Some great riding in this video. Take a look and let’s focus on three things this rider is doing very well. (and check out the breakdowns and explanations in the text below):

1) The riders head is very calm (The “imaginary Glass of Water” technique)

2) Great line choices (lots after the 1:10 mark)

3) Jumping prowess (beautiful!)

Break downs and explanations:

 

1) The “Imaginary Glass of Water”

If riders are doing everything correctly on the bike there should be very, very little movement in the head. It should be as if there’s a glass of water on top of the head and not only doesn’t it spill but shouldn’t even slosh around (with very rare exception, of course).

Our head/brain is the control center of our body. Our brain works with the vestibular system in our middle ear and our eyes/vision to provide balance. None of that works well when your melon is bouncing and jarred all over the place. This is Human Movement 101. We get way into it in the camps and coaching sessions. Balance; vision as it relates to balance (vision is a huge component of balance); vision as it relates to trail vision and decision making…..none of this will work well if your head isn’t calm and controlled and moving in a smooth momentum path down the trail.

Of course this “calm glass of water” is also a function of everything else that is going on with your riding technique and the rest of your body: are you using your legs correctly? Your feet? Is your core a stable and balanced platform so that you can be effective and precise with your movements? Are your arms being used correctly or are you using too much upper body in trying to control the bike? There is a ton that goes into this.

If the Glass of Water is calm, that’s a very good sign that the rider is doing everything else pretty well.

2) Line choice

In the video there are many places where the rider is taking lines that are alternate to the main line (lots of good stuff after about 1:10). The main line is formed by the majority of riders and the majority of riders will “micro manage” the trail; we want to “MACRO manage” the trail. The good lines provide smoother momentum paths than the main line and set the rider up better for features down the trail. The good lines are also usually more efficient, meaning less wasted energy.

There is a lot of strategy to proper line choice. Everyone knows that you need to “look ahead” but there’s way more to it than just that.

I like to say riding fast is like “death by paper cuts.” You’ll almost never get huge chunks of time out of your close competition. But you can get a wheel length here, a bike length there, another wheel, another bike, and that add’s up pretty quickly. If you look at downhill race times, the difference in results is often decided by split seconds. On enduro stages (longer than DH race runs) it may be a few seconds. A smart racer who is reading the trail properly will almost always put this type of time into a equally fit and skilled competitor who is simply riding the main line as fast as possible. Add in the saved energy because of the added efficiency of smart line choices and now the competition starts pretty getting ugly.

3) Jumping!!!

There are a ton of places where this rider is lifting, unweighting, jumping the bike. Again, this is all about smooth momentum paths (and generating more momentum: catching backsides of landings, etc), avoiding obstacles, setting up for better lines. Being able to jump well will be a huge asset to your descending. Not being able to jump well and trying to do it anyway will probably result in getting yourself hurt and not really going very fast while doing it.

Almost everyone wants to learn how to jump better. But jumping is at the top of the pyramid, and we have to build the foundation of the pyramid before we can get to the top. Most riders have very little understanding of body position (yes, the “attack position” is a thing but there’s way more to it than just crouching on the bike with your elbows up), weight placement (position is nothing without proper weight placement and when and why), vision (you’re going to hit the deck hard if you start sending stuff without reading the trail properly — and very few riders read the trail properly), and there’s much, much more….this list goes on and on. Yet, riders still want to skip to the jumping part. Jumping well and safely is really about having all the fundamentals super dialed in and automatic.

Proper jumping takes time. But you’ll never get there if you don’t understand the rest of the pyramid first.

All of the above skills can be broken down to there simplest movements.

Cornering on a mounatin bike.

“Jump for show; corner for dough”

Being able to turn your bike well is a huge asset to your riding. If speed, flow, and riding to the best of your ability is a concern, then cornering well is a must. And if you’re new to riding – a beginner, novice, intermediate – control and safety in the turns is something that, if you’re not already concerned with . . . you will be soon.

Am I going to break down all of cornering here, in the span of a few hundred words? No, of course, not! Not possible. But I will touch on some nuances of cornering and hopefully shed some light on many things that are overlooked when it comes to doing it right;. And, of course – no matter what level of rider you are – cornering well is about the human body working optimally in an athletic sense in harmony with the design of the bicycle.

