Advanced MTB Cornering Techniques: Body Position & Technical Terrain

there's so many tools in the wood i wonder if these builders even know where all their tools are probably not [Music] welcome back to you guessed it more corners we thought it'd be a good idea to build on the basics to cornering video we made earlier and offer up some more information to the riders that are seeking harder and steeper terrain so i'm going to finish getting kitted up and then let's go shall we the trail i've chosen today is littered with technical corners and every single one of them has something unique going on however with a few adjustments to our riding i'm sure that we can conquer them all in the last video i introduced the low look and lean positions but i think we should dig a bit deeper into those let's also talk about line choices foot placement and apply them on the technical trails we have here now what i mean when i say to get low into the bike is that your elbows are out you've got room to move side to side still as you're cornering your chin is over your stem and then your body weights right here in the middle of the bike if you find yourself cornering in one of these positions arms extended weight over the rear wheel you've not got a lot of control on the front end there and the bike's going to be taking you for a ride you're not taking the bike for a ride i've just made it to the first technical left-hander here on the trail and i cannot stress to you how important it is to look where you're going by looking with your eyes where you're going on trail always trail scanning it's going to allow the shoulders the hips the knees and the toes to really make a nice corner and follow suit on this particular section of trail there's a lot going on there's slippery roots slippery rocks so while it might be easy to kind of get hung up on those features and look straight at those lift your eyes up and continue on down the trail it's going to make a world of difference third little piece of this puzzle is leaning the bike which is going to be really helpful on this slightly kind of off camber banked corner here also a little tip when it comes to leaning your bike lower your seat it makes a huge difference in how much room you have to move around side to side front to back especially in steep terrain what you want to do is counterbalance the really lightly weighted bicycle by moving it to the inside of this turn here and then you're shifting your body weight to the outside so that everything's balanced everybody's riding downhill in control all righty moving on we've got a couple of options right here so i think it's a good time to talk about line choices now i've talked about this before but it's always worth talking about again when you're approaching technical terrain like this it's a lot easier if you break it down into now and then next so what am i worried about right here right now on this trail well i've got the run in here to this nice right hand corner but as you can see it's quite slippery it's pretty damp today and we've got some rocks so rather than just following the main line like 99 of the other riders i'm actually going to enter the corner on the rider's left line and it's going to make the whole corner a lot wider a lot smoother and i'm not going to get hung up on all the features in the middle alrighty great success we've made it into the line but what next don't celebrate too early about making it into that super sick high left line there because we've got a lot of trail yet to navigate so always keep your eyes up always do the trail scanning that we've talked about before same goes with like skiing and driving it's just part of the game because right here right now i've got about three line choices to pick from so i think i'll try the middle one but we'll see how it goes chances are in tighter and steeper corners there's not a lot of obvious line choices to choose from but we can always be more creative and think outside the rut try picking lines that open up the terrain you're going to get a bigger turning radius which is going to feel a lot smoother on the bike and it's going to help in those jackknife situations if you're going for a speedy approach then avoid teeing up the corner and skidding all about that actually creates a big sharp 90 degree corner and it kills all your speed dedicate the section of trail where you're going to do your braking before the turn by throwing in a big fistful of breaks right in the middle of the corner you're going to drastically shift your body weight all that work we did on body position is just going to go out the window because we're cornering and we're not just going down a big chute a little bit more rear brake can be really helpful but try not to lock up and start skidding think ride don't slide rather than using the front brake to really slow us down the rear brakes more for maintaining your speed and it's a lot less intimidating because you don't have the fear of washing out your front wheel i'm nearing the end of the trail and i have found a perfect opportunity to talk about foot placement i know right super sensitive very touchy subject but i think we're on that level now right i've chosen this particular left-hand corner because we've got this super sad looking little root here it's been smashed by a number of inside petals already and we don't want to add another scar onto this root so by lifting up ever so slightly that inside foot you're going to skip over this little technical feature here it's gonna be a lot safer for the rest of your ride typically with coaching or just in life in general i try to steer away from the do this or don't do that method because as long as you're riding and having fun you're gonna progress and you're gonna have a good time so don't worry about it too much but now's a good example of when you could switch things up a bit now there are definitely some times when you might want to drop the outside foot one when you need to create more traction and grip on the ground especially in loose or flat terrain but be careful because the more pressure you put on that outside foot the more the bike actually wants to stand upright so this is a very fine line and finding that line only comes with practice two when you're avoiding that tight inner berm and there might actually be some obstacles or features on the inside of the berm that you don't want to get caught up on and three when you're really giving her on that flat loose terrain and you go full foot out flat out just fighting the bike to stay upright now if you don't love doing nose wheelies and all those european switchbacks like myself then what i actually do a lot of the times is i unclip the inside foot use the outside foot to whip the bike around the corner and i know it's drastic measures but you got to get around them somehow well there you have it folks cornering 102. thank you for joining us on trail today and thanks for your comments because they really help me know what you're interested in and what you want to learn more about so definitely keep them coming we're going to do a couple more of these videos over the season touching on some bike skills so make sure to subscribe don't want to miss out on any progression sessions as for me it's time to clean this dirty bike [Music] you

Channel: Pinkbike

Views: 155,073

Keywords: pinkbike, mountain biking, mtb, bike life, cycling, bikes, mountain bikes, mountain bike, christina chappetta, mtb how to, how to corner, mountain bike corners, advanced mountain bike tips, mtb skills, how to, bicycle (product category), how to turn, mountain bike tutorial, mtb technique, bicycle skills, mtb tips

Id: Ammz64zxnhg

Length: 7min 41sec (461 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 05 2020