- Tree roots in a trail are probably
something you're gonna find really commonly
in trails in the woods, of course.
But they can be really slippy,
really technical, and really hard to ride,
so here are a few tips.
Roots are, of course, completely random,
and it can be really hard to spot which way
they're going if you're riding really fast
and you don't know the track very well.
In the dry like it is today, roots can be quite grippy,
you see these ones are laying flat,
they're not off-camber, and they're going directly
across the track, these are gonna be pretty easy
to deal with, to be honest,
you can ride straight over those.
Now down into this section, they're goin'
all over the place, diagonal ones, one way then the next,
some off-camber ones as well.
If these are wet, these are gonna be real slippy
then you're gonna have to think about what you're doing
on your bike to get over these roots.
As you can see here, these roots are laying
straight across the track, and actually they've built up
into braking bumps, so those roots are holding
the dirt, and stopping that track wearing away
into one big rut, that's where you get those bumps,
and actually they're quite easy to deal with.
I'm just bringing my weight back on the bike,
keeping my head up, dropping my heels,
and smashing through the bumps.
I'm not worrying about losing grip.
You can see this section is almost the same,
but the holes have dug out quite big,
this track must get a lot of use,
so I'd say these aren't even braking bumps anymore,
they're big holes in the trail,
almost fell over then as well.
You can see this root is still quite a big angle
as well, so it's quite off-camber.
Now it can be a bit risky, if you're trying
to hit this too straight-up, 'cause the trail
does go straight afterwards, I could slide a bit,
especially in the wet, of course.
So what I'm doing now is trying to soak up the bumps
using my arms and legs, but also lean the bike
in to try and keep it vertically
against these roots as much as possible for grip.
This section of track here is actually really wide,
but the fastest line is gonna be the straightest line,
like almost always, it involves dealing
with these off-camber roots so I'm actually
gonna have to try to turn across as well.
So that's gonna be difficult, there's some big holes,
there's a big one, if I don't do anything there,
I could slap into that root and I really risk sliding,
or there's a much easier line at the bottom,
see the roots give way to proper dirt,
it's built up, but it's actually gonna be much slower,
but much easier, so to ride the faster line here,
I'm actually gonna try and think
about not riding too much of it,
so really this is a case of using that bunny hop technique,
not necessarily doing a big bunny hop,
because if you do a big hop and land,
then you risk hitting another root that you've not seen
and if you hit it really heavily, again you could slide,
so this is a case more of unweighting the bike,
so it's the same technique of pumping into the bike,
getting your hips up, your wheels
might still be on the floor chattering away,
but hopefully there's no weight on them,
so you're gonna keep grippin' and you'll land
much smoother than if you'd done a big hop,
I'm gonna have to do it again here,
then I'm out the roots, away I go,
hopefully it's gonna be fast.
A big part of conquering these off-camber roots is,
again, like always, keep your head up,
see where you want to go, but try and commit to it,
however something like this part here,
it's good to know I've got a bit of an escape route,
if I do start sliding, I've got that nice
bit of a safety fence down there.
So if I start sliding too much, I could just
anchor left and go down, hit that nice piece of dirt,
okay I'm gonna lose time,
at least I'm not falling off, hopefully.
If we forget about the roots for a second,
think about how to try and ride an off-camber section,
what I'm really trying to do is angle
the bike over into the bank but not too much,
try and keep my weight upright and
to the outside of the bike, so thinking
about lowering my outside foot a little bit,
not the whole way, some prolly sorta 60/40
to the outside foot, heel down, trying to find that grip.
And then, I'm trying to hop over the roots
as well, it's trying to do two things
at the same time really.
Unweight over the roots, and then when you do find grip,
make sure you're using your weight properly.
There can be so many roots, and they come so fast,
sometimes you don't get the chance to do
the proper bunny hop technique like we always talk about,
so a lot of the time here I'm improvising
and just trying to life the bike off the floor
at the last minute any way I can
to make sure I don't hit that root and slide off it.
You can see as my front wheel lifts off the floor,
my reaction is to steer down the hill.
This helps my front wheel keep grip
as it lands rather than fighting against the camber.
Even if it means I might drop a bit further
down a hill, it'll be safer than trying
to stay high and lose grip.
Steep rooty sections can be really scary
because of course, you need to be on the brakes,
trying to stay in control, but if you brake
too much on those roots, you're going
to start sliding, or indeed even crashing.
So, it's a real balance of not too much,
but just about enough brakes.
Good line choice, unweighting,
and trying to stay off the brakes
are gonna help in the neverending job
of trying to master roots,
hit the link up there for a video to help your bunny hops,
and down there for one to help your braking.