 

Take a look at these photos:

One is of 2-time, back to back current Enduro World Series Champ, Richie Rude. The others? Students of mine and myself. Point is, good cornering technique works at all levels.

One bummer that I see in MTB coaching is that cornering technique is always exclusively about what happens in the corner (I haven’t seen any exceptions) . Bummer, because the most important part of cornering is what happens before the corner. If you don’t read the trail correctly you’re already dead in the water. If you don’t set up properly in terms of body position, line choice, momentum management, proper braking – all happening before the corner – it’s already game over.

Lean the bike, not the body

Notice the lean angle of the bike in the photos. Notice how the core of the body is still very upright and controlled. This provides a balanced and stable platform to ensure effective movements of the rider’s limbs and, thus, effective adjustments, corrections, and manipulations of the bike. Also, the bike will turn when you lean it over. We want to let that happen; let the bike do the work! This means the rider can remain very much on top of the bike so that the weight and force of the rider pushes through the bike and stays much more perpendicular into the trail’s surface than if the rider leans the body at the same angle as the bike (as most riders do for various reasons). When we lean the body with the bike in a flat corner, the lower that angle gets, the more the forces of the rider are horizontal to the trail’s surface. This will eventually force the bike to slide out. We’ve all probably been there!

Again, none of the good stuff above is possible if you screw it up before the corner.

If you’ve been riding for a bit, you’re probably aware of the “attack position”, or the body position a rider should obtain while descending in tough terrain. This is the position the rider will need to be in approaching a corner (if the corner is at all fast or difficult). Assuming one understands the how’s and why’s of this position (which most riders don’t) and can obtain it while coasting down the trail or in the parking lot, then the question is how do we maintain that position as the bike decelerates hard under braking? Or, maybe, gets loose and slides around when it loses traction because of braking forces and rough, loose terrain; bounces violently through braking bumps, root sections, and rock drops; all while trying to slow down for the turn?

Many riders believe that leaning back under braking is the solution to the above dilemmas, but leaning back is one of the worse things you can do – for many reasons. When we lean back the bike will not pivot around the bottom bracket and float over the terrain (too much weight on the rear wheel). We also lose range of motion in our limbs when we lean back. That’s bad. And, that’s just the tip of the iceberg; there are many other things that go wrong when we lean back

What should happen with the pedals?

In the corner: Weight that outside pedal? No, not really. It’s actually about keeping the weight on the bottom bracket and centered on the bike as much as possible. I want riders to focus on moving the inside leg out of the way to get lean angle on the bike – not weighting the outside pedal. This difference of focus provides an emphasis on being centered on the bike and riding the bike through the bottom bracket. This is extremely important for control. This emphasis doesn’t happen when a rider focuses on weighting the outside pedal. Focusing on weighting the outside pedal can also create a lot of bad habits. We go over these in the camps.

While my pedals will often go to 12 and 6 in relation to the bike, sometimes they are still level in relation to the ground and to my “line of force.” That means sometimes they’re 12 and 6 sometimes 10 and 4 . . . or anywhere in-between. Again, I want students to focus on keeping their weight centered on the bike, through the bottom bracket, and their pedals end up wherever they end up as a result of how much lean angle the bike gets.

Drop the outside pedal, though, right? Well, sometimes. It depends on the trail’s surface. In a berm, bank, or rut – in theory – the bike is still perpendicular to the trail’s surface, thus, bike lean angle away from the body isn’t really necessary. In this case, we often can keep our feet level and lean the body with the bike.

Why not keep the pedals level, even in flat corners? This is fine for beginner riders (who usually aren’t carrying enough speed to need much lean angle in corners), corners where you’re not really going fast enough to need much lean angle, or corners where the trail’s surface prioritizes accommodation of bumps, and, thus, the pivoting of the bike around the bottom bracket and fore and aft control of the rider’s mass. (Rock or root sections in the corner are examples of the latter where this would be necessary. The bike will actually have to be adjusted/manipulated to go relatively straight over these sections, meaning it will have to stand up and be much more perpendicular to the ground and pedals will have to level out as it travels over this section of the corner. Having the core of the body balanced and stable in order to make these adjustments mid-corner – often in the same corner: lean bike and turn; stand bike up to go straight; then, lean back down to finish turn – is another reason why maintaining proper body position approaching, as well as through the corner, is crucial.)

