Races are won and lost in the turns. EVERYONE is fast in berms, so practice turning in flat corners!
Its hard to argue against his technique being that he is super talented, but sometimes pushing down into the outside foot is needed especially if the corner is off camber or undulating.
That was I was thinking, or maybe a little dip of the outside foot would be easier, but then I guess everyone has its own style and he's a pro and I'm not.
I remember this vid a while back and thought how he just killed turns, so freaking fast. I don't feel very good about my turns, always playing with it and hope to one day feel good about it.
It seems watching him, not necessarily in this part of the vid but it is like his bike almost seems to turn by pivoting on the rear wheel. That the snappy quick turns almost seem to take place entirely on the rear wheel. And that positioning/moving your body to have the rear wheel dig in, makes that quick pop turn happen. Am I tripping?
Not a negative critique but just trying to figure out how I can improve/wrap my brain and hopefully my body around this.
I would say you couldnt be more wrong to be honest. Almost all the turning is done by balancing and pivoting on the front wheel. You cant turn fast from the rear. You are only a passenger (with varying degrees of control) once you are skidding. The biggest thing I have found is having the confidence to stay on the front end of the bike and really commit to planting your front wheel where you want it.
Ok so you are half right. He is pumping the apex of the first turn and unloading the bike between turns. When the bike is unloading he is keeping the front planted and allowing the rear to "float" and pivot around the front, setting him up for the next turn. This is why the rear is locked up even under light braking. The rear tire is barely touching the ground until the next apex when it's loaded again for max grip.
on very close consecutive flat corners, when you really need your outside pedal down, there is the trick to freewheel back, instead of peddle forward (to get your outside foot down instantly in time for each one). once you get the hang of this technique & discover how fun and fluid it is, your almost looking forward to a set of back to back corners so you can execute it.
I do this and as i swap lowered pedals, I shift my bum from one side of seat to the other. It also causes you to bounce your weight on the bike which can improve the grip when your heavy and make it easy to change direction when you're light.
I definitely use that technique in the steep back-and-forth sections where there's a lot of zig-zagging going on. Flat corners as well, since it lets me use my weight (what little of it I have) to work the side-lugs of my tires better.
I tried setting up cones on the road to practice, but on a major street downtown all I really accomplished was merging some traffic.
For instructional biking videos, I think it would be a nice change to see a more creative approach to skill development... as in training for other sports, it's not necessarily that exact action repeated with specific instruction, but other means to more deeply and intuitively develop the technique... e.g. The Karate Kid sanding the floor and painting the fence for Mr. Miagi.
I'm not hating on this video, it's just the same swag that's been said and done in dozens of previous videos.
Same here most of the time I'm rushing it and make mistakes but I find that the fun part . It's great to take your time and all but do find we only learn when or if we push the limits of finding your bike limit of grip all adds up to feeling positive on your bike . Snails get the job done lol
Agreed - note, though, that he's not keeping the cranks 100% horizontal. He does dip the outside foot, just not all the way. The bit of dip facilitates turning in the body (yes, he still rotates the body into the turn), and it gets the inside crank a little higher (so it's less likely to make contact with the ground), but he keeps some weight on the inside foot (so it's easier to transition to the next turn). Basically, he manages to really weight the bike in the turn without fully committing all of his weight to the outside crank.
Very similar to how skiing has progressed - used to be any weight on the inside ski would instantly lead to disaster. Modern skis carve differently - so now you leave some weight on the inside foot. Seems like bikes have gotten better at carving turns in dirt as well - due to better suspension, better tires, better geometry (what with BBs coming down a bit) - so you can still create the compression in the turns without committing all your weight to the outside pedal, in turn setting yourself up for a faster transition.
He sure looks smooth despite going rather fast over rather rough ground. Look at the slo mo - it's impressive how he gets the bike to hook back up even when the wheels bounce over those roots. Part of that is modern bikes (compliant suspension and all that), but mostly it's that he's got the whole compression cycle down pat (weighing/unweighing, using brakes to fine tune, using his hips to drive the bike through the turns). The video is gold - would be nice to then have someone who's really good at coaching to turn it up with specific cues. He does a remarkably good job at that for someone whose main job is being a rider, but there's potential for more here.
@g-42 - I was going to say the same thing. His statement about level pedals might mislead some people. It should be taken as "don't over commit to the outside pedal" not "keep your pedals level." His pedals are definitely not level and he is clearly shifting his weight from foot to foot as he links the turns, but its subtle and he's only dipping his outside foot slightly and the weight distribution is probably in the range of 60/40 to 70/30 in favor of the outside foot. If you go full drop to the outside foot, you won't be quick enough to get back to the other foot by the time the next turn comes and if you slip in the turn you won't have any room for error. Watching pros in most sports is often a do what I do, not what I say kind of deal.
I'm pretty sure he's only talking about keeping the pedals as level as possible is because he's giving tips for doing successive corners so you don't want to have to much pedal dip so your set up for a bunch of corners in succession.
If it was one big flat corner I'm sure he'd be saying different.
Yes, push the bars ever so slightly the opposite way to how you want to turn...
...but you probably do this anyway so it's worth thinking about something else.
Based on watching the slo-mo, not listening to him, I'd say that if you want to go through these turn like him you need to slow enough to not drift the first corner and lean deep into it and then lock your back up as you go into the 2nd and 3rd turns, releasing the brake as you hit the apex of each, leaning in much less than on the first.
Why? you can clearly see in the slo mo that his back is locked as he goes into the 2nd and 3rd, while he is not leaning as much. He even says you can lock it up to move the back where you want it to be. He is essentially gaining speed on the first and then controlling a fish tail to zip through 2&3.
youtu.be/rm1ANkGUQI8
It seems watching him, not necessarily in this part of the vid but it is like his bike almost seems to turn by pivoting on the rear wheel. That the snappy quick turns almost seem to take place entirely on the rear wheel. And that positioning/moving your body to have the rear wheel dig in, makes that quick pop turn happen. Am I tripping?
Not a negative critique but just trying to figure out how I can improve/wrap my brain and hopefully my body around this.
Very similar to how skiing has progressed - used to be any weight on the inside ski would instantly lead to disaster. Modern skis carve differently - so now you leave some weight on the inside foot. Seems like bikes have gotten better at carving turns in dirt as well - due to better suspension, better tires, better geometry (what with BBs coming down a bit) - so you can still create the compression in the turns without committing all your weight to the outside pedal, in turn setting yourself up for a faster transition.
He sure looks smooth despite going rather fast over rather rough ground. Look at the slo mo - it's impressive how he gets the bike to hook back up even when the wheels bounce over those roots. Part of that is modern bikes (compliant suspension and all that), but mostly it's that he's got the whole compression cycle down pat (weighing/unweighing, using brakes to fine tune, using his hips to drive the bike through the turns). The video is gold - would be nice to then have someone who's really good at coaching to turn it up with specific cues. He does a remarkably good job at that for someone whose main job is being a rider, but there's potential for more here.