- Today is when 'How to Bike' starts to get really interesting. We spent seven episodes educating you, lovely viewers about all the core skills needed to ride a bike like a pro. You should now know how
to learn a new skill, set up your bike properly. Position yourself on the bike. Move the bike underneath you. Brake efficiently, generate
speed and grip with pumping. And finally, use vision and
line choice to your advantage. If you don't know, seems
like you need to go hit up the back catalog. Some discount right now, just use code 'BIKESAREGID'
for a 100% off. I joke, but this video
is going to be dense. If you haven't already digested, understood and even practice skills from previous videos, it could be a bit of a brain melter. No, we're going to use
all of these core skills and apply them to that
classic trail feature 'The Corner'. [Upbeat Music] Okay. Corners come in infinite
variations and styles. You've got your berms, your banks, flat turns, off-Camber turns, Rudy one's, rotted one's, wet, rocky,
dry, dusty, blown and puckered. This is why there are
so many cornering videos in the internet because there's just so much going on in terms of technique and trail. I'm not going to sell you a
good feeling here and say, just do this one thing and you're going to corner stupid fast on every turn. It would make a great video, but there's a bit more to it than that. Everyone has messed up a corner. Absolutely everyone. Breaking in the turn and
running wide in the exit, hitting the wrong lane, straight up blowing right over it. Even washing out and eating dirt. If you've not done one of these well, you've never ridden a bike before. Even when you are a cornering pro, there's still little hints of mistakes that make the strive for
perfection never ending and that is why I am hooked for life. To lay out the rules, I'd like to start with a basic flat turn so I can establish the core rules. Then we'll take those rules
to some more varied corners. On a lot of turns, you don't actually need to do anything special
to get running them. You can have an awful technique
and still make it work. [Giggling] It's when you start trying to go faster, or the trail gets harder that you start running into trouble For this turn, I'm going to
start with my favorite thing, which is line choice. Yes, line choice. When you've got a simple, yet tricky, flat turn with no obvious
banks, ruts or obstacles, you should treat it like
a race car and a track and make your corner angle as
smooth and open as possible. You would do this by
approaching the turn wide, turning in to sheave
the inside of the corner or the apex as they like
to call it in motor sports, then run wide in the exit, using all of the available trail. This makes the turn, the most open which should make it quicker and easier. Tighter turns are usually
slower and harder to do. In essence, you are trying to make the corner easier with line choice. This rule will change once
we start adding in berms and consecutive corners, but in general, it's a great starting point. Line dial. It is time to
sought out the breaking. This is such a headache
for so many people. As the classic instruction, everybody has had is "Don't brake, don't brake,
stay off, stay off the bridge. Why'd you crash?" Oh, The reason to try this is because breaking in the turn can cause you to lose traction and exit speed, which obviously isn't ideal. Not breaking up all in the turn can work really well on
tracks with mellower gradient or on short supportive turns. But quite often tracks are steeper which means you've got gravity effectively jamming your throat a wide open. So for most turns, you want to use some proper race breaking to slow things down before the corner. Where you start breaking is dependent on the speed coming in,
conditions of the track, how good your braking technique is. That's just too many
variables for me to tell you exactly where you should
start slowing down. So I'll leave that to you. The main thing is that when you do this positive deceleration, you do it where there is grip and before you start to
turn on unsupportive grunt. Everyone has experience with what happens when you panic break while turning on loose ground and I like my skin attached to my body. So let's not do that. Once, the hard race breaking is done. You then initiate the turn and it's at this point that a lot of riders assume you're supposed to
just be fully off the brakes. This can work. And if you are doing this
on some turns and staying off the brakes and maintaining control. There you go, my son,
that's sick. Keep up. But I guarantee, there are a lot of turns it doesn't work on. Here's the theory I operate by 'don't release the
brakes until just before the most challenging part of the turn'. This could be the
tightest part of the time, the slippiest part, if
you're unsure what this is, try releasing the brakes
at the start of the turn and the place that you
panic and grab them again, should be the most challenging part. There are two reasons to release
the brakes at this point. Number one; The most challenging part
of the turn in theory should be the slowest. And you want to accelerate
through the slowest part of the turn to maximize exit speed and minimize how much you have to pedal. The most challenging part
of the turn is usually where you need the most
grip on your tires. Grip the best when you are off the breaks. As to why you shouldn't
necessarily let go off the brakes at the start of the turn. Quite often, when you
let go of the brakes, gravity accelerates you into the turn. And if there is a tighter or
slippier part of the turn, you will arrive there too fast. Panic, break, kill your speed and maybe even hit the deck. The solution is once you are done with your race breaking before the turn, you can then use a little
bit of comfort breaking. Control your speed, and then fully release
the brakes just before the most challenging point of the time. This comfort break can
be done with both brakes if, the grip is available. But if it's slippy and you're unsure, just the back brake is fine. It is amazing how much this has
