Railing corners is one of the Holy Grails of trail riding - riders who can do it flow faster and those who can't complain about their tires and head tube angle.The truth is that cornering is just a series of movements that, when put together, help you turn faster and with more balance and confidence. However, as I've learned from guys like Gene Hamilton and Lee McCormack, it takes some thought and practice to really dial it in.
Cornering breaks down into 3 basic steps:
1) Turn with your hips. Set up for a turn with the hips by pointing your belly button the direction you want to go. This will shift your hips to the outside and shift some weight to your outside foot. The more you shift your hips the more you'll want to drop and weight your outside foot.
2) Use counter-pressure to steer into the turn. Counter pressure (which I prefer to the term counter-steering) is when you push forward with your left arm to turn left and push forward with your right elbow to turn right. This gets your bike to lean over and your front wheel to track better through the corner. The more you push with your left hand the sharper you'll turn left, the more you push with your right the more you'll turn right.
It is the complete opposite of how most riders steer into a turn and impossible to pull off unless you are in the right body position on the bike. However, this concept is very important to learn if you want to be able to corner consistently. It freaks some riders out how their bike practically turned itself once they get this concept down.
3) Look through the turn. With all of this hip shifting and counter-pressure you have to look through the corner. Going into the corner you should be looking at the middle of it, not the entrance. Once you hit the entrance you should be looking at the exit and once you hit the exit you should be looking out of the corner at the next section of trail.
All of this will add up to faster, more consistent cornering. I shot a video showing how this works and going over a drill you can use to try it out in a parking lot to see how it feels. It is tough to learn this stuff on the trail which is why you need to put in "parking lot time" to really advance to the next level.
The biggest take home lesson is this – at a certain point just riding your bike will make it harder for you to advance. Some mountain bikers who ride a lot and are considered good riders have the hardest time getting this "new" stuff down. They have logged so many turns using bad form that they had to first unlearn what they had learned, as Yoda would put it.
Practice this stuff for 10-15 minutes, 2-3 times a week so you can start to ingrain the new habits. Keep in it mind when you are riding the trail and you'll be amazed at how quickly you can improve your cornering technique.
BTW, I posted an article on Pinkbike a few months back covering some
great strength training exercises to help with your cornering. Combine that article with these drills and see the power of integrated skills and strength training for mountain biking.
-James Wilson-
James Wilson is the owner MTB Strength Training Systems, the word's only company dedicated to developing strength and conditioning programs for the unique demands of mountain biking. James owns a training facility in Grand Junction CO and is the strength coach for the Yeti World Cup Team. Visit his blog
www.bikejames.com to sign up for your free mini-course 10 Steps to Instantly Improve Your Riding and bodyweight workout.
(or @00:54 here www.dailymotion.com/video/xeoslm_follow-me-brads-yard_sport)
However, you'll get used to it and love it on your all mountain bike..
you'll either make sure you're out of the way, or you can put one leg against it to slow its rate of travel..
My Trail bike is a Nomad and I can't imagine not having an adjustable post anymore.. if you earn your turns by climbing, and like to bomb down with your seat out of the way, Pony up the dough, you'll be happy you did.
I notice it in everything from MX to MTB to even riding my sled. It feels least obvious to me in MTB form though. The other 2 I can clearly tell I prefer to lean/turn right.
The parking lot is actualy a very good training place. Try a track stand for instance: Do it in several combinations. with front wheel to the left as well as to the right, then with right foot forward, then left foot forward. Go for XC riding and force yourself to change the leading foot. It will suck for first few times but in time you will discover new level of "freedom" of movement on your bike.
What James is suggesting in his programs is to focus more on the weak side in whatever training you are doing.
The main problem with this concept is the idea of shifting your weight over the contact patch line between both tyres. This I believe is false under many circumstances. Initially the idea may seem correct however it is only applicable at LOW speeds.
During cornering the bike and rider (combined masses) create an overall mass which in turn has its own dynamic centre (centre mass/centre of gravity). This has two effects; 1. it creates a vertical force acting downwards (mass x gravity) 2. it creates a horizontal force (centrifugal/centripetal, ((mass x velocity^2)/corner radius). The result is a force acting diagonally through the tyre contact patch.
From this we can see that the smaller the corner radius the lower the speed (which is clear to anyone). The issue is that at higher speeds you must take into consideration the combined inertial effects of both wheels and its effect on gyroscopics. At higher speeds the bike will always want to pick itself up as a change in the direction of the front wheel to corner creates a torque. It is this torque which picks up the bike, and it is this which you must counter in order to maintain maximum speed in a corner. This torque is created with a combination of you counter-steering and leaning over towards the inside of the corner. If you don't lean and shift your weight away from the tyre contact patch then there will not be enough torque created to counter the bike. Hence you highside and spend the next 5 minutes picking bits of hillside out of your helmets' mouthpiece
The hips twist is fine but it needs to be entire torso, and only once the bike is angulated else it's useless. The whole point of the twist is to position your centre-of-mass over the contact point of the tyre, the surface area of which wants to be maximised (which is around 45 degrees lean)
Weighting the outside foot: think of how a lever works and what'll happen to your nice leant over bike with a pedal down... it'll stand up again countering what you're trying to achieve.
Looking through the turn is correct but only complementary to twisting the torso. Anyone can crane their neck through a corner but will have no effect on their cornering without properly manoeuvring the torso.
