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Hi, and let me begin by saying that I’m a complete noob to mountain biking. I’ve done a little with some cheap yard sale bikes and have learned that they suck… so I now have a nice bike, a used Giant Yukon?? I love it. I’ve ridden it a little around the neighborhood waiting for it to warm up to do any actual trail riding. But I figure until then I could at the least learn some essential skills. My question is this. What would be the best "tricks" to learn first, and where would I find the info on doing them?
I’m kinda stuck teaching myself these things. I’ve been trying to learn track stands and bunny hops. Is there anything else I need to figure out before I hit the trails? -
Ride, ride, ride, most important have fun, just go have fun, tricks are for shows. And the term is newb as in newbie, 😏 nuck nuck
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Thanks for the tips. I do have some experience, I’ve just about figured out the braking on DH’s, I do still make shifting mistakes usually waiting too late to downshift for uphills and grind a little. My biggest thing is that I’ve been trying to figure out how to jump the little things in the trail. I’ll hit them and bust, or I have to stop and walk it. That’s whats annoying me more than anything else. I don’t know anyone that can or would teach me so the only thing I can do is try and figure it out on my own. That’s why I’ve been sticking to cheap bikes. But now that I have a bike that can handle what I want to throw at it, I’d like to learn a few new things.
Oh, and Juan Gear I meant noob. I’m a newb that sometimes acts the boob! 😆
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get a 2×4 place in the drive way and ride it. place a 6"log (or bigger) and learn how to ride over it. going over curbs etc. place a can down and w/out turning have the from and rear wheel go around it on opposite sides. bunny hop. go to the library and pick up a book on mt biking.
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Riding anywhere in general will help make you more comfortable on the bike, but I believe practicing some little things can help make you even more comfortable and help speed up getting good at balance and technical riding.
Check out this video for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXRSPfdfH-A
I practiced this on a small curb to start, it may seem really simple on something as small as a 6" curb, but knowing how to do this will come in handy on a technical trail, I’ve seen people not be able to get up and over a little 12" rock and they don’t understand how I got up and over it with ease, so it will help:) That guy has a ton of instructional videos, it’s all for trials riding, but practicing some of this stuff will greatly help your technical riding skill. Obviously some of the stuff he does is beyond mountain biking, but at some level some of it can be helpful.Aside from that, gotta work on your cardio and leg strength, which will improve the more you
ride, so just get out and ride a lot. If you really want to get into it I’d suggest this book, "Bicycling Magazine’s Training Techniques for Cyclists", has some great info. It may sound like a lot of effort to put in, but biking is much more enjoyable when you can handle any climbs or technical sections the trails throw at you. Most important don’t give up, fall down, get back up and try again, don’t get discouraged because it will take some time to get really good as with learning anything new. So get out there and enjoy yourself! -
It’s not the jumps per se, It’s more of fallen logs, rocks, and the occasional snake (funny story behind that) that I’m having trouble with. Usually, when I try I completely miss jumping them, hit them harder than what I would have, then crash. It’s not the falling and bouncing off of trees, it’s the having to walk around the little things that get in my way.
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Each part of riding is a building block,pedaling,balance,steering,turning are the basics of riding a bike.And of course bunny hopping,manuals,wheelies,(or tricks) are also building blocks of riding a bike.One way I look at it is this,,,,if you take that fallen log,random rock in the trail,or snake 😼 and put them in the street in front of your house,you will most likely not have too hard of a time traversing them one on one,but when you put those obstacles out on a trail that is at least several miles long or longer,then you have exponentially compounded the difficulty of those obstacles,I would suggest taking on your learning curve like this,,,when you go to the trail,tell yourself you are going to do everything you can to ride a part of the trail without putting a foot down.Doesnt matter what part of the trail,if your familiar with the trail your riding,pick a part that trail you are comfortable with and put all your worrys into that one part of the trail and only worry about riding that part of the trail without putting a foot down.The rest of the trail just ride it and see what happens without worring about it.You will do this until you first get comfortable riding certain parts of the trail and get comfortable riding it successfully.One thing I notice in my riding is that I need to not get ahead of myself by ignoring my own capabilitys and stop and look at the image I have of actually being out on the trail and riding it and let that image linger inside my own head,dont run from it like a puppy dog does when he see’s himself for the first time in the mirror.After you have successfully ridden several parts of the trail and accept that seeing yourself do this is actually natural….Hope this helps… 😃
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It’s not the jumps per se, It’s more of fallen logs, rocks, and the occasional snake (funny story behind that) that I’m having trouble with. Usually, when I try I completely miss jumping them, hit them harder than what I would have, then crash. It’s not the falling and bouncing off of trees, it’s the having to walk around the little things that get in my way.
Well, what exactly happens when you hit things like logs and rocks? How are you trying to clear them? By entirely clearing them with a bunny hop or just rolling over them? Try to really think about how your trying to clear it, and whats going wrong, and think about how you need to correct your riding to make it work.
