You could replace about half of the advice in this video with a simple cue: "Heavy feet, light hands." In other words, carry your weight with your legs through the pedals rather than through your arms and the bars. Not only does that mean you're doing the work with the stronger muscles, it also means that your weight *has* to be centered over your bottom bracket, whatever the condition or pitch. That's going to be the best starting position everywhere (add dynamic moves like a bike shove over a drop from that starting point). If you focus on keeping your weight on your feet, you'll automatically adjust your position forward and back relative to the bike as the grade goes up and down; indeed, you'll even be in the best position on a compression, leading into a jump, braking hard (because you have to move low and back to carry braking force through the feet, with dropped heels as a bonus), going through a berm, etc. If you are heavy in the feet in a turn, you'll tend to drift smoothly when traction breaks loose, since you're weighting the wheels pretty evenly. If you land from a drop or a jump into your feet, you'll tend to have smoother landings. Heavy feet, light hands everywhere; it's a cue you can feel that adjusts your body position to pretty much everything.
I was practicing this yesterday just looking for steepest terrain I could find. The trails by me (Illinois/Wisconsin) aren't steep enough so I look for random stuff at parks/forest preserves. Finding random stuff to ride is actually more fun than doing the same trails over and over.
Dude I live in Wisconsin and completley agree with you- the bushwhacking it’s the best! You should go up to Madison (quarry ridge) and get some sweet tech! abundant steep chutes and tech and a bunch of jumps!
1:25 One of the best changes I made was increasing my “stack” height. As I had no more space on the steerer tube for spacers, thank you LBS for cutting it short, I got a 50mm rise Burgtek bar. I went from walking almost everything to just charging through it all on the first day out. I am sure a lot of this is mental, my brain saying hey I shouldn’t be lower than by butt, but it has been so confidence inspiring for me that I am in top 10’s for sections I was in the last 10.
The video is great, and the explanations of the techniques are detailed. My issue is talking a lot about speed, but every shot is in slow mo. It would be nice to have shots at regular speed as well to get a sense of how fast you should actually go.
For anyone interested - the trails in this video are at Tirpentwys, Pontypool. Pop by and say hi, we're free! (The trails ridden are Dasher, Zig Zag and Bob More Gnarley)
My local terrain here in Mexico is all extremely steep, and if I can pass on two things: - the importance of upper body strength. You need to have strong pecs, triceps and shoulders to withstand the forces. - you need good brakes. I had all sorts of problems with every model until I went to 203/203 4 pots all around Maguras - fit the biggest dropper you possibly can: you'd benefit from a lot of seat clearance
I found that magura mt4 are good enough for my hardtail 120mm travel on different types of terrain (from asphalt to loose gravel, to mud) but the most important thing were the tires. Also, rotors make a difference. I 'baked' them on a long road descend with intermitent brakes from 60 to 25km/h. Ventilated disks would hah been nice to have in that situation On my all mountain bike I have xt m8120 with 203mm with ceramic brakepads and they are absolutely amazing.
Exercising my upper body strength is indeed something that I really, really need to do. The more I explore my local trails, the more steep stuff I find and try to ride and the more I see myself stopping mid-way and walking the rest of the trail because I get fatigued too quickly keeping my weight distributed on steep stuff. Especially when carrying a backpack.
@@floatinginfutility4020 On uphill or downhill? On uphill, a gripier set of tires helps a lot with traction and it helps you mitigate small mistakes. Also, if you find yourself riding uphill a lot, consider lowering the nose of the saddle by a few degrees in order to help you stay put when things go steep. The sum of downward forces should always be on the line between the tires, as close to the middle as possible. On the downhill side, this part is way more demanding, and a lot of upper body strength will help. If you get fatigue from the raugh terrain, consider a slighty more flexible handlebars or fluffier grips.
You guys should make a series similar to how to bike where you get into the specifics and even the science of how to do things better and understand why
Id like to see an in depth analysis from videos of a rider on long steep techy trails. Because I am now riding with better riders than me, I feel out of my depth. Holding on for dear life and walking down a trail isn't the best 😅 Practice makes perfect though... Staying loose and exaggerating your body movements helped me get comfortable riding tech, its just the speed side I'm having trouble with. He's not my friend yet but im confident we'll become close with another. 😁
There’s this one hill in my area and you hardly ever see anyone attmpting to walk up it. I feel like evil knievel shredding down there on the daring occasion.