helped me with my cornering. And so I'm excited for you
viewers to have a go at this. I'm hoping you've watched
the body positioning and breaking vids and are
intimately in tune with how they blend together. Because we now need to
introduce weight shifts. You should already be aware that when actively decelerating, you need to have your weight
shifted back in balance with how hard you are braking to get the most grip out of the tires. If you're then riding a
chill on supportive turns that demands grip from your front wheel, you need to shift your weight forward into the centered boss stands feeling for that gentle
palm pressure on the bars, just as you fully come off the brakes. This evenly weights the tires so they can grip and hook you around that turn. The Eagle eyed amongst you
will spot other fancy things going on in these examples, but I'm going to be straight with you dropping out, say pedals,
twisting the body, shifting the hips, pointing, say elbows, bows and arrows, leaning
with the shoulders and all that fancy stuff is secondary to line, breaking, weight distribution when it come to cornering. I lost count how many times
I've been following people down trails and they're
giving it all this, arms, legs and all that junk. And I'm just rolling by
them, sat down, all lazy boy, and I'm keeping up with them,
buzzing their backfield, just for line choice and breaking. And I'm not trying to brag here. Maybe a little. It's just that a lot of
people are focusing on the finishing touches when they
need to perfect the basics. Tires don't give a crap about how you're positioned on the bike. Only that they're turning freely, of weight going into them. And they're being aimed smoothly at the grippiest part of the trip. There's a bit more to add in
terms of body positioning, but I'm going to save those
delightful tips for the end. What teaser. In the meantime, pumping and corners was
covered quite nicely in the pumping episode, but I'll just quickly
reiterate and build on it here. Something I didn't mention
in the pumping episode is that in corners, you should only really pump the bike if there is grip to do so. If you pump the bike on
loose or slippy ground, you can encourage the bike to wash out, which is bad more often than not. That means the slippier it is, the more delicate you
have to be with pumping. You can use this to your advantage though. Ever seen a shroud? This is done by using
all the cornering rules in this episode, with a
slight tweak to line choice. If you enter a support of corner, a sharper angle and pump, when your front wheel hits the bank, the back wheel will slip until it also hits the bank and grips. Pretty cool. But, it's
also quite destructive. So I'd only recommend you
do this very occasionally preferably on your own
trails that you maintain. For a long chill, flat
turn like our example here, there is no point in pumping mid-turn. You would gain a little boosting grip if the ground is not loose as you pressure the tires, but then you'd lose grip as they're, then unweighted afterwards. And then at a mellow pump,
at the end of the turn to complete it. But if it's loose, I wouldn't pump at all. For corners with support, you want to pump where the turn is either at it's most supportive or tightest or at the end or all of the above. Hand this method to
identify where this is, is to ride the turn and
at the point you feel the most key forces pulling you down into the bike is the most likely place where you should be pumping. Vision is the last main ingredient to add to this delicious concoction. And I see it getting added at
the wrong point quite often. Just to clarify, you rarely look to the exit of a turn from the start of the turn. There's usually a lot of crap going on in the turn that needs looking at. I established in the line choice and vision vid that how far to look ahead is related to your speed. So again, this is one thing you
need to experiment with to figure out for yourself. Where you should be looking and when is the critical bit that makes things flow like water. And when I'm riding, it's the
only thing I'm thinking about. What you want to do is look ahead at your comfortable
distance until you spot the challenging point of the turn. Lock onto it with your vision and spot the grippiest part of that section. So this is a turn that
used to be beautiful. It was a nice pack berm, super supportive all the way around, but over time, it's fallen to bets. People have been cutting over
the back of the berm into other tracks, and it's
just, it's not nice. So the general rule that everyone thinks in terms of breaking, it's to be off the brakes
at the start of the turn. You do that here, it goes, it goes really good for the first part. They told me that. Yep, yep. This is sick. This is great. This is brilliant. This is brilliant When suddenly, no good. The support disappears. And more often than not what you'll do shift you at pack, panic, grab the breaks and maybe wash it the front way up. Not a nice turn. So the
corner rule, like I said, is to get off the brakes
before the critical point in the most challenging point. And that is the end of the turn, the support disappears. So you do your hard race breaking weight back, then you bring your weight slightly
forward for the corner, but just comfort break, right in the first part of the turn. So you're breaking in the
corner, which is absolutely fine, but then don't get off the brakes fully until just before the end of the corner. That is the bit you want
to guarantee the speed for. That is the bit that you want to be sure you go in the right speed. So you can then stay off the brakes. Grip higher the speed over the corner At that point, that is
the bit you want to do all the important things in terms of the advanced skills of
looking through the turn, twisting through the corner,
pumping through the turn, all of that last bit, right at the end. But because there's not much grip, you're subtle with that pump.
