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Mountain Bike Training for Beginners

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Here is comprehensive post about mountain bike training for beginners. The article is written by Cecilia Potts who is former junior mountain bike world champion and professional cyclist. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the reading. However, you may need an extra cup midway through this article, it’s quite long… Enjoy!

Mountain biking can be a little intimidating when you’re a beginner.
If you’re anything like me, the first time I took my tires onto an off-road trail it didn’t look anything like the YouTube videos that show up with a search for mountain biking.

My first few mountain bike experience wasn’t worth watching except for maybe for the scenery!

Instead of mastering off-road cycling on the first try, riding a mountain bike was a lot of learning from the school of hard knocks…thank goodness for the bicycle helmet!

The good news is learning how to ride a mountain bike doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, with some planning and basic understanding of physics, your first ride can be as easy as taking a walk in the park.

Before Your First Ride

The bike. The bicycle you select — whether, you rent, borrow or buy—has do two things:

1.) It must match your skill level.
2.) It has to fit properly.

Aaron ‘Moose’ Reichert has made a career out of helping people get into mountain biking. When a beginner mountain bike rider comes to him to get set up with a bike, they’re often drawn to the ultra, high-end mountain bikes they see in the glossy magazines.

Buying the most expensive bike before you’ve ever tried mountain biking isn’t going to make the sport easier to master. Actually, it will probably make it more complicated. The more bells and whistles and “higher end” your bicycle it is, the harder it’s going to be to learn the fundamental skills of mountain bike riding.

Trying to figure out how to set the rebound on your rear shock and adjust your disc brakes is going to take away the focus you need for learning how to stay upright when your bicycle is heading down a bumpy trail.

“The most important thing for a beginner is a properly fitted bike that’s apt to their skills. Too much bike can sometimes be a little squirrelly,” explains Moose.

It’s like giving a 16-year-old the keys to a Ferrari, it’s just not a good match.
Beyond the bicycle there are couple other things that can make or break your first mountain biking experience. Words of wisdom: get a good helmet, make sure you like how the saddle fits your rear end, and invest in a good pair of shorts.

The helmet is one of the most important accessories that beginners often overlook. You will fall and crash as a beginner, intermediate, and even at the professional level. Professional mountain bike racer Jason Moeschler, whose been riding mountain bikes for nearly 30 years, says that a good helmet with a good retention system (the way that it fits and is fastened to your head) is a must for beginners. Another important accessory are your bike shorts.

“The biggest mistake might be giving up on mountain biking because of not being comfortable on their bike. Having the proper bike position, comfortable saddle, suspension setup, and quality chamois makes all the difference.” says professional mountain bike racer Gretchen Reeves.

There are opportunity costs before you even go on your first mountain bike ride. And, for some beginner riders, it’s more cost effective to buy the helmet and comfy shorts and then just borrow a bicycle to see if they like the sport well enough to buy a bike.

There’s nothing wrong with getting a loaner bicycle, but Moeschler cautions before you do take it out, make sure it has been looked over by a bicycle mechanic so that it’s properly tuned.

Your First Ride

The term ‘mountain biking’ is a little bit misleading because ‘off-road cycling’ is really what it is. You don’t have to inch your way up to the top of a steep precipice or barrel down the side of a mountain to go mountain biking. And really, when you’re first getting started riding a mountain bike, it’s better to build the skills you need in a less intimidating environment.

Choose a trail that doesn’t include dynamic terrain and altitude changes. Finding the right trail for you can come from talking with friends who are mountain bikers and asking for advice from your local bicycle shop.

There are also many Internet resources that can direct you to nearby trails and provide ratings regarding their difficulty.

Getting into mountain biking can be frustrating because it’s not like riding a bicycle on a paved surface. Off-road cycling includes the added difficulty levels of uneven surfaces, unmovable objects (trees and rocks), and nature—like puddles, streams and trails.

If you’re used to going out and riding 35KM on the road bike, plan on half the distance on the mountain bike taking twice as long. Point being, even if the trails you first choose to ride on are short 5KM or 10KM loops, it’s possible that it will take more than an hour to cover that kind of distance because of those added levels of difficulty.

