Just finished my first week of mountain biking (I bought a "cheap" Specialized Rockhopper bike), went out to my local mountain bike park 4 times. I was going into this expecting the climbing bits to be the struggle and the downhill to be the fun part, but my experience has been the complete opposite!
Going up hill isn't so bad, the gearing of the bike is so low it's kinda relaxing to slowly crawl my way up and feels really fun. I struggle with obsctacles, like if I have to climb over a bunch of tree roots or big rocks in the ground that's quite difficult for me to hold steady, but it's low speed so if I start to stumble it's not a big deal to put my foot down. I think I could probably climb all day on a relatively smooth dirt track and feel fine, though it wouldn't be very fast.
Going downhill however is so tough. I watched a few videos on youtube about proper technique, which all more or less said to keep the pedals level and get off the seat and stand, using your limbs as suspension and letting the bike move while keeping your body stable. However when I try this, my legs feel like they immediately catch on fire and I can only hold it for maybe 20-30 seconds before I have to sit down. If i keep one foot down and the other foot up it's much more comfortable, but of course that hurts my ground clearance.
Any tips for the downhill bit? I'm almost certain I have the technique of standing up and balancing on level pedals wrong, but unfortunately I have nobody to film my form lol. Hopefully my description of burning front thighs helps.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZdItgWSv4I Here is the trail I've been doing a bunch (Did 3 laps today) if you're curious about the conditions. It's not my video, but looks like this guy just uploaded it today so the conditions are probably exactly the same as what I was riding.
by crwdbull