Don't, don't be aggressive Play for the hack. That is a lot of info perfecting each of the previous points, will get you like 95% of the way to riding turns fast and controlled. But there's more. If you absolutely super duper
turbo pinky promise that you've got the previous things dialed. I guess we can dive into
some of the fancy stuff. The first thing I would
recommend adding to the skill set is angulation, which is the fancy word
for leaning the bike over into a turn more than your body. The main reason you would
want to do this is that it can encourage the
line of cornering treads on the edge of your tire
to bite into the ground. This can help you just
find a little bit of extra grip in certain turns. I find on turns with plenty of support, like nice berms, deep ruts, you don't need to do this as there is already a surplus of grip available. But if you ever find yourself
requiring more traction, this can help. I also wouldn't recommend
exaggerating this to the level that some riders suggest as those cornering treads will be fighting in a treat while before you get to some of the daft angles on display. Another important thing to
know is that you should only angulate where it's needed. On a long flat turn, that
might be all the way around it. But on a turn with a challenging point, it might only need it just
right at that critical point for that extra grip. Take this corner. For example, Notice it can be ridden pretty fast without any fancy additional tweaks, but to squeeze just a
little bit more of it, you can add that bit of angulation. You do this by simply
straightening the inside arm a little more than the outside. For those experience, with videos, focusing on this technique that will seem massively oversimplified and it might be, but there's just so
much going on in a turn that you just can't
dedicate the brain power to sit in the hips, pointing the knees, angling the shoulders and elbows, oh, all that other noise. The main thing is angling the bike and that is done by pressing
in on the inside hand from a center position. To practice this. I would just do some
flat turns in a car park with the basic pumping techniques that you definitely practiced
from the last video. I know, as you pump the bike at the tightest point of each turn, just focus on pressing
in that inside handlebar to tip the bike in just a little bit more than the body, nothing drastic, but once
you've got it in muscle memory, you'll be able to pull
out the bag when required. Here's another classic. I see being used a bit too much. Dropping the outside pedal. This is a very valuable
skill in certain situations, but at some point, someone got a bit carried
away and managed to convince most of the cycling world that you need to drop your pedal on every turn. No. Stop it NO. First of all, why is dropping
the outside foot good? It lowers the point your body's mass is weighting the bike by
exactly one crank arm length, which makes things slightly more stable. It lifts your inside pedal
up away from the ground, so there's less chance of a
pedal strike when leaning over. It allows your inside foot to
be unweighted and higher up, which makes it easier to dab
your foot onto the ground if your tire slips. It makes more room
behind your inside knee, which makes it easier to
angulate the bike into the turn. That all sounds great. So why should you not
do it for every turn? Most turns require some form of pumping. Or resisting of G-forces. And if that outside foot is dropped, you have to try and do all with one leg. That's a lot of work
for one leg to deal with and it seriously limits
how well you can pump. Have you ever tried to
ride a pump track with one pedal all the way down? Yeah. It's not easy. Here's the rule I recommend you use Only drop your outside foot when you feel like you need to find grip. There will be unique
situations that still call for doing it. Like when there's some, maybe an obstacle in
the inside of the turn that your pedals need to be clear off. But most of the time, feet close to level. When applying this technique, I recommend doing it
after the hard breaking, before a turn. You need the feet leveled
to efficiently slow it down and then only drop the foot, while either off the brakes or when comfort breaking. This skill also pairs beautifully
with angulating the bike, into the turn, from a centered position. Don't forget to feel that palm
pressure on the inside hand. Stay centered. Talking of pedal position. What about foot on turning,
foot off the paddle? I reserve it only for really
loose or slippy turns. And I do it either for fun, or if I just feel like a corner needs it. It's different for everyone.