Unfortunately, there’s no secret formula for your first ride.

It’s basically a trial by fire.

I wish I had better news for beginning mountain bike riders. However, there is a good and highly-scientific method used to measure the success of your first, second, third, 19th, 443rd and 999th ride…

How many times did you smile?

Really, it’s that simple. No matter how frustrating it was feeling like the little metal ball in a pinball machine as you were banging along the trail, at some point you’re likely to have cracked a smile.

That moment when you were able to pedal up and over a steep incline without putting your foot down, or when you blasted through the stream crossing without ending up going for a swim; those little successes are huge confidence builders and make all the pain and anguish (trust me, there will be pain and anguish) 100-percent worthwhile.

Even though the smiling part is serious, there is a little bit more to helping you have a successful first ride.

Never crash on your mountain bike or use a helmet

Basic Mountain Bike Skills

There are two skills that will make your first mountain bike ride go more smoothly:
1.) Braking.
2.) Shifting.
Braking. It’s intuitive to lock up the brakes when we’re in a dangerous or confusing situation. We do it on our road bicycles, we do it in our cars, and you will do it on a mountain bike. Locking up the brakes and skidding is almost always the first stage of a crash scenario.

Here’s how it plays out: too much speed, obstacle sighted, undeveloped skills to handle obstacle, too much brake, uncontrolled skid, tires lose contact or traction, rider goes down.

The entire crash and burn scene can be omitted from your first few rides if you learn a.) to control your speed, b.) when to brake, and c.) how to brake.

Speed control is just as important when going fast as it is when going slow.

Obviously, when you’re going down a hill or grade you are going to gather speed. Going fast can be fun and it probably will make you smile, but how you handle it is key. When you achieve terminal velocity, you’ve missed the golden opportunity to effectively brake (without potentially breaking yourself).

A good rule of thumb is when you catch yourself thinking or saying, “Whoa, that’s a little fast,” it’s time to put on the brakes and slow that train down. Notice the word ‘brakes,’ as in plural.

Your bike has two brakes, a front and a rear. You need them both.

If you grab a handful of just the back brake, you’ll start skidding and likely going sideways. Not only is this dangerous for you because the risk of losing control and crashing, but it’s also incredibly damaging to the condition of the trail.

Skidding on a trail can cause a rut to develop and ultimately lead to trail erosion. The opposite of using just the rear brake is using only the front brake. Bad idea.

YouTube search the term “mountain bike endo” and watch the results of going all in on the front brake only. The sweet spot for braking is using some of both the front and the rear brakes.

“When you go in for a brake job on your car how many times do you do your need rear brake pads? It’s almost always the front. You do your front. Seventy percent of the car’s stopping power is handled by the front brakes. A mountain bike is no different than a car,” explains Moose.

Shifting. Your bike has gears, use them. Many times when we’re learning how to ride a bicycle off road, we focus so intently on keeping the bike upright that we forget about making it easy for us to pedal the bicycle forward.

Unless you’ve chosen a single-speed bike for your first mountain bike, you’ve got a whole mess of gears to help you keep pedaling as you go up and over hills and through rocky or sandy stretches of trail.

People talk about low and high gears when riding their mountain bikes. You might hear a fellow rider say, “I rode that steep uphill section in such a high gear and crushed it.” High gear, uphill, crushed it, this guy must be be a mountain biking master.

Sounds good, right? WRONG.

This guy made the task-at-hand way too difficult at the expense of his own knees.

Remember this: a ‘high gear’ equals the chain on the smallest cog on the rear wheel, which means you’ll be making fewer pedal revolutions. Yes, it gives you more torque in a situation, but it is also makes it feel difficult to pedal. Like you have to force your weight onto the pedals just to get the wheels to turn.

When you encounter a steep or an uphill section, shift your bike into a ‘low gear.’ In other words, the chain should be on the biggest cog on the rear wheel. This is going to allow you turn the cranks more easily and do what people mean when they say “spin up the climb.” Your legs will be spinning the cranks faster than the bike is rolling forward but you’ll be able to make it up the climb without taking your feet off the pedals.

