Mountain Bike Maintenance Technique
Driving Force
Even with the best technique in the world, if your bike lets you down you are going to lose speed and there is a danger it will have a knock on effect on your riding ability. The power transfer between you and the bike is perhaps the most important one when looking to tackle steep climbs. Skipping gears and a...
Trail Fix
We have looked, over the last 12 issues, at many aspects of skills development and how to get more from your riding. These articles have focused heavily on elements that make up the physical and psychological tier of a skills development model that we have identified. Each element of each tier plays a part in reaching your full riding potential....
Featured
Up and Overs
We all love the flowing feel of gliding down trails, effortlessly zipping along, experiencing Mother Nature at high speed. 'Flow' is not a given and you'll often hear riders praising a trails flow or bemoaning its lack of it. The reality is that, although 'flow' can be engineered into a trail - with swooping smooth transitions and bermed corners all...
The Art of Fast
You're fit (or fit-ish), your bike is the same calibre as your buddy's, but you just can’t seem to carry the same speed that they do. How is it that some riders seem to accelerate away from you with comparative ease, all with seemingly less effort? This issue we look at some key pointers as to how to carry more...
The Bunny Hop
I Said A Hip Hop Hippie to the hippie, The hip, hip a hop, and you don't stop, a rock it out Now, what you hear is not a test I'm rappin' to the beat... and for those of you not familiar with the hit track “Rappers Delight” by the Sugar Hill Gang I’ll crack on with this editions skill,...
Crank it Up - Dial in that fancy footwork
In the last issue we looked at our contact patches on the bike and gave you some insight into the micro techniques used to get that bike just where you want, and that got me thinking, specifically about crank position, crank timing, and just how important they are for all areas of skills and techniques. Having observed many things related...
Getting Fully Sussed
Each issue we refer to it. It’s one of the single most expensive elements to our bikes. It is fundamental to the way your bike works & feels. It can be pivotal (quite literally) to our performance and a major factor in our overall riding experience. For the vast majority of us, it is probably the least understood element of...
Contact Points
In this edition, we are getting all touchy-feely (in an appropriate manner) as we look at contact patches. No matter what we do on the bike from simply rolling along the road to ram-raiding a boulder field we have just a small amount of surface area in contact with the bike and the terrain. We are of course talking about...