However, we simple can’t lean the bike over very far before it will hit our inside leg. So we have to move the leg – and rotate our pedals – out of the way. See above.

Weight back? Weight Forward? Weight centered!

Weight the bars in the corner so that the front wheel will get traction? Nope. I don’t care how many 23 year old – and often super fast – pros tell you to do this (It’s kind of a cool thing to say you ride the bike very aggressively over the front of the bike like a motocross rider. One big difference: a motocross bike has a motor so it will accelerate back under the rider. It often has to be ridden over the front end to accommodate that acceleration. MTB’s don’t have motors. Therefore, with very rare exception, they don’t accelerate back under the rider.) With very rare exception this is terrible technique and a terrible habit to get into. Also, there’s a huge difference in pushing down with the arms on the front of the bike, perhaps steering to get traction . . . and weighting the front of the bike. This has to do with how your body works in an athletic sense and is crucial to all areas of riding, I prove why in my camps (Go to 2:32 of this video). If I do end up weighting the front of the bike it’s almost always a result of overcompensating because my weight was initially too far back, the front wheel was in danger of drifting and now I’m doing damage control. Not fast, definitely sketchy!

Elbows? Hips? Braking? (hint: yes on the braking)

Keeping that outside elbow up is mega-important for so many reasons it isn’t even funny.

Lead with the hips? It doesn’t really work that way.

You will have to brake in many corners but it has to be done properly. Doing it wrong will put you on the ground in a quickness. Most riders brake incorrectly the majority of the time, and if they do this in a corner, they will almost definitely end up hitting the deck. This is why people – even most MTB coaches and coaching organizations – state to never brake in the corners: because they don’t really understand the dynamics of proper braking even in straight line (you actually can go faster by braking properly in the corners than if you don’t brake; “gotta go slow to go fast” works at times, but I’ll take Go Fast to Go Fast every time! Hint: braking isn’t always about deceleration.)

Obviously, there is a ton going on with properly cornering on a mountain bike. We address it thoroughly in the camps, spending a couple hours exclusively on cornering and touching on different examples through the duration of the camp. We relate descending body position and weight placement in a straight line to how this will directly affect our approach to cornering technique. Proper vision techniques are huge in cornering correctly.

The list goes on and on.

If you’re still reading this, you’re interested. If you’re already fast, then you know that every little thing counts, and from reading this, you’ve probably deduced that there is still a lot you can learn. If you’re beginner, intermediate, novice, I promise, I can help you turn better, help keep that front end from washing out, and not only help keep you off the ground, but get you around the trail with more control, safety, efficiency, and – yes – speed!

 (CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO)

Technique of the Week — Get Low

 

How low should we be on the bike when we get to nasty sections on the trail? How much bend should we have in our knees? Well, essentially, as low as we can get and that’ll give us about 90 degree bend in those knees.

There is still a bunch of bad advice circulating out in MTB-land that states that riders should have a slight bend in their knees when they are on the “attack” position. Not so . . .

In the video, we’ll see WHY it’s so important to get low and we’ll learn about all kinds of problems we’ll encounter if we remain tall on the bike with straight, or slightly bent knees. Also, check out this other video and watch some of the top riders in the world getting low whenever they’re in the nasty stuff.

Thanks for watching. Check back for more!

Welcome to this week’s Technique of the Week. This week we’re going to talk about brake lever set-up and a little about braking technique.

I always want to pick a topic that will be relevant to riders of all levels, and his one hits that mark. The first bit should a no brainer for most advanced riders; but; don’t worry, it’ll get pretty interesting as we move through the content.

First, we’ll cover getting one finger out there on the brake lever instead of two or more, why this is important, and a few ways we can go about getting this set-up to happen and still manage all the controls on our bars. This is a big deal for many beginner riders. I very often see riders braking with two or more fingers per lever and/or trying to ride technical sections without first “covering” the brakes, neither of which we want to do.

 

Next: the angle of our brake levers. Again, I see many riders, even quite advanced riders, with their levers way to low. We’ll talk about where they should be and why.