Shifting your gears is all about timing. The better you get at shifting, the more efficient you’ll be on the trail. Don’t be afraid to try out different gears on the trail. It will take a while to hone on the combinations that work best for you.

It’s a good idea to ride your mountain bike a few times on a surface you’re comfortable with before taking to the trail. Go around the block or on a paved path and practice shifting and braking. Learn what it feels like to shift your bike.

Experiment with the brakes. Try changing gears on a small hill.

You have to pedal to shift the bike properly, there’s a sweet spot of power from your legs that will help shift the bike smoothly without jamming the gears.

The BONUS third skill is balance.

Balance. It’s hard to learn what balance on a bicycle means just by reading about it. But, in a nutshell, balance is all about where your body’s weight is on the bicycle at all times.

The best way to think about balance on a mountain bike is to think of the the bicycle as the lever and your body as the fulcrum. As the terrain shifts or obstacles are encountered, it’s up to you to keep the bike upright. Riding a mountain bike is a very active activity. It requires you to constantly shift your weight forward, rear, and side-to-side.

Going down a hill, you’ll want to move your body weight aft on the bicycle.

This means taking your rear end off the seat and moving backwards. By doing this, you’re removing weight from the front wheel, which will allow you to more easily roll over bumps with out getting pitched forward off the bike.

Think of it this way, if you’re going down hill and you have too much weight on your front wheel, it’s possible that when you hit a bump your front wheel could stop short and your inertia will cause you to continue forward sans bicycle.

Going up a hill you want exactly the opposite stance. You’ll want to scoot forward on the saddle (yes, the skinny part of the saddle will be uncomfortably personal with your butt) or just stand up, while using your body weight to keep enough traction on the rear tire so it doesn’t spin out.

Keep smiling if you fall of your mountain bike

If you don’t do this, and just keep your butt on the saddle, the front wheel will do a sort of ‘pop-a-wheelie’ behavior, and you’ll go over backwards.

“I tell beginners that on hills, you’re always off the saddle in the attack position. You’re a wrestler, you’re a ninja, you are ready to attack! If you are stiff on the bicycle your body can’t receive the jolts,” says Moose.

And, when you’re body’s stiff on the bicycle, you can’t balance as well.

Lateral balance is a little bit more of an intermediate concept, but still an important one to be aware of when you’re first learning how to ride a mountain bike.

Think of orange-barrier cones set up tightly in a straight line. Your job is to weave your bicycle through the cones in an s-shape pattern. How are you going to do that without falling over? Easy, you are going to move your body from right to left as you slalom through the cones.

Same goes when you’re riding along on a skinny section of single track trail that’s lined with the occasional tree. Lateral balance and movements with your body keep the bicycle upright and moving forward.

Braking! Shifting! Balance! No problem piece of cake. You’ve got this. Go out for a ride, then read the next section.

Tips and Tricks
Nobody likes to make a mistake. That’s probably why you’re reading this before you go out for that first ride. You want to know if there are common pitfalls—preventable incidents—that you can be aware of before it’s too late.

How to prevent mountain bike mistakes

Take a skills clinic and learn from riders who are better than you.
Even the pros do it, self included (I’m a retired professional racer). A couple years ago, I was having the hardest time making it through this 25KM downhill without having to stop. For days I practiced, alone, and kept making the same mistakes and not progressing.

An opportunity came up for me to ride the course with mountain bike enduro racing legend Mark Weir and world champion downhill racer Brian Lopes, and I went out with them. They opened my eyes to ways to ride the sections I was having problems with that I’d never even considered. The result was a close to flawless ride my next time on the course, and a new set of skills to apply to the next time I came to a downhill section that I couldn’t figure out.

Both professional racers Moeschler and Reeves agree that skills clinics and following someone who’s a better rider than you can really improve your skills quickly.

“What really helped was riding with people who were better and more experienced than me; this is true for both climbing or descending. Following someone who knows what they’re doing really helps with understanding form and positioning on your bike relative to the terrain,” explains Moeschler.