As for pressuring the inside arm... I'd like everyone to please grab their bikes and lean them over to a cornering angle then apply force through the inside (lower) grip only. My money's on the front-tyre skidding sideways. Now do exactly the same thing on the outside (upper) grip and watch that sucker dig in and grip to hell. Outside hand kids. What you should do is, keeping your elbow up and out, use the outside hand push the bike over to the desired angle so it's touching the inside of your leg, then twist those hips, then look through your corner, then rail the shit out of it.
To the haters: yes, I'm a practicing DH coach.
As far as the outside foot goes, what you saying makes sense, so what is your advise for it's position?
On a more adult note what im trying to add is not to apply to much process and technique you may get lost in your own thoughts. Feel your way through each corner and PRACTICE, you will find your own way which is right for you and the bike, bare in mind all this advice as it’s from experienced riders but don’t over think it you will feel it when it goes right and you will know when it’s fast….
Just a few observations from my riding that seem to work for me.
Note that bicycles are light enough to use bodyweight to help steer them, thus being able to ride no-handed, but if you try riding a big motorbike (600cc upwards) no-handed, there is nothing you can do to steer them and in fact the ONLY way to get them to tip into a corner is to counter-steer. Lots of vids on youtube for this, some better than others though.
To try it at home, ride along no handed in a wide area, and very gently pull one of the bars towards you with a single fingertip and see what happens. Once you believe, then try it on your DH bike at speed.
Now, on DH bikes, the gyroscopic forces of the wheels come into play, making conscious countersteering even more important to switch direction quickly. Most riders believe they are pushing the bike down into the corner, but what they are actually doing is pushing the inside bar in the opposite direction (you can't push a bike down because there's nothing for you to push back against above you - all you can do is make it fall to one side by countersteering).
Let's say you are riding down a straight road with a straight line running down the middle of it and you are riding directly on the line. You want to turn left.
Push with the left hand/pull with the right (whatever). You'll notice that when the bars turn to the right that the front tire will steer to the right for a moment - as would be expected. Now, the contact patch of the tires is over on the right hand side of the line, but your centre of gravity is still above the line. This means the bike is leaning to the left and you are all set up to carve to the left.
And so you carve to the left. It is very simple.
And it can't be achieved on a stationary bike. If James' bike had a head angle of 90 degrees and no fork offset, his bike would NOT flop over when it was stationary, but it WOULD still countersteer at speed. Turning the bars on a stationary bike and seeing the bike flop over is just a result of the function of caster/head angle/fork offset/contact patch.
Putting your leg or elbow out or whatever is simply a placebo as its does not have a large roll to play in altering your centre of mass. One of the main things is the angle of your arm as this will give you more control over countering the torque at the bars and a good presence over the front of the bike.
All im saying is, don't be scared of the lean, its natural! see for yourself (this ain't me but its a f**ckin good lean)
www.pinkbike.com/photo/6136465
Enjoy the ridin'!!
The berm is steep enough that he is not leaning at all compared to the berm.
The video in this article is about general trail cornering, not man made bermed cornering.
Great off camber example on snow of everything he has said
mos.bikeradar.com/images/mbukwallpaper/snow_1600x1200_b.jpg
The reactionary forces I have spoken about refer to the resolution of forces (Pythagoras) which act in line between CofG and contact patch. The reactionary torque is due to any gyroscopic moments induced by turning the bars or leaning the bike. It effects the torque at the steering wheel. You can obtain equilibrium in the corner by appliying a counter torque to the bars or countersteering. I am not disagreeing on that. you cannot ride a bike a high speed without doing it, anybody who disagrees just hasn't realised they are doing it yet.
I am kinda new to mountain biking but I would think that for flat turns that are not too sharp you want to lean your body more than the bike, and turn your hips. For sharp turns where you want to slide lean the bike more and weight the front tire more to reduce traction on the rear and have your foot ready to slide. But I am not an expert-- I just find it funny that no one can decide how to turn a bike.
Also, final point. Good article but this bit is slightly misleading: "It is the complete opposite of how most riders steer into a turn and impossible to pull off unless you are in the right body position on the bike." - in reality ALL riders do this on ALL corners but without realising it (think back to the stabilisers bit again). It has nothing to do with body position on the bike. It is only to do with your pressure on the bars.
Here is some counter steering.
lp1.pinkbike.org/p4pb5316256/p4pb5316256.jpg
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMUZCj-AQAI
Gringo.
BTW fullbug with all the stuff I wrote above I am mostly parroting James, Lee or Gene and filtering it through my nerditous mind. I recommend that trio to anyone instead of component wieght charts. Since I "discovered" them I didn't had actualy too much opportunities to practice because of the Swedish winter. I just sit on gym twice a week trying my best to follow James program. Right now actualy sick so not doing even that.
Don't lean with the bike, I guess Steve has got it all wrong then.
even though he is on a steep berm....his inside arm is straight, his body is (slightly) to the outside, and his hips pointed round the corner....hang on...thats exactly what James said in the article....no?
www.pinkbike.com/photo/6173015
The same goes for counter steering in slides/drifts - it just happens without you thinking. At least it happens that way with me.
There are a lot of good techniques in MTB, but cornering is the one thing I've been doing properly since day one - it's just like walking. You can't walk on one foot - it just does not work in long run