Hey there, ive been into MTB for about a year. I just took my first big spill on this drop (no big damage other than a broken tooth and some cuts and scrapes) and want to know what i could have done to avoid this. Is my fork rebound too slow or not enough air? Did i not lean back enough? Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
by TheMcRican
25 Comments
Nailed it
You are sitting too far back. You need to be more in an attack position, absorbing the changes of the terrain by accompanying movements of the arms. But from sitting so far back you don’t see the terrain issue in time to handle it.
You either need to be going faster or really push the bike forward when you’re coming up to the drop … or both, probably. As it is, you were pretty stiff coming in, gravity pulled your front end down too quickly, and pulled all of your weight with it, which made you nosedive
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJJAW0iNhUY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJJAW0iNhUY) this is a great video, as is the rest of the series
more speed and stay centered on bike. This was like mr bean steering the car from the roof with a broomstick. Front wheel had zero weight or control.
That looks like a look of front brake right after going off the drop. Practice manuals for that kind of situation; they help a lot.
MORE SPEED
take in person lessons. on reddit you get a lot of advice that either doesn’t pertain because people aren’t standing there and are trying to guess from a shitty video, or people that have no idea how to coach, or have no idea how to ride.
from what little I can tell from the video, you need to learn body position, and probably should have been going faster.
You let the wheel turn 90 degrees on you. You look pretty far back which is fine for a drop but doesn’t give you the greatest control on your steering.
I frame by frame paused this and as best I can tell is your wheel catches the edge of a rock and turns hard, once the wheel snaps like that you’re a passenger so you need to catch it beforehand. Best way to do that is to see it coming and take the smoothest line. Second best is to try and correct it immediately.
Maybe I’m wrong on the rock thing but that’s how it looks on my phone.
You may have also just let the weight transfer buck you forward which kinda looks like my next guess. If that’s the case you need to lift or power over the lip as your rear crests. If you’re dropping the front over an obstacle and then letting the rear run into it you’ll buck forward. Kind of like casing a jump.
No damage just a broken tooth….. My dude, that is certainly damage…. And permanent. But I like the spirit.
For advice youre asking, I’m still fairly new but off the top of the head you needed, speed, a centered/balanced stance, to not lean forward. Otherwise that’s a sick little line I’d love to ride one day.
Sitting back too far you need to be in a power stance more on top of the bike. Notice that when your front tire goes over the drop your arms are already fully extended, it’s almost like some has a hold of your wrists and is yanking you down over the drop. If you were in a strong stance over the bike, with your arms bent, then you can extend your arms to ‘shove’ your front tire down over the drop rather than having your body weight yanked over the edge. Curbs are an easy place to practice this- you start to notice a major difference between just riding over the curb down into the street vs shoving your front tire hard down onto the road
Way more speed and do NOT pull up on the bars, punch the bars *forward*. This causes the bike to speed up just as the front tire loses contact with the ground. This minimizes the time between the front and rear tires leaving the ground.
Remember, as soon as the front tire is in the air gravity starts pulling it down, with the rear tire still on the drop this causes rotation, rotation launches you over the bars.
Oh, and are you sitting down?! (It’s hard to tell on my potato phone).
1) Get knee pads.
2) Your ass hit the rear tire the moment your front tire dropped. Your bike stopped, but your body kept going.
3) This looks like a sketchy location and conditions to be learning drop technique.
Did you sit on the tire? Looks like that made the impact worse than it would have been, but I would say you either needed to attack it a little faster so you don’t have to throw your weight back so far, or change the approach entirely and try to get your front wheel down as quick as possible by positioning your body slightly forward and then as your front wheel crests the edge of the drop off you push the bike forward and down. This works when going slow over smaller drops like this and going faster on larger drops.
Going for the wheelie method can work but has a risk if you mistime it of really throwing you forward like this. You didn’t fully wheelie, but putting your weight all the way back has a similar effect and gives little control over the bike if anything goes wrong.
More speed
Looks like you’re not really committed and going at it really defensively, slow and leaning back. A little more speed and popping off the drop instead of rolling off it would have had you in the clear.
Something I learned while I was a skateboarder in my early teens is you either full send and steez it, or eat shit, and hopefully not get injured too much.
Seems like you fell off, dont do that
The only issue here is speed. When you’re going slow and you hit a bump you lose a big percentage of your momentum and that’s what happened here. Your front tire just dug in and turned. If you go faster it’ll stay straight and ride out
Great job with full face helmet, consider neck braces if you going to yolo it fresh to the sport.
I would recommend starting on less technical terrain while you get old Betsy under control.
I’d add that working out your upper body makes a huge difference in stability and control.
A year? this honestly looks like the first time you’ve ever been on a mountain bike.
Leaning back is the exact opposite of what to do on a feature like this.
Just stand up in an attack position in the center of the bike and ride off. make sure your arms and legs are only slightly bent so you have room to absorb any bumps and the landing.
You can’t sit while riding this.
Did your butt touch the rear wheel? That would at like rear braking and would launch you forward just like that.
Holy shit I just snorted I laughed so hard lol. Did you drive over a dog toy!
My advice: get a proper helmet. See: full face
And pay attention to where you’re putting your front tire. There are rocks you could have rolled right down but you chose to put it in a hole instead.
Sorry but I feel like everyone is being too nice.
You have no body bike seperation. You look like you are holding on for dear life. The bike is in control, not you.
I am surprised you are not more injured from that and thankful for you that you only broke a tooth!
Please look into some in person coaching and skills development, as no comment can correct the many technical errors you made.
This seems harsh, but I assure you this comes from a place of love and a desire to not see you get seriously hurt.Â