Reeves adds, “I typically see huge improvements in the one and two-day camps that I have taught. It improves confidence and makes it that much more fun!”

Taking the Next Steps: Equipment

In the Before Your First Ride section, the topic of equipment was discussed. Getting the right bike. Getting a good helmet and a good pair of shorts. After you’ve been out on the mountain bike a few times, and you enjoy it, there are a few more pieces of equipment (and skills) that will help you be a better rider.

There are four pieces of mountain bike equipment to put on your short list:
1.) Eyewear
2.) Gloves
3.) Water
4.) Repair kit

Next to the helmet, eyewear—sunglasses or clear lens glasses—are the most important piece of safety gear when riding a bicycle. It’s likely that you will encounter tree branches, flying rocks, dust, and bright sunlight while out on the trail.

Getting slapped in the face by a tree branch will induce the natural reaction of shutting your eyes (don’t do that! you can’t see the trail then!), but if you have a protective lens covering your eye, there’s a greatly reduced chance that your eyes will be injured. Even simple dust is a problem.

Trust me, you’ll be covered by it if you’re riding anywhere that’s dry. Mud, too. Mountain bike tires have a great way of flicking mud and rocks up into your face. My personal preference is to have an eyewear system that allows me to change my lenses depending on conditions. Tinted for bright light situations. Yellow or amber for low light situations. And sometimes clear.

Mountain biking is said to be tough on the legs. It’s tough on the hands, too. Much worse than if you’re just riding your road bike or city bike around. The uneven terrain causes a lot of jostling of the handlebars. You’re going to be hanging on to those bars. All that movement causes friction between your palms/fingers and the rubber handlebar grips.

A pair of good quality gloves can greatly reduce the blisters that friction can cause and offer your palms some padding.

There are a lot of choices when it comes to gloves. Long-finger, short-finger, padded, no pad…the list goes on. Over the years, I’ve moved to wearing a long finger, dirt-bike style glove. I choose a long finger glove because of protection. My hands are covered with scars—reminders of being an athlete more than 20 years. Long-fingered gloves keep the skin on my hands out of harm’s way. I don’t have second thoughts about heading through brush that might scratch my hands, or worry about scraping up my palms if I do go down in a crash.

Keeping hydrated while riding is really important. Moose says to invest in a water bottle. That’s sound advice, and these days the water bottle has been taken one step farther with the water bladder back pack. Riding with a gear pack that contains a bladder actually kills two birds with one stone.

First, you have a huge reservoir of water with you—more than you could ever carry with just a water bottle. Second you have a gear pack, an easy way to carry just about anything including tools to fix your bike when it breaks. Eventually you will have a breakdown.

Simple bicycle repair is a skill that all riders must learn. There are no bike shops out along the trail. I’ve checked for them already, and learned that eventually you need to learn how to fix a broken chain, change a flat, and make adjustments to your bicycle all on your own.

You don’t need to carry an entire shop in your gear pack or seat pack, but carrying the following items will give you peace of mind and not leave you to walk back to the trailhead: spare tube, small pump, tire levers, multi-tool that includes a chain tool, and a little bit of duct tape.

If you don’t know how to fix a flat tire, learn from someone and then practice. If you don’t know how to fix a broken chain, learn from someone.

And finally there’s the duct tape. I keep a section that’s about as long as my forearm wrapped around a tire lever. I’ve used it to temporarily ‘fix’ broken saddles, fraying cables, and torn bicycle shorts (that was an embarrassing crash). I’ve also used it to connect a makeshift splint to my ankle and finger after a crash. Duct tape isn’t going to make your ride better, but it can help you make it out of the woods before dark and allow you to finish your ride.

Mountain biking is a sport that beginners can become proficient at quickly, and it’s a sport that provides on going enjoyment and opportunities to improve for years to come. I hope you enjoy your new sport and welcome any questions you might have.

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Mountain Bike Race Day Tips

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Here are some mountain bike race day tips from Cecilia Potts who won the Junior Cross Country Mountain Bike World Championships in 1997.

