After many years of riding and competing at World Cup level, I decided from now on to share with you some riding tips, for you to get better and enjoy every ride, even more. So here is the first one, "How to Corner", from our new video series, The Basics with Marcelo Gutierrez. Share it if you liked it and add a comment of what you would like to learn the next time.
Nice one! I learnt something new today witht this video and I thought I had seen all of the kind. Fun fact: I was lucky enough to have met the awesome Marcelo Gutierrez at Fort William World cup, in the gondola, before his race run! such a nice and down to earth character. He chatted with us a bit taking time from his concentration exercises
Been watching a bunch of 'pros teach people how to ride better' videos lately. The #1 thing across all of them is how dynamic you need to be- every single corner is a different approach, and it's a huge series of little things that add up to ripping and flowing, but trying to remember and apply every one to all corners just makes people ride stiff and slow.
Mostly I've just been loving how good these people are at explaining really nuanced things that are so engrained in them, can't be easy to actually verbalize something that's just natural.
One of the most insightful things I've learned about cornering was at a track day with my car. The instructor drilled home that your tires provide a certain amount of traction. You can use that traction for braking, for accelerating, or for cornering. This is why if you're near the limit in a corner and you brake, you either straighten up the bike or you're going down.
Not level just not outside foot all the way down, especially when you are trying to do few fast direction changes it takes long time to do it when you have to change position of the feet if you have to start from all the way down.
@Mondbiker: I'm no pro, but I've been playing around and the mid drop feels pretty good. When I drop the outside foot all the way I never feel like I can move my body around with all my weight on that one foot. I try to reserve that full foot drop for flat corners. Big sweeping supported berms i feel like I can take pedels level and body low.
The Woolley video turns all had some support to them. Casper pre-rode that little cone section to groove out the turns and the berm section had, well, berms. Yeah, feet up and hips in on supported turns. Cornering vids focus on one of the two cornering stances: feet up or outer foot down, and it's usually the foot down style. Where I live it's just a bunch of dry pea-gravel on mostly unsupported turns, probably 4 outside foot down turns to 1 both feet up turn. I want a video that walks through an entire trail categorizing each turn, to include braking points and those little spots where you have to do most of your turning because the lead-in is so drifty, forcing you to aim at the one supported spot to snap on. Cathrovision on a pea-gravel trail for my vote!
@marssizedobject: This! All day! Give me a video with like 20 types of turns. Decreasing radius blind turns are my mortal enemy, how about a video on how to correct mid turn when you can't pre ride and get it wrong.
@JohanG: Yes sir! I had a whole couple sentences about the 'mid-clock' but decided to keep it simple as this is PB and a wall of text keeps people from reading. If we redefine "feet level" turns to "feet clocked enough so that some appreciable amount of weight is being applied to the inside foot" I think we'd have it. Actually, we need a video that covers front and rear wheel weighting in specific turns. Some turns I get over the bars and dig that front tire in till it whomps. Other times, I'm over the back and pulling up on the bars through the turn. I think the actual mid-clock angle depends on where your weight is at in relation to your bottom bracket. "Level" is too simple of a description.
@Snowrydr01: IMHO decreasing radius turns rely on you snapping the bike at the transition of the first radius to the second. To snap just lean the bike a little further over just before that radius change then push and twist the bike at that spot. The new angle will stand your bike back up to where you had it before and the rear tire will come around. It's harder to do when your outside foot is down because your outside leg is fully extended and therefore can't push into the snap spot. Mid-clock (aka feet up to some degree) means your legs are coiled a bit and are quick to respond with lots of power. Binge watch 50 to One videos for reference. If you reserve outside foot down turning for the times when traction isn't available, you will have better response time and power for mid-turn unknowns. Blind turns? Not much you can do but slow down, put a foot out, and pray someone's grandma isn't around the corner
@Snowrydr01: yes it´s good idea to play with how low you want/need to go with the outside foot, it´ s not about the corner type only either, stronger and healthy elite level rider will deffo be able to do more cornering with most of the BW supported by one foot only vs. recreational rider.
@marssizedobject: That is very good idea actually. I still feel you get the most from one on one training session though, we all know how videos can be misleading.
@marssizedobject: Yes, but the Gutierrez berm is even more supported I just wanted to point wooleys video out, because when i learned cornering, i always read "put your outside foot down, inside up" and i applied it to almost every corner/berm ... it was annoying to relearn and i still sometimes put my foot down all the way even if i dont have to. And yes, a video about different corner types down a whole trail would be awesome
Excelente vídeo Marcelo! Como puede/debe uno mejorar bajar el pie de afuera que no es dominante? Obvio practica. Pero aún así, si tienes tips se le agradece!
Mostly I've just been loving how good these people are at explaining really nuanced things that are so engrained in them, can't be easy to actually verbalize something that's just natural.