How To Ride Flat Better Corners In Turns

How To Ride Flat Better Corners In Turns

Cornering Important Skill Mountain Biking

cornering important skill mountain biking

Hey, what’s up guys, my name is Kyle Warner today, we’re going to talk to you about cornering, is the most cornering important skill mountain biking in mountain biking and understanding which technique to use where to use it and why it’s kind of what we’re going to go over today. This is part one of a two-part series part one we’re going to cover the foundation of cornering flat, turns and switchbacks. Today, we set up a little course that April is going to run through we’re going to 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 going to help. You work on your cornering technique. The way that we’re going to 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 going to. Have you done it? No coaching? First, see how she does I’ll point out a few little things here and there, and I’m going to, 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 going to 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,

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 to blow the turn yeah. I saw basically three things that we’re going to try to help you with one was entered 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 cornering important skill mountain biking leaning this The bike to get it to corner tighter without you feeling like you’re going to 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 going to 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 set up on this video, but we will do bike set cornering important skill mountain biking 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 going to 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 runs through it. So this first drill that we’re going to do is a very simple one, but it’s actually the most important and understanding cornering basic. I’m just going to have an April ride in a straight line. She’S going to 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 the 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 going to 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 a maximum grip, have one foot down the 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 going to 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 the outside foot down technique we are covering today. The first thing she’s going to do is ride down that straight line and then basically try to get bike body separation to push down on your inside handlebar. So if your right foot is down pushing 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, 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 harder than it looks. You know you’d, think to go 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 going to do here is. We have some cones set up, we have the entrance, the apex, and the exit, so what April is going to do is basically come in pedaling she’s going to 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 going to, 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 on your. That was really good yeah. That was really good. All right. Let’S do a couple more! Okay! That’S a 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 a 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 they look really good. I’m going to set up a little slalom for you and we’re going to see. If he can do both sides. All right, I can see how it goes I’ll. Do a quick run.

Just going to show you the goal I’m going to 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 for 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 dropping like that: okay, so elbow up and that’ll really finish the turn, but you do everything else good.

It’s just this needs to come up to 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 detail in this video. So there are 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 going to do maybe one or two more runs till you get all three good you’re doing awesome. Thank you. Yeah cornering important skill mountain biking, you’re doing a really 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 Zelda 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 are. 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 going to 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 going to go over this a little bit more in the part, two cornering videos, 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 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, cornering important skill mountain biking 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, as I said, we’re going to 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 to 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 naturally, 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 it. Okay, see you guys later, I think you’re, maybe the salad, oh, that wasn’t good! Try another one!

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Cornering Important Skill Mountain Biking

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