How To Corner A Mountain Bike - Better Flat Turns In 1 Day

hey what's up guys my name is Kyle Warner today we're gonna talk to you about cornering cornering is the most important skill in mountain biking and understanding which technique to use where to use it and why it's kind of what we're gonna go over today this is part one of a two-part series part one we're gonna cover the foundation of cornering flat turns and switchbacks today we set up a little course that April is gonna run through we're gonna see what she can improve in her cornering technique run her through some of my favorite drills and see if we can get her going a little bit faster and a little bit more confident through these flat turns alright so they got April out here and today we're gonna help you work on your cornering technique the way that we're gonna go about this today is we set up a course with 4 really flat loose switchbacks and that's the type of corner that is really hard to navigate without the proper technique we're gonna have you do it with no coaching first see how she does I'll point out a few little things here and there and I'm gonna show her all my favorite drills hopefully help you get like the bike body separation learn about how to get counterweight into your tire knobs all that good stuff and by the end of the day I'm hoping that she'll understand the reason why she's getting in that position versus just telling you guys what to do so with that being said April's gonna run through this course two times kind of point out a few little things and then go from there all right I'm excited to learn all right let's do this as you guys can see that there is super loose so just powdery dusty dirt how are you feeling about your chances today definitely think I will get better after you coach me are you ready for your first attempt yeah ok [Applause] [Music] bronto [Applause] how did you feel after those two runs I don't really know I could do better but I know that I can go faster and I want to but I'm scared that I will like blow the turn yeah I saw basically three things that we're gonna try to help you with one was entry into the corner where to be on the corner like your line choice and also you're breaking the other thing I saw was just body position and bike body separation so leaning the bike to get it to corner tighter without you feeling like you're gonna wash out and then the third one is kind of like just carrying that speed out of the turn I think we can work on all that with these little drills I have in mind so let's go ahead and go over and start practicing some drills hey we came out here to this kind of open concrete court even though it's kind of silly because you're not on the trail every pro rider every good rider has spent a lot of time on a basketball court or concrete surface just practicing the fundamentals I like to set up some cones to do some of these drills I'm going to show you you can also use like soda cans or something like that if you don't have access to cones the whole idea is to just set goals for yourself and little markers so you know where to initiate your turn where to look and it's just nice to have a visual point we're gonna run through a few different drills but first I wanted to address a question that we've been seeing a lot which is like bikes set up for cornering and a lot of people are asking about tire pressure and how that plays into cornering getting the correct tire pressure is very important but ultimately technique matters more than anything that's why we're focusing more on technique than bike setup on this video but we will do bike set video in the future I will put a link in the description to a tire pressure calculator that works really well that way you guys kind of figure that out but personally I run about 25 psi front/rear April's ride around like 23 psi front rear but we have different sized wheels and tires and everything so it's all relative with that being said we're gonna go ahead and start in this very first drill which is bike body separation kind of walk you guys through that and then how April run through it so this first drill that we're gonna do is a very simple one but it's actually the most important and understanding cornering basic I'm just gonna have April ride in a straight line she's gonna ride with one foot down and practice leaning the bike away from the centerline of her body so this is called bike body separation so should be riding lean it down stand it up lean it down stand it up and then do it on the opposite foot the reason we need to practice that is because when you're hitting a flatter corner or something with low traction and low g-force you want to stay centered over your bike and the way to do that is to put one foot down that puts your centerline of your mass over the tire knobs that are on the ground versus if you have your feet level like this and you go around the corner a lot of times you'll lean now if you look my head is over to the side my upper torso is over to the side and I have so much less weight and grip on my tire nobs what we're gonna practice today is meant for low g-force and flat turns like what we did on that earlier course where it's flat soft turns you need maximum grip have one foot down practice leaning the bike into the corner and having your mass stay over the tire knobs that are touching the ground this just the first drill that we're gonna practice getting the bike to separate from the body keep it simple and we'll see how April does on this one here's a quick example of why the simple bike body separation drill is important as I go around the slow flat turn my bike and tire have nothing to lean against for support this means that my only contact with the ground is the inside edge of my tire to reduce the risk of losing traction in the turn I need to drop my outside foot