And, finally, we’ll talk about lever throw, and, particularly the throw of the front brake lever and how playing around with this may help more advanced riders find a little extra speed and stay out of trouble.

A Little Braking Break Down

Braking isn’t just about slowing the bike down and stoping it. But — especially at the upper levels of riding — braking is very much about speed control and/or momentum management. Often, we don’t need to slow down, we just need to not go any faster. Often, we should be accelerating, but not as fast as we would be if we were entirely off of the brakes.

Think about that for second.

There is a also a massive difference in braking technique between slowing the bike down — actual deceleration — and speed control.

These are nuances that very few riders understand. This is a huge reason why even many pro downhillers still believe — incorrectly — that you shouldn’t brake in corners or through rough sections (and why many coaches and coaching programs still coach this). This is also why when I bring up the subject of braking in camps, many riders, in a joking self deprecating fashion, proclaim “oh, I’m real good at braking!” or “I know all about that part!”  When, in actuality, they’re way off.

These misunderstandings also contribute to the myth that being completely off of the brakes or super hard on both brakes, and never in the middle, is proper technique. Actually, it’s terrible technique. [think about it: in any type of motorsport racing, is the vehicle driven at complete full throttle or completely hard on the brakes? No. finesse in both throttle control and braking are essential and all of the best drivers/riders have this finesse. So, why would you ride your MTB completely full throttle (completely off of the brakes, gravity being the throttle), or completely hard on the brakes, but never in between?]

Do we have the time and space to cover all of braking technique in the blog post? No. That’s the stuff we do in camps. But, getting brake set-up dialed in is the first step to this and that’s what we’re going to dive into. . . . and, some technique, of course.

Give it the Finger

First — and this will be fairly obvious to the advanced riders (hang in there; we’ll get to the good stuff in a bit) — we need to set the brake levers up so that we operate them with one finger, not two . . . definitely not three or four.

I’m pretty blown away at the amount of riders that still use more than one finger on a brake lever. Often, bike shops and professional bike fitters are the culprits of bad lever position and this seems to promote bad technique. Traditionally, when a bike is built up, the brake perch will be next to the grip and touching it, with no space between grip and the brake perch. Often, we will need to move the brake perch in-board a bit, creating some space between the grip and the lever in order for our finger to touch the lever in the correct spot. What is the correct spot? Way out on the end, tucked right into that little bend.

This often means that we will need to swap the order of brakes and shifters and and adjust the reach of the lever. (all decent brake levers will allow for reach adjustment (or how far away from the grip the lever resides). This also can sometimes mean that we will have to ditch the integrated brake/shifter/dropper-seatpost configuration that some component companies offer. I still run all of my components on their own exclusive clamps because the integrated options never seems to allow me to get my controls right where I like them to be.

The pointer finger is the braking-finger of choice for most riders. However, the middle finger will also work especially if the rider has small hands. But, either way, we need one of our first two fingers on the brake lever and the other on the grip.

And, this is how you should be riding the bike whenever things get rowdy. This is called “covering” the brakes (Look at any photo of top enduro or DH riders—one finger on each brake lever). You need to have a finger out there operating the brakes while also having a powerful grip on the bars with the other fingers and thumb.

This is very important because we’re simply not going to be able to move our braking finger back and forth between the brake lever and the grip and effectively brake. Also, our first two fingers offer powerful gripping strength. Our ring and pinky? Weak. So, covering the brakes in technical terrain is essential while having the other of the first two fingers on the bars for gripping strength. 

[Contrary to popular belief, we will not always be able to keep a loose and relaxed grip on the handlebars. This is is one of those myths of riding, and, unfortunately, is often coached by professional MTB coaches. While it is true that we don’t want to constantly have a death grip on the bars, there will be plenty of times that we will need to be gripping the bars with as much power as possible.]

One finger on the lever. Proper contact point. Good stuff. Notice how the lever has been scooted in-board a bit.

Not Good stuff. See how the finger is contacting the lever in the middle and not out at the end? Notice how the brake perch is right up against the grip. And, this often leads to this:

. . . two finger braking . . . Bad stuff

The Angle

Now that we’ve got only one finger out on that lever, we’re going to talk about the angle of the lever. Most riders have those levers way too low. Again, this is often the fault of shops and bike-fitters; the lever angle is usually set in regards to the rider being in a seated position and with the bike on level ground (the traditional way to set up road bikes — which is where most pro bike-fitters are still coming from).