The final 10-second countdown always sums up the race for me. It doesn’t matter how long I’ve been retired from professional cycling. When I’m behind that starting line–whether it’s at a local 5KM run or the start of a fun bike race, those last 10 seconds before the starter’s gun shatters the silence are when it all comes together for me.

Before any race day there’s a lot going on both mentally and emotionally that’s far beyond than the normal routine of getting ready for another training ride. I’ve ridden that emotional and mental roller coaster somewhere north of 200 races during the course of my career, and the thought stream that kept me most grounded was constantly reminding myself whose race it was to win.

Mountain bike racing is just as much about being physically prepared as it is to have your brain conditioned and ready on race day. You can do as many VO2 Max intervals as physically possible and ride at your Lactic Acid Threshold all day long, but if the stuff between your ears isn’t also in training for the big day, it will be like showing up to the starting line with a flat tire.

My number one tip for mountain bike race day: Don’t forget to train your brain.

Over the years I’ve been on training rides with people who can absolutely school me. They out pace me on the flats, drop me on the climbs, and are waiting for me at the bottom of a decent sipping on a water bottle and looking bored. Yet, on race day I would easily ace them.

Why? Because along with chasing their rears on our training rides, I also was spending time conditioning my mind.

Training your brain starts with the little things. For example, every time my training schedule included a mock time trial, I’d set the “finish line” as a landmark in a somewhat visible place like the city limits sign coming into a busy town. When I crossed that line, after keeping it in mind while pushing hard for the entire time, I always threw my arms up in the air and smile and would shout like I was finishing a stage in the Tour de France. People would look at me like I was crazy, but I knew I was the winner of the Tuesday night time trial world championships. (That probably sounds silly, but I always felt like I was beaming with joy inside after the effort, and I know for me it’s made the difference between first and second places many times.)

Combining my physical strength with the power of positive self-talk–encouraging myself with each pedal stroke carrying me toward the city limit sign–and then rewarding my efforts by throwing my arms up in the air, created sort of a Pavlovian response of physical exertion needing to result in a triumphant victorious feeling.

I knew of others who were positive when they were training, but then on the race course they’d fall apart. It would start with the negative banter during warm-up before the race. My competitors would say things like, “Awe, I haven’t really been training that much and I’m not ready for this,” or “I hope I don’t get a flat tire again today.” They’d be in the starting area with uncertain looks on their faces and fear in their eyes as they gazed out at all the spectators. Before the gun even went off, those competitors were racing for fourth place.

Long before you pack up your race day bag, put your bike in the car, and drive to the race, you need to telling yourself that this is your race. When you roll up to the starting line, this is your race. It doesn’t belong to the person leading the series or the person who came in ahead of you at the last race. This is your race and you are going to throw your arms up at the end and bask in your victory just like did on your training rides.

My other mental secret weapon for race day: Ride the course in your head.

I know it’s not always possible, but pre-riding the course if possible will always help on race day. This recommendation goes beyond the obvious reasons of knowing the most efficient lines and being prepared for all of the terrain and obstacles. This, again, is all about your head.

Every time I’ve done a race–mountain or road–on the night before between the time my head hit the pillow and I fell asleep, I rode the course again in my head. (I have friends who now use their GoPro cameras and record the course and then watch it like a movie before going to sleep every night.) Sometimes I would lay on my back with my arms stretched out in front of me pretending my hands were on the bars. As I rode the course through my mind, I’d use the brakes, shift, and remember particular rocks and roots and the best lines I took to clear them. This technique gave me confidence on a course even though I hadn’t spent much time actually riding it.

Putting it all together during the 10 second countdown before the start.

Those last ten seconds were always the most peaceful 10 seconds of my entire day. The world seemed to move in slow motion, and the only thing I could hear was my heart beating in my ears.