I find its getting into the steep tech scary, anywhere where I cannot see over the edge first and then have the bike drop away from me just makes me freeze which I know is not a good thing. People say speed is your friend but when you get scared all you can do is hit the brakes and then its even harder! The nose pivot is even more scary, been OTB enough to not want to do it again. Also riding an XC rig so geometry wants to put you more weighted to the front.
Let's say he has only 180 and 203... How should should you modulate brakes in steep rocky corners and what rotor setup shoud you use? A) 180F/203R - front modulation B) 203F/180R - front modulation C) 180F/203R - rear modulation D) 203F/180R - rear modulation
BMX's frame and wheels are in general stiffer than the average MTB's. Also, you have more space to move on a BMX and "damp" with your feet. On a MTB you would usualy want to split the inpact on both wheels, with the sum of forces in the middle of line between the wheels (or a little to the front if you have a hardtail).
Depending on the bike and rider's weight, landing back heavy can damage suspension, broke QR axle, pinch flat, broke/bent rim, damage on back triangle and/or its mounting points to the frame. Also, it is easier to lose control in any direction. But, also, ot may be just a harder inpact, easy to manage :D I hope that helps
Great instructional video!!! I was getting tired of all the circus bike competitions. A little too silly for me! Just put short silly skits in the dirt shed where they belong, please. I’m expecting it there. Ha ha!
I love your skills videos, especially amateur versus expert comparisons. Could you do one where an amateur and expert ride the same trail but then you analyse speed, forces etc. section by section to see where the biggest differences are and the most speed being lost to work out what skills need the most work? I think this would really help the majority of the viewers understand their riding.
First off there is no bad wheatear only poor clothing choices. I want to see a show that isn't subserviently to the weather. Flat pedals are under rated and more people should try them before they judge them. PS. Love it so far! Cheers - M
What about steep terrain that includes small drops? Ive been working up to a local feature that looks sort of like a large roller - maybe 30ft high that has two back-to-back 2ft drops halfway down - im stuggling to find the right speed to hit this at, too slow bounces you pretty bad on the second drop right before the real steep part, too fast and i worry about about clearing the second drop but also missing the bottom half of the roller and landing flat. There is about 4ft of rounding lip to the top of second drop before it "rolls" into the last 12ft of very steep downhill. Complete flat at the base of the hill into a gental left hand turn. Any suggestions?
That's why tire manufacturers offer tires that have reinforced sidewalls. Match your tire choice to the terrain. Then you can match the inflation pressure to the terrain.
As someone who rides flats, I can't find something more dangerous than riding steep tech clipped in :)) I saw so many riders not able to bail out while going over the bars of or falling left/right and not being able to recover. I rode clipless on a fiend's bike and for normal riding they are amazing. You can both pull and push (pulling is easier than on flats), jump small stuff eazier snd so on. I got some trecking shoes ( with deep grooves) and they fit perfectly the pins of my flats and i've never lost a pedal on neither my full sus nor on my hardtail.
If you're relying on a clipless cleat to keep you connected to the pedal, you need to do "heavy feet, light hands." If your weight (and pump) are carried through the pedals rather than the bars, you will stay on just fine...and be able to get off should you need to!
"If it's just skidding all the way down it's not the end of the world " You have obviously never put shovel to trail, the technique you should be teaching is do not lock the back brake! When you lock the back brake it doesn't slow you down and you do not have control of the bike. Come on mate help the trail fairies out a bit.
Yeah, skidding wrecks the trail, causes rutting, and then people start riding around the rut, and the cycle starts over in a new location. I love mountain biking but I hate what mountain bikers do to the forest when they skid.
For me, flow is a vacation from tech and vice versa. I only wish I could find a suspension setup that worked excellent at both and not be a happy-medium type of compromise.
@@rider65 Sorry, I thought it was obvious that we all know that. But since most of the trails we ride mix these features, you would have to stop, redo adjustments, and continue. Now let me WISH for something else... how about a setup button like formula 1 cars have on the cockpit, that will change preset settings on the go...
Pretty lousy advice all round. Never have I ever come across someone advocating an endo turn on the trail. I appreciate you say it's an advanced move. I've never seen someone do this on the trail, and it's a strange thing to walk through on a channel like this. Returning to the earlier segment, you don't want weight shifted too far back though, as if you happen to go over a rock or little lip and your ams are fully stretch because your body is far back then you're just going to get pulled forward and bucked off over the bars anyway. I'm always fully off the front brake on anything really steep.
