Mountain Bike Psychological Technique
A More Professional Approach
Many of us dream of riding like a pro... or at least gaining just a small portion of the skills they posses! As riders, we are all happy to benefit from the technical developments that help the top guys and girls in the pursuit of ever advancing standards when it comes to our bikes and equipment. The filter down effect...
Control Freaks
If you are a regular reader of IMB then its pretty safe to assume that you love to ride. Through this love of mountain biking you will, no doubt, have experienced some thrills and spills, faced and overcome challenges, visited stunning locations and met some great people. It is the rich variety of experience that helps keep our love of...
Dare - Double Dare - The Psychological Challenge
In part 2 of our session instalment, we take a glimpse into rider psychology and our mental approach to practising sections of trail. Working on our mental game is a fast track way to improve what happens on the bike. Neglect the mental training, and all that hard work on the bike is as good as worthless. I have mentioned...
Just get over it
Be bold and live life beyond the crest There is a famous saying in the climbing world, there are old climbers and bold climbers, but there are no old bold climbers. On one hand, this doesn’t apply to mountain biking but on the other, it may apply to some. if you arrived late into the sports or reached a point...
Looks Like a Session
Practice makes permanent Skills on demand and the ability to make the bike dance down the trail are not so much about perfecting things, it's more a matter of embedding subconscious memory (connections in the brain) and muscle memory within ourselves, making a permanent connection so that we can make the correct shapes at the correct times. With the core...
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 Art of Going Slow to Go Fast
IMB would like to give a warm welcome to our new Skills and Technique guru Mr Clive Forth. We’d also like to say a huge thanks to Richard Kelly who has been in that role since Issue 2! Richard is now really busy with his B1KE business, which is growing very quickly, sadly for us he’s not going to be...
The Learning Curve
Discover Victory in Failure We've all done it and in all walks of life, yup… we have gone and fudged up! This is just a fact of life and one of the hardest learning curves to conquer, the process of not making mistakes and the art of recovering from them. Whether you are bouncing back from broken bones or merely...
The Need For Speed
Do you have that need? That need for speed? This time we delve into the topic of riding trails for the first time and how you can do it much faster. From carving up corners to hauling over humps we are going to give you an insight into how you can carry speed with confidence on the most demanding of...
The Need For Speed Part 2
Welcome back, last issue we looked at riding trails for the first time and how you can hit them with more confidence and more speed, this time round we delve into one of the common features on a trail and a feature where speed is not the only thing that can be wiped out. For some riders the fear of...
The Trade off
Having just witnessed many disciplines at the 2023 World Cycling Championships I thought it fitting to delve into that classic British idiomatic phrase that is thrown around at such times and hopefully inspire some of you to take a moment to review your approach to your riding regime, the equipment you use and the cycling endeavours you choose. I hope...
The Weighting Game
Pump up your riding This issue it’s about time we delve deeper into the subject of pumping, pressure, and unweighting the bike. When it comes to putting words into action then this is a topic fraught with controversy and confusion. Thanks to the various lingo used to describe a sensation and a technique, the outcome on the trail can be...
Featured
The Trade off
Having just witnessed many disciplines at the 2023 World Cycling Championships I thought it fitting to delve into that classic British idiomatic phrase that is thrown around at such times and hopefully inspire some of you to take a moment to review your approach to your riding regime, the equipment you use and the cycling endeavours you choose. I hope...
Night Riding
With the days in the Northern hemisphere shortening faster than the odds of a turkey seeing in the New Year, this issues technique feature looks at Night riding. Some of the article will look at which skills are required to get more out of riding at night, but equally, if not more important, is taking a look at how riding...
Winter Skills - Part 2
Stop the press, break out the balloons and grab a slice of cake as we celebrate one year with IMB. What a year we’ve had, and what a year ahead. Creating features is a fascinating process when the guys at IMB approached me my brain went into overdrive with ideas for the technique section. I’ve been humbled over the years...
Camber
Save the anger and conquer the camber Welcome back folks and thank you for joining us in the continuation of our skills and technique features, we now move on from the basic core skills covered in the previous issues, and we start to ramp it up with trail technicality as we look at progressing those core skills and techniques. As...
Conquering Camber
We often think of trail as up or down, ascent or descent. The reality is we live in a far more three-dimensional world where often the fall line of the terrain is crossed rather than followed. The cross fall of the trail can challenge a rider and present a problem that pushes them to places either they don't want to...
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...