and put as much weight as I can on the outside of the bike to keep weight over the contact point of the tire this is why separating from the bike is very important for comparison in this clip you can see me going through a high g-force bermed corner you'll notice that my tire has much more surface area contacting the ground and therefore much more grip as long as the support of this berm continues I will have the most grip by keeping my feet level and transferring equal weight through the center of my bike into the contact point with the ground this is why I like to use the feet level approach on high g-force well-supported turns and on low g-force flat or slightly banked turns I will use outside foot down technique we are covering today the first thing she's gonna do is ride down that straight line and then basically try to get bike body separation push down on your inside handlebar so if your right foot is down push down on the left side handlebar and we'll just kind of hover do a few runs like that and see how it goes alright [Music] nope nope so that foot down and not hand pushing yeah what did you do last time I don't know there you go one more there you go harder than it looks okay I don't feel very like coordinated right now yeah it's it's harder than it looks you know you'd think going in a straight line and just getting your bike to lean would be a lot easier but mentally it's hard to kind of relate you know outside foot down push your inside hand it's kind of like pat your belly and rubbing your head tight saying yeah that's why I like to just simplify it and not focus on a corner yet practice a lot of those you know just ride in a straight line just get the bike to lean because when you get into a corner you just have to do that second nature and so second nature of muscle memory outside foot down inside hand push and you'll be good but now we're going to kind of incorporate that first drill and add on to it in the second drill what we're gonna do here is we have some cones set up we have the entrance the apex and the exit so what April is gonna do is basically come in pedaling she's gonna look ahead spot her apex and the apex is the center of a corner or kind of the point in the corner where you start to go the opposite direction when she gets to the apex she's gonna look out and spot the exit and that'll get your bike to whip around and that's kind of how you corner what I see a lot of people do is they'll stay fixated on the apex and so as they go into the apex they look at it and even as they go through they'll kind of look back and that kind of messes up your weight balance so what we want to practice is get to the center of the corner snap your head around look at the exit and then you'll rip it all right right on your that was really good yeah that was really good all right let's do a couple more okay that's really good try to lean in the bike a little bit more bike just try to lean over both it's hard it's a lot of things to think about you're doing good so she just had a really good question and she was asking me how early is too early to drop your foot before a turn my answer to that is as soon as you're done braking so whenever you feel like you're at the correct speed to hit the corner then you can drop your foot so on this example since she's gone on a flat surface she can drop it very early but if you're like on a steeper section of trail you want to get all your braking done and then drop your foot kinda at the last second so that's why it that muscle memory needs to be good on the trail on the parking lot you can get away with like slower muscle memory because you have such a long time to get ready for it does that make sense yeah okay cool so as soon as you're not braking after you're out of your braking position drop your foot corner okay okay April is doing a great job was looking through the turn but I want to highlight two little things she can improve on her body position and the reason why she almost washed out on the one attempt if you look at the entrance into the corner she's in a good position with her chin near the front end of the bike now she gets deeper into the corner she starts to lean in with her head and extended her arms which shifts her weight slightly back and away from the front tire causing it to briefly lose traction in this attempt she stays more forward on the bike throughout the entire corner and it helps her maintain traction through the turn it's a very subtle change but that can be the difference between washing out or having grip and a loose turn I always try to keep my chin over the stem and handlebars when turning alright so now that you have kind of the bike body separation down you got that lean and the look really good I'm gonna set up a little slalom for you and we're gonna see if he can do both sides all right I can see how it goes I'll do a quick run just gonna show you the goal I'm gonna come in and then do a right-hand turn left-hand turn right-hand turn how'd that look you look good hopefully I can do is good I think you'll do good it just takes a little practice but if you get stuck on anything I'll help you okay I feel it's not the best okay Allah I'll let you do a couple more and just figure it out for you V any pointers okay that was a lot better that was very better but that looks a lot better with your head and everything now what I'm seeing is you're leaning your body with the bike so just focus really hard on bike body separation cuz I see you kind of like leaning with your head and it's throwing your weight off okay so stay centered that way you can move the bike left right left right left right it'll make your moves quicker okay here is a quick example of what I meant by leaning with her bike on the left you can see that I have the majority of my weight on the outside of the bike as I'm turning on