If we didn't ride wet trails in the UK, we wouldn't be able to ride at all! Some trails are definitely worth avoiding in the wet as it will cause excess erosion, but a lot of trails in wetter countries are built with wet weather riding in mind.
I think my local trail is wet all year round here in the UK. Even if its 30c outside it still has mud and puddles. I'd never ride if it was a case of waiting for the trails to dry.
To be honest I enjoy riding the different seasons don’t get me wrong there’s nothing like summer but you gotta embrace the winter. riding it can turn easy trails into beasts,as others have said here in the uk the trails are always wet,I’m up north so there’s no hope lol
What do you prefer more? Flow or Tech? Let us know in the comments! 👇
Much prefer flow but all my local trails are steep and techy so I begrudgingly got good at it.
Both, it really depends on what I’m in the mood for
Both
Hi can you help where can I get a front mud guard like on your bike in the video
Both!!!
You could replace about half of the advice in this video with a simple cue: "Heavy feet, light hands." In other words, carry your weight with your legs through the pedals rather than through your arms and the bars. Not only does that mean you're doing the work with the stronger muscles, it also means that your weight *has* to be centered over your bottom bracket, whatever the condition or pitch. That's going to be the best starting position everywhere (add dynamic moves like a bike shove over a drop from that starting point). If you focus on keeping your weight on your feet, you'll automatically adjust your position forward and back relative to the bike as the grade goes up and down; indeed, you'll even be in the best position on a compression, leading into a jump, braking hard (because you have to move low and back to carry braking force through the feet, with dropped heels as a bonus), going through a berm, etc. If you are heavy in the feet in a turn, you'll tend to drift smoothly when traction breaks loose, since you're weighting the wheels pretty evenly. If you land from a drop or a jump into your feet, you'll tend to have smoother landings. Heavy feet, light hands everywhere; it's a cue you can feel that adjusts your body position to pretty much everything.
Thanks a lot for that tip
I was practicing this yesterday just looking for steepest terrain I could find. The trails by me (Illinois/Wisconsin) aren't steep enough so I look for random stuff at parks/forest preserves. Finding random stuff to ride is actually more fun than doing the same trails over and over.
Oh yeah, the random stuff is where the fun is at. You could even find hidden gems so to speak by exploring around and making an adventure out of it.
I Was In Whistler Sunday With my New Assegai/Assegai Combo AMAZING Did Lots ZERO TIRE issues going Back Saturday 😎
Dude I live in Wisconsin and completley agree with you- the bushwhacking it’s the best! You should go up to Madison (quarry ridge) and get some sweet tech! abundant steep chutes and tech and a bunch of jumps!
Great video! We need more of these “how to’s.”
More to come!
1:25 One of the best changes I made was increasing my “stack” height. As I had no more space on the steerer tube for spacers, thank you LBS for cutting it short, I got a 50mm rise Burgtek bar. I went from walking almost everything to just charging through it all on the first day out. I am sure a lot of this is mental, my brain saying hey I shouldn’t be lower than by butt, but it has been so confidence inspiring for me that I am in top 10’s for sections I was in the last 10.
Awesome to see Rich giving us some great expertise and not overdoing the funnyman stuff.
The video is great, and the explanations of the techniques are detailed. My issue is talking a lot about speed, but every shot is in slow mo. It would be nice to have shots at regular speed as well to get a sense of how fast you should actually go.
For anyone interested - the trails in this video are at Tirpentwys, Pontypool. Pop by and say hi, we're free! (The trails ridden are Dasher, Zig Zag and Bob More Gnarley)
My local terrain here in Mexico is all extremely steep, and if I can pass on two things:
- the importance of upper body strength. You need to have strong pecs, triceps and shoulders to withstand the forces.
- you need good brakes. I had all sorts of problems with every model until I went to 203/203 4 pots all around Maguras
- fit the biggest dropper you possibly can: you'd benefit from a lot of seat clearance
Just squeezing in a few sets of pushups a week, takes no equipment and very little time. And helps alot with MTBing
I found that magura mt4 are good enough for my hardtail 120mm travel on different types of terrain (from asphalt to loose gravel, to mud) but the most important thing were the tires. Also, rotors make a difference. I 'baked' them on a long road descend with intermitent brakes from 60 to 25km/h. Ventilated disks would hah been nice to have in that situation
On my all mountain bike I have xt m8120 with 203mm with ceramic brakepads and they are absolutely amazing.