This is the 10 seconds when your mind flashes forward. As the clock clicks down, you’re seeing yourself with your mind’s eye flying through the sections of trail you know you’re strong on. You’re remembering that one rock or root that you need to clear to clean a section. You’re also seeing your self crossing the finish line with your arms over head and the crowd cheering in the background. The pop of the starter’s pistol is what ends this positive visualization, and it is what starts you on the course to the best race of your life.

Mountain Bike AND Road Bike Training – Does it make sense?

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Here’s a classic conundrum: you love mountain bike racing and you love road racing, but you’re not quite sure how to tailor a training schedule that will give you the best of all worlds when it comes to racing each discipline. Have no fear, training to race on the road and on the mountain bike don’t have to be mutually exclusive — AND (and maybe best of all) riding each discipline will help the other.

One of the mistakes I made in my racing career was not spending enough time on the mountain bike. Even though mountain bike racing was “my sport,” and road racing was something that I just did, I spent 85 percent of my training time on the road bike.

Why? Lots of reasons, including:

  • The road was more accessible.
  • Finding trails to fit my training need wasn’t always possible.
  • Daylight – after school or work, I had a finite amount of daylight hours for training.

If any of the above are reasons you’ve chosen to train on the road rather than the mountain bike, I do have some suggestions as to how you can get more time on the mountain bike and still accomplish your weekly training schedule goals.

Suggestion #1 – Use your mountain bike for time trial training

Let’s face it, a mountain bike race is really a mass-start time trial on rough terrain. So why not train for it? One of the reasons I came to like road racing so much (not so much criterium racing) was because road races hardly ever started like mountain bike races. At a mountain bike race, the gun goes off and everyone goes anaerobic within the first 500 meters, and the pace stays fervent for the entire length of the race. I realized my training on the mountain bike had to emulate this.

Find a week night training series and go race your mountain bike. It turned out that there was a Wednesday night training race series hosted within an hour’s drive from where I lived. The training race provided all the benefits of a time trial and I was able to log some miles in the dirt, which also helped hone my off-road skills. Another benefit was being able to see where my pace put me among my competitors.

Suggestion #2 – Pick a section of trail that works for Vo2 Max intervals

One of the many things that I found difficult about mountain bike racing was making good line selections and course choices while being anaerobic. It seemed like the lack of oxygen in my brain (all of it was fueling my legs) was causing me to make silly, time-wasting mistakes in the technical trail sections. I needed practice riding at my max while making my way through tough terrain.

  • Find a climb that connects to a technical section of trail.
  • Ride your first Vo2 Max interval and mark your finish spot.
  • Recover by riding back down to the start of the climb.
  • Repeat. Each time marking your progress.

When I did this, I found at the half-way point of the interval training workout, I covered my farthest distance on the trail. By the time I was onto my last interval, I would finish somewhere near the place I finished on my first interval. It was good to see the positive forward progress, and it also was beneficial to see how my ability to negotiate technical sections deteriorated as I grew tired.

Suggestion # 3 – Convert a long road ride into a long mountain bike ride

You’re training schedule says you need four to six hours in the saddle on the road. You know the pace needs to be Zone 2 and a little bit of Zone 3. Why not take the mountain bike out instead?

No, I’m not suggesting you take a four to six hour mountain bike training ride (though the more I ride the more I enjoy these “epics”). I’ve always equated two to three hours on the mountain bike at steady Zone 2 and some bits of Zone 3 with four to six hours on the road bike with the same Zone effort. Training on the road is always solid, but if you are able to spend a little extra time on your mountain bike, it’s only going to help improve your technical skills. And, it can help prepare you for taking terrain when you’re tired and no longer fresh.

Combining road and mountain bike training – an unexpected benefit.

Remember how I mentioned I didn’t much like criterium racing in the section under Suggestion #1? Well, I still don’t like crits, but I got better at them over time and it was because of the time I spent training on my mountain bike.

Mountain biking is intense. Crits are intense. When you’re ripping through a section of trail, you might find your self braking, immediately accelerating, and leaning to miss a tree or rock all within seconds of each other. I’ve had similar experiences in crits (sans the trees and rocks).