One thing I’ve noticed beginners doing(I’m sure I did it too), is not lifting their body weight off the bike in order to let the bike go up and over obstacles. What will likely happen is you might be able to pull the front wheel up and over something, then the rear wheel will slam into it and not make it over the obstacle because all your body weight is holding it down. This is really easy to work around if you have clip-in pedals because you can simply pull up on the pedals to pull the rear tire up. I believe that video I linked in my last post basically explains how to do to this.
Another thing I’ve seen beginners do is staying seated in the saddle even through rough, technical, steep terrain, this is a no no.. You need to keep off the seat in rough situations, I like to think of it as letting your body float over the bike, so the bike can absorb the roots and rocks and move around underneith you without jerking your body around to much.
Another thing you’ll need to do in rough situations is keep your body weight towards the back of the bike. Especially in steep sections, the further back and the lower you get your weight, the less likely you’ll be to flip over the handlebars. You can practice this off the trail by riding down stairs, riding up stairs is good practice too if it’s just a few stairs.
I remember being pretty nervous when I first started riding to the point where I would walk some sections too. But you’ll get more comfortable over time the more time you spend on the bike. Eventually you may just need to tell yourself to just go for it. It’s good to be aware of the dangers and risks of the trail, that will help keep you from trying something that could really get yourself hurt. But at the same time as you get better, you’ll learn what you’re comfortable doing even with those risks involved.
Be patient, you just started riding. But the more often you get out on the trail or practice little things on the street the sooner you’ll get better.So what happened with this snake?
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When I get to the more difficult sections I usually lower my seat a little for a little more room and to avoid a sudden gender change. I think that where I’m getting into trouble is in the landing. My front tire seems to stop listening to me and heads over to the ruts even when I launch away from them, and I can’t seem to get more than a couple of inches off the ground. I guess I’ll just have to ride a lot more to figure it out. I know the mechanics of what I’m trying to do, just the execution of it stinks.
I’m not having much of a problem with the down hill except waiting to brake to late, but that’s an easy fix. Although you’re suggestion of the stairs is pretty good. I’ll be heading back to college next week. That’ll give me plenty of practice with stairs. -
I am just getting into ridin from motocross. I did not use a bike to train, I used stationary equip. I rode all the time when I was a kid through the woods of central Pa. I have read this thread and learned alot. I am in central Alabama for work and decided that riding will take the place of mx. I am glad I have found this site. I have found a beginner safe trail and will be riding there as much as possible, and training and riding around our shop during the week. I found that after 6 months off from a bad crash(mx) I am not as in as good of shape. 😕
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I started out with a rigid frame so any and all obstacles were always a challenge, even the small stuff at first. It was really daunting to see even a branch across the path.
One day I started fun-riding around on the street right in front of my house. I tried several times to get onto the sidewalk from the street. I eventually succeded with this technique:
Control your approach speed * Get off the seat and level the pedals * Time it right and lift the front wheel onto the sidewalk curb * Shift weight forward and "get light on your feet" (hop up at the right time for the back tires) so that the rear wheel would lightly bound over the curb * Do not loose too much momentum (approach the obstacle too slow and you will not be able to stay on your bike when you loose momentum on the obstacle) * Practice, practice, practice.I then tried it with a taller sidewalk and it worked perfect. After that I decided to just ride down the street and hop every curb that I ran into. That was the best practice ever because 8" logs became easy after that. Just don’t try to do it at full downhill speed.
I now have a full suspension bike and found out that the timeing is a bit different. With a FS you first compress the front tire and then pull up front wheel. The FS is more forgiving if your timeing is a bit off too. Shifting your weight forward still works great for the rear tire. If you don’t shift weight forward for rear wheel to clear on a FS bike, you still end up loosing too much momentum.
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Besides getting through obstacles, the other thing that I struggled with was that I kept looking near my front wheel. That made me over-compensate for every bump, stone twig, root, etc.
Look at where you want to go, not what you are trying to avoid. You have to make yourself look much further ahead so that you can "read the path ahead" better. That allows you to smooth out your riding line, and lets you relax more. Relaxing gives you better absorption of the bumps, and more importantly a softer grip on your handlebars and more precise control on your brake levels. By "reading the path ahead" better, it gives you the ability to make better decisions like * anticipating a smooth flowing section ahead so you upshift and build some speed for it * or see some tight turns ahead and you set yourself up by smoothly applying brakes and to go wide at the start of the turn * or a hill is coming up so you build up momentum ahead of time.
With more "seat time" and experience, you build up your fitness level that gives you more stamina and power and naturally you also builds up more confidence and speed. This is where you start to "lean the bike not the rider". That digs in the side knobbies of your tires into the soil to give much more grip on the turns. If at this point you find yourself needing some additional grip, you can lower the pressure on your tires for a bigger contact patch at a bit of a sacrifice of rolling resistance.
Just keep on riding and these skills will continue to improve quickly.
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More beginner information available here: http://www.singletracks.com/channels/beginners
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