Exercising my upper body strength is indeed something that I really, really need to do. The more I explore my local trails, the more steep stuff I find and try to ride and the more I see myself stopping mid-way and walking the rest of the trail because I get fatigued too quickly keeping my weight distributed on steep stuff. Especially when carrying a backpack.
@@floatinginfutility4020 On uphill or downhill?
On uphill, a gripier set of tires helps a lot with traction and it helps you mitigate small mistakes. Also, if you find yourself riding uphill a lot, consider lowering the nose of the saddle by a few degrees in order to help you stay put when things go steep. The sum of downward forces should always be on the line between the tires, as close to the middle as possible.
On the downhill side, this part is way more demanding, and a lot of upper body strength will help. If you get fatigue from the raugh terrain, consider a slighty more flexible handlebars or fluffier grips.
You guys should make a series similar to how to bike where you get into the specifics and even the science of how to do things better and understand why
These guys really have their content pattern locked in. We're almost back to the mixed wheelset video.
This is golden 😂😂😂
The skill and technique gets even more involved when on a hardtail taking on such terrain.
Summer is the best week of the year in UK
Come to Schwäbische Alb, home of Magura, to ride steep stuff with a lot of opportunities for Endo Turns.
Id like to see an in depth analysis from videos of a rider on long steep techy trails. Because I am now riding with better riders than me, I feel out of my depth. Holding on for dear life and walking down a trail isn't the best 😅
Practice makes perfect though...
Staying loose and exaggerating your body movements helped me get comfortable riding tech, its just the speed side I'm having trouble with. He's not my friend yet but im confident we'll become close with another. 😁
There’s this one hill in my area and you hardly ever see anyone attmpting to walk up it. I feel like evil knievel shredding down there on the daring occasion.
BIG HELP! 😎💯
Happy to hear it! 🔥🤘
Another awesome video and tutorial 👌🏻👊🏼
Glad you liked it! 🤙
Love steep features! 😝
Flow every day of the week. 🤙🏻
Good stuff, thanks!
Oakford bike park Dorset. If anyone wants to practice steep features, that’s the place. Also has some not steep really fun lines and a up lift ! 🎉
Nice tips
I find its getting into the steep tech scary, anywhere where I cannot see over the edge first and then have the bike drop away from me just makes me freeze which I know is not a good thing. People say speed is your friend but when you get scared all you can do is hit the brakes and then its even harder! The nose pivot is even more scary, been OTB enough to not want to do it again. Also riding an XC rig so geometry wants to put you more weighted to the front.
Let's say he has only 180 and 203...
How should should you modulate brakes in steep rocky corners and what rotor setup shoud you use?
A) 180F/203R - front modulation
B) 203F/180R - front modulation
C) 180F/203R - rear modulation
D) 203F/180R - rear modulation
Please do a vid on landing really back heavy on flat and impact on bike.
Taking from how bmx'ers land to mtb.
BMX's frame and wheels are in general stiffer than the average MTB's.
Also, you have more space to move on a BMX and "damp" with your feet.
On a MTB you would usualy want to split the inpact on both wheels, with the sum of forces in the middle of line between the wheels (or a little to the front if you have a hardtail).
Depending on the bike and rider's weight, landing back heavy can damage suspension, broke QR axle, pinch flat, broke/bent rim, damage on back triangle and/or its mounting points to the frame.
Also, it is easier to lose control in any direction.
But, also, ot may be just a harder inpact, easy to manage :D
I hope that helps
Very good.
Great instructional video!!! I was getting tired of all the circus bike competitions. A little too silly for me! Just put short silly skits in the dirt shed where they belong, please. I’m expecting it there. Ha ha!
I love your skills videos, especially amateur versus expert comparisons. Could you do one where an amateur and expert ride the same trail but then you analyse speed, forces etc. section by section to see where the biggest differences are and the most speed being lost to work out what skills need the most work? I think this would really help the majority of the viewers understand their riding.
First off there is no bad wheatear only poor clothing choices. I want to see a show that isn't subserviently to the weather. Flat pedals are under rated and more people should try them before they judge them. PS. Love it so far! Cheers - M
those endo turns though haha maybe in a few years
Wait, what are “brakes”? 😎😎😎😎😎
Richard, why do you keep the straps from your helmet so loose?
What about steep terrain that includes small drops? Ive been working up to a local feature that looks sort of like a large roller - maybe 30ft high that has two back-to-back 2ft drops halfway down - im stuggling to find the right speed to hit this at, too slow bounces you pretty bad on the second drop right before the real steep part, too fast and i worry about about clearing the second drop but also missing the bottom half of the roller and landing flat. There is about 4ft of rounding lip to the top of second drop before it "rolls" into the last 12ft of very steep downhill. Complete flat at the base of the hill into a gental left hand turn. Any suggestions?