As the pelotan approaches a corner in a fast crit, the first 10 riders or so make it through and never touch their brakes and then accelerate out of the apex. The rest of the field starts to touch their brakes, and as the peloton takes the corner the braking and acceleration becomes more intense the farther back in the field you are. The sketchiness of the riders around you also becomes more of an issue. One guy is grabbing a handful or brake in the middle of the corner and another just skipped his back wheel because he dragged a pedal.

Having spent time training on your mountain bike, you’ve learned to better react and respond to all of the above:

  • Sudden braking and hard accelerations are unavoidable on mountain bike.
  • A sketchy rider who makes a mistake is just like responding to rock or root in the trail.

Because of the intensity of mountain biking, a sudden breakaway in the field doesn’t surprise you, you’re ready to pour on the power and sustain it.

Mountain biking and road cycling compliment each other in many ways. I wish I would have learned earlier in my career how to better use each discipline to help bolster my skills and strengths in the other. Hopefully, you’ll be able to use these suggestions to augment your training program and become more successful on race day – no matter what bike you’re on when you roll up to the starting line.

How to Improve Your Mountain Bike Skills

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Here are some great tips from Cecilia ”˜Ceal’ Potts who is a former professional cyclist. Her greatest cycling accomplishment was winning the Junior Cross Country Mountain Bike World Championships in 1997 so it is a great pleasure to publish her tips here on Training4cyclists.com.

People I ride with often ask me if there’s one thing–a silver bullet for mountain bike technical skills–that will make them a better rider. My answer is: YES, and learning how to do a bunny hop or a mastering a nose wheelie is not required.

My technical mountain bike skills are exponentially better than they were in 1997 when I won the Junior Cross Country Mountain Bike World Championships, and this is why: I now have core and upper body strength and can better control a bicycle on all types of terrain.

TIP #1 Strengthen your core and upper body to be more balanced with your legs.

Watch a few videos on Youtube of mountain bike racers going down (or even up) a steep, rocky section of trail. You’ll notice that the cyclists who have the most control and pass through the section the quickest are those who have the core strength to keep their bodies balanced over their bicycles and the arm strength to put their front wheels on the most efficient lines.

Those who don’t have a strong core or upper body and arm strength ride rough terrain like the metal ball in a pinball machine as they bounce off of rocks, riding the trail at the mercy of gravity and with good luck.

I’m not saying bulk up. Instead:

  • Strengthen your core – try doing planks, abdominal crunches, and oblique twists.
  • Put meat on your chicken wings the old fashioned way – push ups and pull ups.
  • Use cross training to improve balance – surfing and Nordic skiing work the core and upper body.

Your body is the fulcrum when you are on your bicycle. When the downhill terrain gets steep and bumpy, you need to be able to effortlessly transfer your weight to behind the bottom bracket (or transfer forward on a climb) and be able to hold it there to maintain equilibrium through the section. You also need to use your arms to push down and pull up on the handlebars to steer toward the most efficient and safe line possible.

After you’ve built up your core and upper body strength you can build your next skill set: picking the best line.

TIP #2 Pick the best line. Practice makes perfect.

We all know that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, and anyone who has ever ridden a mountain bike knows that the shortest distance isn’t always an option due to lack of skills or a strong sense of self preservation.

I’ve had the privilege of pre-riding a downhill course with world-class downhillers Mark Weir and Brian Lopes. One of the things on this ride that surprised me most was the way each of them took on technical sections (it was Brian’s first time on the course). They took the time to look at all the available lines, sometimes walking those lines, no matter how unfeasible the lines seemed at first glance.

When you come across a technical section of trail:

  • Get off your bike to get a better look – view it from the top and the bottom of the section.
  • Choose a line and then walk it – from the top to bottom and then back to the top.
  • Would carrying speed through the section help or hurt?

Walk the line you choose with your bike – note the flow of the terrain as your wheels roll over. Are their rocks, roots or ruts that may swallow a front wheel or cause the rear wheel to slide out?

Finally, I ride the line, repeatedly, until I’m confident I can pass through the section of trail flawlessly at race pace.