Quite obviously, the brakes will be used the most, and be most important, when to bike is pitched forward while we’re descending (not when the bike is level). Also, the rider should be low on the bike while descending; and, although the rider shouldn’t be leaning back, he will be back relative to where he would be if he were seated if he’s in good descending position. This means, that in order to keep a straight wrist for power and control, with the elbows and upper body in proper proximity to the bars, the levers will have to be angled quite a bit higher than most rider have their levers set.

If the levers are too low, and we’re in the proper position on the bike while descending, we’ll have to start bending our wrists to reach the brake levers. This is not a strong and powerful position of the wrists (Imagine trying to do a bench press with bent wrists).

In other words, if you intend to ride trails with steep descents, your levers should be set a little too high for when the bike is on level ground, enabling them to be set-up correctly when the bike is pitched forward and you really need them most.

Lever Throw

Andy finally, let’s talk about lever throw, or how far the lever has to move before the brakes actually engage. And, this one is gong to come down to the rider’s personal preference, something for the more advanced riders to maybe play around with. I’ve been messing with this a bit myself lately and haven’t come up with any solid conclusions as far as what’s absolutely right or wrong, but I do see how this could work out well and help alleviate some bad braking habits.

In the past, I’ve always run my brakes with exactly the same throw, front and rear. And, I always wanted both brakes to engage right when my fingers were bent at ninety degrees. However, I do recall numerous top-level riders, back in the day, who did run their levers with a ton of throw, particularly the front brake, so that the lever was basically at the bar when the brake engaged. I never really heard a decent explanation why this was done. The explanations that I got didn’t make much sense. But, those dudes were all really fast, so things couldn’t have been too bad.

As I learned more about properly braking a two wheeled vehicle (And, keep in mind, this happened years after what could be considered a fairly respectable stint as a mid-pack professional downhiller with very occasional flashes of brilliance. So, I must’ve been doing an OK job of braking previously), I realized that the front brake is waaaaay over used at the high levels of riding.

The front brake is essential to deceleration. But, very often, deceleration isn’t the goal with braking; as stated earlier, often speed control and/or momentum management is the goal which requires much different braking technique than deceleration.

Unfortunately, too many riders grab front brake when they don’t need it, and, thus, shouldn’t be using it. The front brake is a very powerful tool and a huge asset to your riding. But, like any powerful tool, use it incorrectly and you’re going to hurt yourself.

And, this could definitely attribute to why lots of lever thrown for the front brake may be a good thing: we simply don’t want to use it unless we really need it, and that extra bit of pull could be just enough to take away that initial bite of front brake when you don’t need it.

There’s no way I’d ever attempt to give a full break down of braking technique via internet. But, in terms of this post: the front brake is going to offer the arbitrary 70 – 90% of stopping power to a vehicle on level ground. Let’s go with that. The harder you brake the more traction is needed to deal with those forces of deceleration. If your deceleration forces over come the traction, you skid. An unwanted skid can mean loss of control, particularly when it comes to the front wheel.

When we’re in situations where traction is very minimal—rough, loose, steep, stuff; hard cornering—it’s essentially too late to decelerate the bike. So, stay off the front brake. Because of it’s power, weight transfer while decelerating, etc. (more than we can get into here), and very minimal traction, it’ll almost definitely break traction of the front wheel and skid and that can very easily mean loss of control in the above situations. But, you can almost always control speed by dragging the rear brake. Really, in these situations dragging the rear brake is all you have. And, If the rear wheel does break traction and skid a bit—which it will, at times—it’s not the end of the world. We’ve all had that happen.

In the above situations, it’s very important for the front wheel to maintain direction. That may mean continuing an arc through a corner, or maintaining a straight line over the uneven, off camber surfaces of a rock garden.

You can’t take away traction from the front wheel — in the above situations — by braking or you’re going to give up the ability to maintain direction: brake here, and you’ll either skid or have to take a different path that requires less traction. There’s simply not enough traction to go around. . . This is where taking the edge off of that initial bite of front brake — with more lever throw — may help you out if you have the habit of grabbing front brake when you shouldn’t.

