With the first race of the year only days away, Yoann and Christina assess a one minute section of trail, isolating the difficult areas and working on increasing overall trail speed.
Watch all sorts of "how to" bike videos........this is one of the best ive seen. Yoann is not only a great rider and charismatic dude, he is a fantastic teacher/explainer. Tons of great info packed into this vid. Thx pinkobarellichapetta
Ha! Thanks for the feedback! He has a lot of experience to share so a quick video will never do it justice. But I think we touched on a lot of good topics here.
Knowing where to look when riding is a tricky one to master. I am constantly working on it and I always have to remind my self to look ahead so I can carry speed through sections. This was a good video with examples of where and when to look!
@mybaben: Its not eyes up, its head up. Like Yohan says, when you move your head to look, it encourages the rest of your body to follow. Shoulders, hips, feet. Simples.
@glasvagas: This! Moving your entire head is a trick if you've ridden for years not knowing that it was something to do. Got brought up to me by a friend who did moto when we were out riding and it was game changing.
If you want to feel what Yoann means when he says you will go where you look try riding a skateboard or a surfboard. When riding them you cannot turn unless you are really looking where you are turning. My turns while MTBing have improved vastly since have I started riding a skateboard.
Same for snowboarding (and autocross kinda) - that was the key for linking my first two turns way (way, way) back in 1997, the instructor told us to turn and look where we wanted to go, it forced your shoulders to turn which in turn created the weight transfer needed to move from edge to edge.
Same for white water kayaking (which I did before MTB, as I decided broken bones were preferrable to drowning). You basically go where you look so if you stare at a hole / tree / siphon, that's where you'll end up!
Took a motorcycle riding class many years back biggest thing I remember VDC. Visual Directional Control. Look ahead and where you want to go. So simple and so easy to forget.
The race car analogy is 100% accurate. The only advantage we have in our race cars is pad compounds with huge initial bite to accomplish this on the front brakes and if you really did this on a bike you’d go over the bars. But I like the analogy. It’s where all the speed comes from.
Positive self talk and mental imagery plays a huge role in performance! Great points by Yoann, and said in a way that is very easy to digest. What an awesome coach.
45 Comments
Join Pinkbike Login