By combining TIP #1 and TIP #2, you now have the strength and confidence to handle lines that you previously may have not considered. This is where it all comes together.

TIP #3 Anticipate what’s ahead on the trail.

Another key to keeping the pace up on a ride is knowing what terrain, topography, and obstacles are ahead. Even if you haven’t ridden a race course or your on an unfamiliar trail, you can get a solid idea about what’s ahead by looking at your surroundings.

About a year ago, I learned the value of this skill the hard way. I was on trail I’ve ridden in the dozens of times, but tall grass had grown up and closed in a long long section of single track. The trail was hard-packed clay,flat, and fast. However, the grass made it impossible to see more than a two bike lengths ahead on the trail. We were riding at race pace. Then I made a huge mistake. I thought the trail was going to bear left and instead it took a sharp right. I shot off the single track and blasted through the tall grass into thin air over a small ravine.

Before I had a chance to react, I piled head first at full speed into the other side of the ditch and slid down to the bottom of the 15-foot or so deep gully. It knocked the wind out of my chest and my ears were ringing – it was a concussion for sure.

But what hurt worse was the embarrassment I felt from the crash. Had I been using my two eyes — one to watch the trail in front of me and the other to take a look at my surroundings, I would have realized to my right was a nearly vertical mountain side going up and to my left was just as steep going down since we were essentially perpendicular to the hill side.

If I would have paid attention to this I would have adjusted my speed and kept it on the trail.

Here are some visual hints that can give you a good sense of what’s ahead:

  • When there’s a steep slope above, the slope below is likely steep, too.
  • Use the contour of a hillside to anticipate the trail’s twists and turns ahead.
  • Long climbs are usually followed by long fast downhills – maintain equilibrium on the bike.

Knowing what’s ahead smooths out all aspects of the ride. As you move your body back on the bike for a steep downhill, realize there could be a a climb soon after the decent and your legs might be somewhat fatigued from the pounding of the terrain. Give yourself a break and pick a suitable gear that will allow you to maintain a good cadence and keep a smooth pace after the technical section.

Final thoughts

Tips and helpful hints work best when they are used everyday. Even if you don’t have the core and upper body strength you think you need, go out and practice those technical sections over and over again. As your line picking skills improve so will your instincts for anticipating what’s ahead on the trail.

I’ve been riding mountain bikes for more than 20 years and with every mile I log, I’ve seen my skill sets improve. I hope you see the same progress with yours.

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Need to Reduce Your Bike’s Weight?

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How to Become a Better Climber ”“ Lesson 3

This is the third post in my series about how to become a better climber. This lesson will not focus on you, but on your bike. In the first two lessons you were supposed to describe in details what hill you would like to climb faster and your optimal body weight / body composition. Since you will have to carry your bike up the hill, it’s obvious that bike weight is also essential for your performance.

What is the optimal bike weight for a road bike?

If you race under UCI rules the answer is pretty exact: 6800g. If your bike weight is more than that you will get a ‘weight penalty’ to your opponents. If your bike weight is less than 6800g you might be disqualified. I have never heard of any rider having trouble with this rule, but maybe this is because of extremely rare testing.

Rules are rules and should always be followed. As a rider under the UCI rules you should aim for a bike weight of exactly 6800g.

If you ride just for fun and want to achieve the best possible performance uphill, you might benefit from an even lighter bike. Today it is not that difficult to build a bike weighing less than 6kg. It will cost you, but it is definitely possible.

What is the optimal bike weight for a mountain bike?

There is no limit to how light a mountain bike can be. If you can make your mountain bike lighter, there is room for improvement of your climbing performance.

Reducing bike weight is challenging and does not have to cost a lot of money. Every single gram saved is an advantage on the climbs. Naturally it must not negatively effect the riding performance.

It is clear that weight savings can be really, really expensive, but for road cyclists, you are probably not far away from optimal bike weight regarding UCI’s 6800g rule. It is a little more tricky and expensive for mountain bikers since they must estimate how many grams or kilograms they are from the best mountain bikes in their competitions.
Your task today:
How light weight is your bike and how light weight would you like it to be?