Take the Edge Off your Panic-Brake

The front brake will drastically slow the bike down. The rear really won’t slow it down that much at all (it’ll simply skid the rear wheel if you do try to decelerate hard, which is usually controllable). If you have the habit of grabbing front brake when it’s not necessary, you’re also slowing down when you don’t need to. Tap both brakes before the jump and then case the heck out of it? (We’ve all been there, right?) I almost guarantee if you just tapped a little rear brake—no front—you would have greased it.

As stated above, often we don’t need to slow down, we just need to not go any faster, and doing this correctly translates into faster times.

It’s also much easier for the rider to get thrown forward and out of position if they panic and grab both brakes because of bad braking habits (because, obviously, this will engage the front, thus, decelerating the bike, usually much more than the rider would like), rather than keep their cool, dragging some rear, maintaining good position, visually focus on solutions, and riding it out.

So, again, here’s where having a lot of lever throw on the front brake can be a good thing. You simply have to pull that lever a bit farther to engage it. It may help you to not over use it by grabbing too much front brake if you do happen to panic-brake.

I’m not so sure that running a lot of thrown on the front brake lever is such a good idea on public trails with other trails users, where you may need to suddenly and unexpectedly stop. Let’s just say that I discourage that. But if you’re on downhill trails, bike only, directional, etc., where you can safely work on finding and keeping speed; especially if you have the habit of grabbing front brake when you don’t actually need it, running more throw in that lever may be something to play around with.

Not much throw

Lots more throw

Rant Time!!!!

This has been killing me lately, so why not whine about it publicly and get to off my chest? Haha…

There are ton of mountain bike coaches and coaching organizations out there these days. Everybody and their brother (and sister) seem to be a “certified level blah, blah, blah MTB coach”. As a person who has made his full time living for the past almost ten years as a MTB coach, you can only imagine the opinions that I have on this…

Let me first say that I do believe that its admirable when someone desires to teach a great activity such as mountain biking to others. So more power to anyone who wishes to do this. The bummer is that many of these people who make up this current crop of coaches–and probably more at fault, the organizations who “certify” these coaches–are fully guilty of perpetuating many of the poor, and even dangerous, techniques that have been circulating MTB forever. I’m not seeing the evolution in technique that we should be seeing in the current state of coaching.

We have, and continue to see, the influence of downhill MTB, BMX, and motocross in bike design (my coaching is heavily influenced by these three sports, which, when it comes to skilled riding and training for skilled riding, are light-years ahead of MTB), but where’s the progression in how to ride the bike?

Likewise, I don’t see the consideration of the way the bike is actually designed to work. In fact, many of the techniques that are taught be these organizations–yes, you’ve heard of them; think, self proclaimed, “International Global Standard” of coaching–actually fight the way the bike is designed to work. I definitely don’t see a proper understanding of kinesiology and biology of the of body being brought into MTB coaching by any coaching organization or curriculum (outside of DirtSmart, where this plays a HUGE role in everything I do).

Why? Because most people who coach don’t understand these crucial elements in human movement as they relate to riding the bicycle, and, thus, their necessity in riding the bike correctly. They don’t understand bike design. They’ve never ridden motocross or BMX…or downhill (most) at high levels. They haven’t spent a life that has revolved around going fast on two wheels at the highest levels. They don’t make a living doing this. Its a hobby for them.

Definitely tooting my own horn here, but…

… Racing professionally; consistently racing and riding with some of the best racers and riders on the planet; school; where I’ve chosen to live (and moving around and traveling my entire adult life); toil in virtually every nook and cranny of the bike industry; sacrificing…well, pretty much anything material… It’s all come from, and been filtered through, riding bikes and obtaining knowledge and experience to enable me to ride bikes better and faster.

I do have a PHD in riding stinkin’ mountain bikes… Yeah, I said it!

And, much of that education does come from outside of mountain biking. Hate to say it, but much of inside of mountain biking–where most coaching is drawing from–is stagnant and dogmatic, yet persists as the status quo way to ride the bike.

