(bicycle tyres screeching)
- [Man] Yeah, if you could just do that again,
please Ben.
That'd be good.
Yeah, go up there faster as well.
I need you to do that once more.
(computer beeps)
(upbeat ambient music)
- Okay
(upbeat ambient music)
Today, we're looking at how you move the bike
to smooth out the trail.
Some call it absorbing, squashing, pumping,
and most people do without even realizing they're doing it.
I'm gonna detail the intricacies of how you move the bike
underneath you to maintain control
no matter what you're riding.
Unless you're riding Champery World Cup track 2007
I think it was nearly impossible.
Sam Hill almost figured it out,
even Australian wizards have their limits.
Let's begin.
When riding on smooth trails,
you don't actually have to do much to remain composed
and in control of your bike.
But as things get chunkier, steeper and more technical,
it gets harder and harder to stay in charge.
Suspension is amazing at smoothing out
the small to medium-size obstacles,
but when things get bigger, faster,
you have to utilize the arms and legs to smooth things out.
If you don't,
you'll just get bounced around, rubberneck
at the mercy of the features you're hitting.
When watching a skilled rider nail a chunky section,
it almost looks like they're doing nothing
but slow things down
and suddenly you can see how much is going on.
Moving the bike up, down, forwards and backwards
allows a skilled rider to keep their upper body
and head separated from the action.
It's the separation that is the key
to remaining smooth and controlled
no matter the terrain.
(woman laughs)
Let's start with the absolute basic rules.
So we're all clear on what's going on
before things get all gnarly and complicated.
If the goal is to make sure your head stays nice and stable,
then the plan is to make the bike follow
the shape of the terrain
while your head just floats along above it.
That means if the ground goes up,
you allow the bike to come up
by bending the arms and then the legs.
Just enough so that the bike moves,
but your head doesn't.
Obviously, normally you'd actually stand off
a feature like this,
but just allow me to establish the basics here.
Come on.
The flip side of this and the much more commonly
acquired technique is when the ground dips down
away from you.
For this, you would straighten the arms and then the legs
to allow the bike to follow the ground
without your head dropping.
The movements for the legs and arms
are approximately equal to the size of the feature
in this simple example,
the timing is dictated by when your wheels pass
over the feature with your arms controlling the front wheel
and legs controlling the back wheel.
Unless something has gone very wrong,
the arms should always move before the legs.
And the timing between the two will vary
according to the speed you're going
and the wheel base of your bike.
From the default boss stance,
you don't actually have a lot of downward push
available to you
as the legs are almost straight already.
What happens if there's a dip in the trail
bigger than the amount of downward movement
that you actually have available.
Well,
if you're going fast enough,
you'll just catch some sweet air,
which isn't always a problem in itself,
but the longer you're in the air,
the harder you're gonna touch back down,
and then there's big juicy feature,
like a rock or a hole that you might land in then,
(bicycle tyres screeching)
you better brace yourself.
More often than not
getting the wheels back on the ground
early is preferred
and you just have to do a bit of prep work
before the feature,
by lowering yourself down into the bike, before the dip,
you then have much more available travel and the arms
and legs to push the bike down through that depth.
Again, the flip side is also true,
so if we were to imagine trying to fully absorb
a big takeoff, because you're
(beep)
scared of your wheels coming off the ground,
you would then stand up tall on the tip to us to give you
all the room available underneath you,
just before the takeoff,
then you let the bike come up into you
to absorb the feature.
This means you can completely neutralize features
that are the same size
as the amount of movement you have available,
which is lucky for me with the big old noodle limbs.
I can see it now,
it's all coming together in your heads
it's all making sense, but wait you think,
we're not all noodle limb gigantors
like giraffe features here,
we can't just absorb the entire mountains
at our own leisure you see,
you're correct
and that leads me perfectly on to what you do for features
that are larger than what you can physically deal with.
Quite often,
the preferred method would just be to jump the feature,
especially if it's a gap jump
and we will cover jumping in a future bit
so stay tuned for that.
But let's just say you want to absorb this feature
to the best of your abilities.
Usually for these bigger features,
there is a transition at the base
where the ground starts to come up.
If you were to start absorbing here,
you'd very quickly run out of room,
get rudely introduced to your back tire and proceed to be
violently spat into the air,
and then it's anyone's guess where you'll land.
Fun fact, that's actually what caused Gee Atherton to crash
and dislocate his hip back in 2017
when absorbing that first jump at the Fort William World Cup
bloody 29 was there,
also a speed and severity of the feature increases,
you will begin to come off the ground,
even if your technique is perfect and additional movement of
pushing the bike forwards as you crest
the tip of the feature is required.
This is because most of your weight,
goes through the pedals and into the back wheel
during this maneuver,
loading up the rear suspension,
which can then cause you to rotate forward,
if the front wheel is off the ground,
potentially causing an out the front door scenario.
Those are the general rules for bike movement,
which when utilized properly
can turn the chunkiest mess into a smooth FM.
When done correctly, you can see from a profile view,
watching someone that the bike closely follows the terrain,
while the head just glides along
in a much more direct path,
you can think of it like your upper body
taking a shortcut through the chunky stuff,
so those of you that like cutting the course
we jolly out of that.
Let's take these rules to a couple of features on track
pointed at the common mistakes and make sure
you can apply these techniques properly
to elevate your riding game.
So this is a feature of my track
that catches out a lot of people
mainly due to it being built very badly.
It was me, I built it.
So it's fallen over treat
dark palette up on each side, like a spine.
And I would say,
this is something you really want to absorb
so if you did nothing in terms of technique,
you would find yourself just getting
same sky high in the air, huge news dive
you probably have a bad time.
