Last week, I hosted a livestream where Alexander and I sampled tacos.
Mind you this is a mountain biking channel, and the bulk of my audience was totally okay
with taco sampling as mountain bike related content.
By now it should be obvious that I don’t specialize in XC, nutrition, or fitness.
In fact, I’m only fast in one direction—down.
Here in Western North Carolina, that’s just fine.
Most of our elevation maps look something like this.
So you pay the trail gods up front, and get your reward as one lump sum.
And that’s what we’ll be talking about today—how to squander your hard earned elevation
as fast as possible.
Here to help me prove my point is Phil Kmetz, the fastest descender I know.
As an ex pro downhill racer, Phil now likes to keep things interesting on a shorter travel
trail bike.
We’re at his stomping grounds in Banner Elk, where the trails are steep, muddy, rowdy,
and in some cases just plain silly.
We’ll take a look at all the little things Phil does to smash trails, and then I’ll
give you three killer tips that I guarantee will make you faster.
First of all, it’s easy to see that Phil is confident, and that this confidence helps
him remain in control while traveling at ludicrous speeds.
But false confidence can be dangerous.
Keep in mind that Phil’s confidence is the result of being prepared.
Simply being confident doesn’t make you prepared.
So what I’m trying to say is, you should learn the skills you need to get out of trouble,
and confidence will come naturally.
That’s enough philosophical stuff for now.
Let’s talk about actual tips like dropping your saddle.
There’s a good reason why riders like Phil keep theirs as low as possible.
A low saddle makes it a hell of a lot easier to shift your weight and move with your bike.
If you don’t have a dropper post, do it manually at the summit.
This is essential if you want to go really fast.
After all, you want to smash descents, not your taint.
Now that you’ve pulled your saddle out of your—taint, you can focus on your body position.
Some riders like hunching over more, while others—like Phil, prefer being more upright.
The key is to support your weight with your legs, not your arms.
In the correct position, you should be able to let go and stand on your pedals.
The steeper things get, the more you’ll need to shift your weight back to maintain
this balance.
All the while your knees and elbows should be bent, ready to move with your bike.
Once you achieve the right body position, you’ll find it a lot easier to rail corners.
Phil has an amazing series of detailed videos on cornering which I’ve linked to below,
but I’ll summarize it all with one piece of advice: Brake before turns, not during
them.
By approaching a turn at the right speed, you you can focus on cornering instead of
damage control.
From there it’s mainly just practice and repetition.
But we’ve touched on a really important topic: braking.
Part of maintaining control while descending is modulating your speed in a controlled manner.
Once your can do this, your confidence will go through the roof.
Being able to skid out or smash on your brake levers is not what I’m talking about.
Skidding is a great way to wreck your tires, and an even better way to openly disrespect
your trail system.
Sure, it’s unavoidable sometimes but overall you will stop faster when you don’t skid.
A big part of this is learning to use your front brake.
You know, the ejector seat lever on the left side of your bars.
You may view it as such, but not if you followed my advice about body position.
Used correctly, your front brake is your most important brake hands down.
Practice using it, and try not to skid.
Now that we’ve got basic bike control covered, it’s time to talk about line choice.
Phil prefers
to take
the slightly more difficult line on the right, which allows him to take the turn wider.
A wider turn requires less braking, which results in more traction, more control, and
more speed.
But this example may be a fine point for a beginner.
If you’re just starting out, just focus on choosing your lines ahead of time.
Try to keep your eyes further up the trail instead directly in front of your tire.
Choose the path that requires the least braking, and you’ll be on the right track.
Speaking of line choice, sometimes the fastest line is the one that circumvents a feature
entirely.
Okay so goal posting two trees in the name of saving a second is some crazy Phil sh*t,
but jumping is an essential skill for fast descending.
Being airborne effectively eliminates rolling resistance, and can get you over chunky terrain
without even touching it.
Jumping helps you connect smooth sections of trail together as if they were one.
Launching into a section like this allows Phil to gain serious ground on his competition.
So rather than talk to you about the finer points of jumping, I’ll simply urge you
to practice it.
Jumping is an essential bike control skill, and it can take your descending game to the
next level.
There are so many more little things you can do to descend faster but I honestly think
they’ll all come naturally with practice.
So with that I’ll give you three killer diller monster tips for gaining speed.
The first tip is to take any opportunity you can to follow someone faster than you.
In a recent Singletrack Sampler video, a lot of you were blown away by how much faster
I had gotten over the course of one summer.
It’s probably because I spent my summer chasing enduro racers, and worse yet, Canadians.
Each time you chase a fast rider, some of their speed will rub off on you, and I’m
not just making that up.
If you want some study material you can also watch some Nate Hills and Trail Peek videos.
The second tip is to ride downhill parks as often as possible.
Take a moment to estimate how many feet of descending you did last season, and then consider
that you could do 10,000 in just a few hours at a bike park.
How’s that for some practice?
I’m actually a big fan of riding park on a trail bike, and so is Phil.
Sure, it’s more difficult, but everything you learn will transfer very nicely to the
singletrack you ride at home.
Going back to my last point about following faster riders, you’ll be sure to find tons
of them at any downhill park.
The third killer tip for descending faster is to session stuff.
Sessioning, also known as dicking around, is when you find a feature on or off trail,
and ride it as many ways as you can think of.
Do this with friends, and challenge each other.
You’ll gain more bike control skills during an afternoon of sessioning than a whole week
on the trails, and you’ll enjoy it too.
These skills will translate well to singletrack, and give you an edge on sketchy lines.
So that’s it.
I hope you got a few usable tips out of this video, and I really hope you’ll follow up
on some of Phil’s study material.
Check the description below for links to that, and be sure to subscribe to both our channels
for more skills tutorials like these.
What was your favorite tip, and what are some things that have helped you get faster?
Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for riding with me today, and I’ll see you next time.