Just back from nearly 3 months in Portes du Soleil and suddenly Welsh forests don't look that appealing!
That low tire pressure will indeed give you better traction but will also increase the chance of a puncture, or flat as we Yanks call em lol.
That's why tire manufacturers offer tires that have reinforced sidewalls. Match your tire choice to the terrain. Then you can match the inflation pressure to the terrain.
👍👍👍
General rule for me: don't grab the brakes
Right no grab and stab gradual pressure moderate the pressure Trail off the brakes
Deep breath for me, but great tips.
Not sure where you filmed this but get yourself to Barry Sidings or Dyfi Forest Rich, theres some filthy steepness around those parts
This is near Pontypool I think. Great trails but there's plenty of far steeper stuff nearby
I live in Pontypridd so sidings on my doorstep! She’s steep alright! 😅
As someone who rides clipped in, I can't think of anything more terrifying or less confidence inspiring than riding steep tech on flats.
As someone who rides flats, I can't find something more dangerous than riding steep tech clipped in :))
I saw so many riders not able to bail out while going over the bars of or falling left/right and not being able to recover.
I rode clipless on a fiend's bike and for normal riding they are amazing. You can both pull and push (pulling is easier than on flats), jump small stuff eazier snd so on.
I got some trecking shoes ( with deep grooves) and they fit perfectly the pins of my flats and i've never lost a pedal on neither my full sus nor on my hardtail.
nothing like being clipped in when you go otb
If you're relying on a clipless cleat to keep you connected to the pedal, you need to do "heavy feet, light hands." If your weight (and pump) are carried through the pedals rather than the bars, you will stay on just fine...and be able to get off should you need to!
Riding with clips seems much more terrifying than riding w flats.
"If it's just skidding all the way down it's not the end of the world "
You have obviously never put shovel to trail, the technique you should be teaching is do not lock the back brake! When you lock the back brake it doesn't slow you down and you do not have control of the bike.
Come on mate help the trail fairies out a bit.
Yeah, skidding wrecks the trail, causes rutting, and then people start riding around the rut, and the cycle starts over in a new location. I love mountain biking but I hate what mountain bikers do to the forest when they skid.
I just watched this followed by your pro riding coach advice video and its contradicting.
For me, flow is a vacation from tech and vice versa. I only wish I could find a suspension setup that worked excellent at both and not be a happy-medium type of compromise.
That is one of the reasons why suspensions are adjustable mate...🙄🤦♂️
@@rider65 Sorry, I thought it was obvious that we all know that. But since most of the trails we ride mix these features, you would have to stop, redo adjustments, and continue. Now let me WISH for something else... how about a setup button like formula 1 cars have on the cockpit, that will change preset settings on the go...
Why are we still being spoken too like we've never ridden a bike before.too many of the videos in fact nearly 90% are aimed at the beginner.
And then he throws in the front-wheel pivot turn on steep terrain.
Pretty lousy advice all round. Never have I ever come across someone advocating an endo turn on the trail. I appreciate you say it's an advanced move. I've never seen someone do this on the trail, and it's a strange thing to walk through on a channel like this.
Returning to the earlier segment, you don't want weight shifted too far back though, as if you happen to go over a rock or little lip and your ams are fully stretch because your body is far back then you're just going to get pulled forward and bucked off over the bars anyway. I'm always fully off the front brake on anything really steep.
Mostly tech
Yall ride so low air preshure i ride like 40 psi on every trail
You probably wouldn't on steep tech.
Never ride wet trails!
If we didn't ride wet trails in the UK, we wouldn't be able to ride at all! Some trails are definitely worth avoiding in the wet as it will cause excess erosion, but a lot of trails in wetter countries are built with wet weather riding in mind.
Point taken!
@@Thatguy-gd5it😂 made me howl thought you where joking at first…gonna guess 🇺🇸?
I think my local trail is wet all year round here in the UK. Even if its 30c outside it still has mud and puddles. I'd never ride if it was a case of waiting for the trails to dry.
To be honest I enjoy riding the different seasons don’t get me wrong there’s nothing like summer but you gotta embrace the winter. riding it can turn easy trails into beasts,as others have said here in the uk the trails are always wet,I’m up north so there’s no hope lol