the right you can see the April is doing a good job of keeping her outside foot down to wait the tires but she isn't taking full advantage of this technique because she is keeping her weight more in line with the centerline or steering axis of the bike if she could bend her outside leg and push her hips away from the centerline of the bike it would help her a lot with quickness and grip a little bit more bike body separation yeah so you're doing way better I think the one thing that I'm seeing is your elbow droppin like that okay so elbow up and that'll that'll really finish the turn but you do everything else good it's just this needs to come up so see how it goes yeah that was good yeah how sick all right so she's doing way way way better we just took like about a 20 minute break and just didn't film anything but just did laughs after lap after lap and I was trying to help April with all the little things that were kind of detailing in this video so there's so many things to think about and so if you don't get this on the first day or even the second day or even the third day it's totally fine because like it'll take a lot of practice it takes a lot of practice and even with April right now like she's getting it but I'm literally like coaching her through every run and so she's getting like okay you did that good but do one little thing different and it's able to help her really quickly but I just wanted you guys to know like this is a big process we've been out here pretty much all day trying to practice this and that's why she's getting so good at it but we're gonna do maybe one or two more runs till you get all three good you're doing awesome thank you yeah you're doing really good good job yeah that was good nicely done what were some of the key things that you took away that helped kind of clip or what were the most important pieces for you what I learned was separating my body from the bike and like keeping it straight rather than turning with my whole body dropping my heel again and getting my elbow out for the corner yeah that was the key kind of zeldo huh yeah and looking through the turn yeah yeah I think that after all this practice we need to go apply it on a trail see how much faster it helps you be okay all right we were back out at the racecourse and we just went up to one of the corners that gave April the most trouble I'm gonna help her walk through line choice a little bit and kind of help you guys understand what I look for when I'm looking at a turn we're gonna go over this a little bit more in the part two cornering video but just wanted to touch on it briefly here too so when you're looking at a corner like this the goal is to set up as wide as possible to give yourself the smoothest are around the corner and when you set up wide break in a straight line when you start leaning let off the front brake get in your good position and roll all the way through the corner okay all right so I'll do one for you really quick so you can see what I mean and then I'll have you do the course okay all right all right so could you tell the difference there yeah so even though I had slower entrance speed my exit speed was much faster and that's a little bit more how you want to try to corner anyone can go fast into a corner good riders can go fast out of corners so just think about that in your head if you brake a little bit here you'll carry more speed on the exit and it'll be better overall all right so let's have you run through it hope I can get better felt like that was better [Applause] yeah good job look around the corner look around the corner yeah so yeah I think that was better to know I was awesome thanks that was a lot better I know it's hard to remember everything that we learned today especially for you guys wondering we took like a little break because it's so hot out so we had to take a break and then come out here so it's hard to remember everything I definitely don't think I'm turning four on today but for people that want to get better at Corning what do you think helped the most and what do you think that they should focus on the biggest thing is dropping your outside foot uh-huh and then positioning the bike away from your body leaning it instead of your body yeah and getting your elbow up and dropping that outside heel well I'm looking ahead yeah there's a lot to remember like so many I know like I said we're gonna do a part two so if you have any questions then throw them in at the bottom of this video in the comments section and anything that we forgot to get to or glanced over we will get to more in depth in part two but yeah this one is kind of helping you guys with some drills you can practice how to turn get that bike body separation and you'll be a million times better just in a day but it takes a lot of practice when I was trying to race pro I would literally go out to the high school basketball court like three to four times a week and just do laps around the polls and I mean I have so many turns doing this so it comes natural but it's kind of weird the first few times so just be patient keep trying hard and you'll get it thank you guys so much for watching if you could click like and subscribe that helped us a ton and yeah if you have any questions for the next video then just throw in the comments we'll get to those soon as we can yeah thank you for watching okay see you guys later I think you're maybe the salad oh that wasn't good try another one

Channel: Kyle & April - Ride MTB

Views: 1,093,038

Keywords: mountain biking, kyle warner, ridemtb.com, ridemtb, ride mtb, ride mtb podcast, ride mtb coaching, april zastrow, How to corner, how to turn a mountain bike, learn to corner a bike, mountain bike turns, mountain bike cornering

Id: spbl1WvzlMY

Length: 17min 55sec (1075 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 10 2020