And it is a personal choice. You do you. Finally, the last thing I want to add to this colossal pile of absolute facts is angling the tarsal through the turn. Again, I need to stress
that these additional things are not required to corner well, they just help you squeeze just a little bit more
speed out of a time. So if you're struggling
to apply this stuff, then perfect the basics first. Similar to angulation, this technique can be applied in two ways. For turns that require a pump, you can preload the body like a spring by angling the body into the turn at the point that you would unweight preparing for the pump. As you pump the bike, you can then use your preloaded body to help the bike turn sharper and quicker. To do this, you need to twist the body, shifting your hips to
the outside of the bike. The sharper the turn,
the more you preload. Just don't take it too far or you'll get all unstable. Experiment to see how much works for you. Also, don't make the mistake of bringing your chest to the inside of the bike, which can put you in an unstable position. Hips to the outside. For turns that don't
require any obvious pumping, you want to use the same timing as the outside foot down technique. Once you finished race breaking and are settling into a center position,
lower the outside foot, set the hips to the outside of the bike. And angulate the bike down into the turn. Hold this around the turn and then gently pump the bike straight and settle back into the
boss stands out the exit. Piece of cake. Right. Let's apply this to a few turns just to make sure we've got this all figured out because I mean, I'm not sure if I can remember all that. Just behind me, very tricky turn,
extremely chunky entrance, extremely chunky exit. Let's watch someone do it. You bike. Oh, yo Clearly never ridden it before and didn't know where to go. So first of all, line choice. Personally, I like to make things easier. I think the straight line
and it's super chunky, lots of paleo catches
makes the turn tighter. We're going to go for bed. That lane side, no break. And you come in here pretty quick if you're doing the jump in the way in. So I'm going to do some hard race breaking on the street. Run into the turn. Weight back on the anchor getting much traction from
the tires as possible. Then I want to think about
where I release the brakes or do I? This corner, the exit of it, is into something steep, gnarly stuff. The rule isn't that you
have to be off the breaks at the kind of tight point. It's that you don't want to still be breaking hard at that tight point. Cause that's what's going
to cause you big problems. Break and done. Body positioning. So once I finished that
hard breaking on the way, and my weight's back and
bring my weight centered, ready for that time where
just that little bit of comfort breaking. I'd say on the entrance,
you have to pay attention to the big rock in the end. You don't want to get too close to it. So I'd be looking at the patch
of ground to the right of it. So don't get too close. Once I'm sure lined up with that. I'm going to then look to the turn and there's a big rock in the turn that is going to hold you. And that's the place that
I'm going to really focus on turning off of. So I'll be looking to that rock. And then just before I get to it, then looking down the next strip. In terms of any funky body positioning and fancy stuff. I wouldn't say I'm really doing
anything in particular here because the rock on the inside
at the start of the turn is going to limit my speed. So grip, isn't going to be the limit here and I don't even want to be going faster in the next bit. So you don't have to do anything fancy. Just core skills here, will
get you through this nicely. So this corner is different in a few ways. It's a lot steeper and
there's loads of grip, cause there's like a big old Barb. So coming down into a
steeper turn like this, I talked earlier in the video about how you have to get your
weight ready for the corner. And the flatter turn, you
get your weight centered, so the tires are evenly weighted. But on a steeper turn with
a catch or a compression or a nice scoop to it, it actually puts a lot of
energy back up into your hands. So if you get your
weight forward before it, and then hit the turn too much where it goes through the hands, and you'll just collapse into the bike. So for a corner, let's call it like a
nice scoop or something. It's almost like a compression
at the bottom of a seatbelt. You need to leave the weight back far enough to prepare for the compression when you hit the corner. And then as the front wheel hits it, push through the legs to get your weight into the correct position for the exit. For a nice flat exit, that's
back into boss stamps. For a corner that immediately
leads into another one. I'm still leaving the
weight back a little bit to break and prepare for that corner. But the main thing with
all these corners is once you got the technique right, you have to just trust the bike. It will grip if you've
done everything correctly. So just trust it. Rail that turn. This saw corn is obviously
a bit interesting because it's got two corners
immediately after each other. And you can see that my
body stays quite neutral and the bike starts to just follows the corner underneath me. And now it's getting a
bit more complicated and we'll save that for series 2. To wrap things up. Here's the things to remember. Use line choice to make the turn easier. Do your race breaking where there's grip. Comfort break into the turn If required, release just before the critical point. Bring weight forward
after the race breaking to evenly weight the tires. Pump through the turn if required, focusing on the legs and extra thing in that control boss stamps Look for the critical
point of the turn and look to the exit just before
you hit that critical point. Angling the bike if
extra grip is required, drop the outside pedal
if the corner is loose, slippy or off camber and finally work on one thing at a time because holy crap, that is so much to remember One thing at a time. I'm going to guess that
you probably learned at least something today because Oh boy, I did not stop talking. If you did, please turn your
attention to that like button. Release the brakes and give it a pump. I'm going to try my best to
angulate down into the comments and answer any questions
that you will have. No, it's up to you. Take your bicycle, go outside, Find some nice chill corners, try applying each step. Get frustrated, try again. Get annoyed. Watch the video again.
Keep at it, figure it out. Rail some turns. Subscribe to the channel and
I'll see you in the next video. So I'm drop. So you better subscribe
because the bad examples are going to be spicy. Oh, it's a drop