And we actually found a peak from a helmet underground
just after this feature,
so someone is at a bad time
so it definitely happens.
Looking at this it's a big feature I wanna absorb
so I know I need to prepare before it
so I'm gonna stand up tall just before it
so I've got loads of room underneath me to soak it up,
as the ground comes up,
am gonna let the bike come up into me, bending my arms,
and then my legs.
Your goal when you're doing this
is you want to hit your maximum amount of absorption,
just as your front wheel, is at the crest
so the timing for when you do that
is something you're gonna have to play with,
but you wanna be coming
front wheel ray in the tip
just as you hit that maximum line of absorption,
because this feature kicks me and I know it does
I know I need to push the bike forwards,
which moves my weight back in relation to the bike.
This helps to stop me from
(Ben whistles)
getting spat forward too much,
but even, even with good technique, this is just so kicky
you always get a little bit of a newest dive off of it,
so you come over the crest,
push the bike forward bum hover and over the back wheel
and then once you're clear
aim to just pull the bike back
underneath you ready for landing.
So things to watch out for
is trying to absorb things too soon
and running out of room like you try and soak up
you run a room, bomb hits the back wheel
and it just (Ben burfs)
spits you forward.
Another thing to watch out for is forgetting to
set up on the way in so forgetting to get nice and tall
so you got more room and then again,
you end up running out of room too soon.
So it's all one fluid movement,
so it's done tall and soak it up all in one fluid movement.
Now it'll take a little bit of practice to get to hang off.
So obviously that's all beautiful, excellent technique
that's how you deal with that.
One other thing you can do,
if it's on a track and you're wanting to do it quicker,
and there's a feature that's causing you bother
and it's holding you back,
remove it from the equation
so what you can do
is there's a little bump just back from me,
it's only about this big
it's enough that if you bunny hop off of that, you can
(Ben whistles)
bunny hop clean over this,
use that as a down slope,
so sketchy
I wouldn't recommend it,
but you could do that.
- [Man] Now I know I've got to pre-jump this,
so I'm kinda scared.
(upbeat ambient music)
So,
here we have a prime, big old dent on the track,
when I found this rock and I was originally kind of clear in
this bedrock track, I was like, "Oh sick! nice big drop,
but actually it's steep, but you can roll down it.
So let's go over the technique for when the track depths
away from you and what you do to control it.
Just bear with me just a second.
Woo!
So this is a feature bigger than
the amount of movement I have.
So to roll this,
I'm gonna have to treat this like it's,
I'm pitching the bait down into a steep slope
so I'm gonna prepare coming in,
coming up to this feature just before I get to it,
I'm gonna lower myself down into the bike
unlike we did for the other feature, timing wise,
you want to do this as late as possible
'cause you don't wanna come up to the drop,
all squished up in your bike,
ready for it and bumbling about
and all the stuff on the run-up, pointless,
you wanna do it just at the last moment
so you come in
nice casual body position
just as you get to dip down
into the bike and what I find
the steeper the feature you're gonna roll down
the more you actually dip forward into the bike
so actually get my weight forward
and I find it helps me to then drive the bike
down the feature.
Common mistake a lot of people do in the run-up
If you have their weight for their back
being a bit defensive,
what happened is as you pitched the bait,
don't enter it
'cause your weights further back,
the back wheel just comes up and patsy on the bum
it's like pulling the back brake on
pitches your weight forward, not advice
so getting the weight forward,
I find really helps you to angle the back down into it
and stops those bumps lapse.
In essence, you're pitching the bike
don't into the slope,
not pushing the bike out in front of you.
(soft music)
As the front wheel hits the bottom
and you wanna label the bay coat you straighten the legs,
drive the back wheel through the transition
and then settle back into that center position.
♪ I gotta pick up the pace ♪
♪ They throwing shade but I'm gone ♪
♪ You gotta keep it a buck to my face ♪
♪ Taking the gang out of space ♪
- The big thing I think people forget to do in the runway
is really focusing on straightening those legs
it's easy to just kind of stay hanging back
and then you wait too far back on the runway
and you got a little bit of that passenger movement
we talked about in the last episode.
So, the key things, for everything we've talked about today,
if the ground comes up towards you
and you want it to soak it up,
you let the bike come up into you.
If you need to prepare 'cause it's a bigger feature,
you stand up tall beforehand for the flip side,
for the ones that go down,
you wanna push the bike down the feature.
If it's a big feature you prepare before it
and the timing for all of these things,
you're trying to do it in one fluid movement and doing it
just before the feature,
rather than preparing a long way before
well, when you're practicing sometimes is good
to get ready, nice and early
so you don't rush your brain
trying to think about it all in a short space of time.
Try those things.
Watch out for the bomb trying to hit you in the back wheel
if that's happening,
try setting the way a bit further forward beforehand,
and don't let the bike get away from you
and the exit so these things.
So,
use those skills
hopefully you'll be able to utilize all these obstacles
and stay nice and controlled.
Is that everything?
I think that was never there.
(upbeat ambient music)
Hopefully you learn something today and if you did,
I'd appreciate a sneaky thumbs up.
(Ben laughs)
Oh, God damn it.
I wish I could do funny things and not find it funny.
Like if you've got any questions,
I'm gonna be hanging around in the comments
for about an hour after this goes live,
fire your questions down below
and I'll try to answer them the best I can.
Now, it's all up to you.
Do your dare.
Just carry on with your life
and not give this a second thought.
Think back to some trails that you've written,
where you've been barked out of control.
Go back there, try these techniques, conquer those sections,
become a better writer,
subscribe to this channel
and I'll see you in the next video.
It's an advanced break and you don't wanna miss it,
you don't wanna miss it.
(upbeat ambient music)
(Ben laughs)
(upbeat ambient music)