You gotta know the difference…

Now, I will say, that many of the techniques taught by many coaching organizations will often work for a beginner rider in very easy trail settings (which probably is the bread and butter client/situation for most of these coaches). But, if these are the techniques that the student relies on when the trail gets a little more difficult, the student will be in danger because they simply won’t work well…and that could mean getting hurt.  And, that’s just talking safety; take it further, and there’s no way a rider will get very fast or be very proficient on the bike if their “go-tos” are what what many of these organizations teach as proper technique.

Bad technique is being taught left and right in MTB: “You can’t brake in corners!..”; “Push down on your fork for rebound to help wheelie…”; “Use your front foot as a bracing foot…”; “Weight the handlebars…” (I heard this one today from a guy who is an awesome personal trainer…but, suddenly he’s a bike coach? Huh?)…I could go on forever with this…  Stuff like this is being taught by pretty much every organization out there and will get you killed if you use it when the trail is actually a bit tough.

*** Do I never use the above techniques and many that I could name as dangerous and improper? No. I will use them on occasion, and again, they will work fine in certain settings. However, they are not building blocks to the higher levels of riding (This is a very big part of everything I coach: it all comes from a simple foundation, and you build off of that–even up to the highest levels) and won’t work when things start to get even a bit tough on the trail. It is up to the coach to know and communicate this. Again, many coaches simply don’t have the experience to do this.

Also, I’ll take any coach who actually believes in these techniques as tried and true out to a semi-difficult trail and say, “OK, take this corner without braking.” They won’t and can’t do it. They’ll make the corner (probably), but they will be doing something all together different than what they coach. I’m not saying that they are doing anything malicious or purposefully lying to their students. They are simply ignorant of how things actually work on the bike. And this is natural and fine. I’m positive that I am still ignorant of many things in riding; I must be, because I continue to improve and evolve my coaching and curriculum (and, even though I’m all old and washed up, and maybe not getting faster in terms of raw speed, I do continue to improve in my personal riding with control, efficiency, etc.).

So, am I saying that these people shouldn’t be MTB coaches? Ummmm…No.

They should be able to do whatever they want to do. What I am saying is that the student–the consumer–needs to be aware of what they are getting as a product. Who will be you’re coach? Not the organization, but the individual. What are the coach’s credentials, experience, reviews? Can they ride (Yes, I do believe it is very important that a coach is a very capable rider)?  Have they raced (if you desire to race, probably pretty important your coach has been there), and at what level? Mountain biking is an athetic endeavor. What do they know about the body and how it works in an athletic sense? How do they know this? What do they know about bike set-up and bike design? Training? … Again, I could go on for days…

Chances are, with very rare exception, you won’t be able to find any of this information on particular individual coaches outside of a cute and cleaver little paragraph/bio next a headshot on a website.

And, remember, just because someone was a pro racer, doesn’t mean that they can coach their way out of a wet paper bag. How are they as a coach?

I guess this is why my camps do cost $500 for two days.  And, yes, you can go down to the clinic that your local shop is putting on, and the local pro is going to coach it!..For only $50!!! So, why would you spend the money on that pricey DirtSmart camp?

Well, you can also go down to your local Walmart and get a mountain bike for $200, so why would you spend thousands of dollars at one of those pricey bike shops?

And I’m not saying that all coaches out there, besides me, are “Walmart Coaches”. I’m just saying know what you’re getting into, and–like anything else–you’re going to have to pay a bit for the best product.

Honestly, if you are a straight-up beginner and don’t really intend to even be a “mountain biker”, you probably don’t need high level coaching. But as soon as you intend on riding and progressing–even a little–you’re going to want the best coaching you can get, not only to get more proficient, but to not hurt yourself. And if you want to get fast, to be the best rider that you can be? Like pretty much any other tool that will really see some use, “Buy cheap; buy twice…”

The end…

I love coaching all levels of riders. I get just as much satisfaction and believe that I am equally as successful whether I’m coaching beginners or World Cup downhill racers. My students, of all levels, will attest to this. However, I highly doubt that my World Cup downhill racers would have gotten much out of the example of the the “$50 local shop clinic” that I gave above, and I’m quite sure (positive) that my beginner students would have had a much tougher time progressing as riders with “cheap” instruction.

 

OK, I feel better now…