pointers that may help you figure out why you’re climbing wrong!

⏱ Timestamps ⏱
0:00 – Intro
0:23 – Wrong Gear!
1:12 – Gear Crunching
2:17 – Riding Too Fast!
2:58 – Saddle Height
4:08 – Line Choice
5:07 – Body Positioning

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Do you struggle up any climb in particular? Which of these tips do you think might help you our the most? let us know in the comments 👇

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climbing well it’s a big part of mountain biking it’s almost unavoidable unless you’re one of those Lucky Ducks who lives near a lift access or cable car orientated venue then unfortunately you’re gonna have to do a bit of climbing and yet sadly we all have to do it so much we still see the odd mistake so here’s a few mistakes that I see out on the trails a little too often and how to fix them oh my gosh right okay this first one it seems a little bit of an obvious one but it’s being in the right gear for the right type of crime now it’s kind of a given saying that the harder the climb or the steeper the climb the easier the gear you’re going to need to be in now this is because if you are pushing a really hard gear up a really Steep Hill you are going to absolutely Tire yourself out there’s also the chance you could do some damage to your drivetrain on top of that if you’re in a really hard gear and it’s particularly loose like it is here then you’re more than likely to wheel swings there’s a lot of torque going through that back wheel so it’s just gonna you know not grip basically and spin away so if you are in an easier gear you can just put a nice steady Cadence in and steadily spin up not too easy though mine because then you’ve got that same problem a real high Cadence it’s going to put a high wheel spin action going as well this next one goes hand in hand with the first one it’s all that crunching gears now crunching is what do we mean by this have you ever heard that horrendous sound from your drivetrain as you shift multiple gears at the same time well essentially what that is your drivetrain saying hey please don’t do that to me you’re not a very nice person and I don’t like it what you want to try and do is preempt the gear you need to be in so this little section of uphill I’ve got here it’s fairly smooth and it comes up like a rocky kick now when I’m riding up I want to be in the right gear before I get to this section so I’m going to shift up the cassette into an easier gear before I get to it rather than on the section because that extra tension that goes on the pedals when you’re really putting them under load is much much harder to change gear in so you preempt look ahead select the right gear and then hopefully you should be able to spin up with ease okay so I’m in fourth gear I’m going to shift up a single gear at a time I’m up into second lit and I can spin up here nice and easy no crunching necessary now when it comes to the climbs you might think sprinting to the top is a good idea and it may well seem at the time but actually in reality it is going to ruin you for the long run and potentially for the most fun part the descents yes rain it in a bit although it seems like a good idea to beat all your buddies it’s not in the long run I promise however if you’re of the XC persuasion like I do like to be now and again you might be out smashing Hills it’s almost a prerequisite however take a leaf out of my cameraman Joey’s books don’t even bother smashing Hills never just chill up them all the time you know it’s supposed to be a social ride chat with your buddies catch up have a good natter and you know what just enjoy the ride saddle height this one is crucial when it comes to climbing and is in all too often mistake that I see people Saddles way too high now this is a great example actually because I’m borrowing this bike it’s an extra large and it has got a humongous seat post on it’s a 200 mil dropper and I’ve even got it slammed all the way down and it is too high for me when I pedal this you can actually see my hips rocking left out and I can actually barely do a full proper pedal stick now if I was to have this climbing and not drop it down a little bit I wouldn’t be able to get a sufficient power through the pedals I wouldn’t be able to shift my body weight around easily and I wouldn’t be able to get the right sort of position on the bike that would be comfortable for me to be able to do a climb properly and sort of sustainably if you like for a long period of time so to get the right saddle height your leg should never be fully straight or fully locked out on the knee joint if you find that you are tippy-toed your knee is locked out or your leg is completely locked out then you need to drop the saddle down you should have the ball of your foot on the pedal and an Ever such slight Bend in your knee to avoid any stress being put on the joints as well line Choice going uphill is actually just as crucial as line Choice going downhill because taking the wrong line can mean having to get off and do a walk of shame take this section here for example now there’s two lines up here there’s a straight line straight up the inside there or there is an outside wiggler longer line however the outside line is way smoother and a lot less loose so you’ve got a choice to make sure you say you can try and tackle the ever so slightly faster inside line more than likely gonna get thrown off balance lose traction or what I would always recommend is look for the line of most reliability yes it’s a bit of a saying I just made it up but what I mean by that is it actually you can rely on it to almost make it up cleanly every time so I know that coming around the outside here I’m going to have traction all the way it’s a smoother line so I can actually pick my way through it easier and the success rate of actually getting to the top is far higher body position also plays a crucial part when it comes to climbing so if your body position is all out of shape or you’re not in the right position which can tie into saddle height then it’s going to set you up poorly to be able to actually get up a climb so when you are riding uphill should we say your body’s position can vary hugely depending whether the saddle is actually up or down with the gradient or the terrain that you’re riding over so take this corner here for example as I come into it I’m sitting down uh sort of Fairly neutral position butt planted on the back of the saddle to give me a nice bit of grip as it steepens you’ll see that I shift my body weight forwards to stop the front end picking up but actually then it gets really technical so if I head up I’m always looking ahead or like at the next obstacle that I need to aim for I drop my saddle so that I can get up up on the stand up on the pedals shift my weight around easier so I can always get a nice pedal stroke and traction on the back wheel so it never wheel spins and I can then pick my way through the rocks and get up there oh my Lord that’s a whole lot of climbing for this video so there we go six kind of common errors and mistakes that you might see other people make out on the trail maybe you make them yourself I hope not but if you do hopefully I’ve helped you remedy them should we say look if there are any more or any more kind of climbing videos you would like to see do let me know in the comments down below as always thank you for watching everyone drop us a little uh like And subscribe help support the channel makes us bring you amazing videos all the time but for now I’m out of it see everyone