- We all fall off our bikes occasionally.
You guys send in your videos of fails
and bails in the dirt shed show.
But today, we're gonna look at how to avoid
the most common reasons for falling off your bike.
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Over the bars, probably the most spectacular
of all crashes can be caused by lots of different reasons,
but the first one we're gonna look
at is going off drop offs
and not getting that weight off the front wheel.
You can see this drop off is probably two or three feet tall
and if I don't do anything, just roll off here,
my front wheel's gonna drop and it's real easy
for me to get up and over those bars.
First thing to do is to lower your saddle.
Dead easy if you've got a dropper seat post.
If not, definitely think about maybe using a quick release
or getting an alan key wrench to lower it a little bit.
It's gonna give you much more space
to be able to get behind the bar.
If your hip's still up here and then you drop off,
it's real easy to go over the bars.
Your technique really depends on the speed you've got
coming into the drop off, so slower speed,
you're gonna need a proper manual.
A bit quicker, just get behind the bike.
Things that are really important as well
is really coming off the brakes or stop your pedalling
before you get to the drop, concentrating on the technique
you need to do but also keep your head up,
look at the run out and don't do anything with your brakes,
pedals, again until you land and your bike is settled.
Crashes on jumps can be pretty nasty.
I think there's two main reasons for crashing on jumps.
One is getting bucked, so getting your weight sent forward
and the other is go sideways in the air
and crashing when you land, so let's look at both of those.
Jumps pretty much always go wrong on the take off
and that's when it gets worse in the air.
The main reason for getting bucked
and your weight going forward is for getting
up and forward too early on the take off.
Lots of people will stand up and get their hips towards
to try and make the air, but like I said,
weight towards the bars and that's just gonna get worse.
It can also happen if your rear shock is set too fast
on the rebound it will kick you when you take off.
Going sideways in the air is often down
to people pulling on the handlebars.
Rather than using a manual then a bunny hop technique
to make the air, if you pull on the bars,
you can often pull one way or the other a little bit
too much, start to go sideways it's only gonna get worse.
One of the most common causes of crashes in corners
is that dreaded slide of the front wheel,
sometimes the first thing you know about it
is you're sliding down the trail on your knee
and that can be down to weight distribution on the bike,
which I'll talk about in a minute.
But it also can sometimes be down to actually the trail.
As you can see here, there's a really loose part
of this corner on the way in, so that's something
that you just need to try and spot before you get there.
You need to slow down a little bit
or just try and predict that slide.
If you're washing out the front wheel a lot,
it could be down to your weight movement or bike setup.
Try and balance your weight over both wheels
and if it feels unnatural to do that,
to maybe lower your chest to the bars,
then maybe think about playing around
with your fork setup or playing around
with spaces underneath the stem to make it feel natural.
It could also be a case of you dragging
the front brake a little bit, so definitely try
and come off that front brake
as soon as you're in that corner.
Other crashes in corners could be down to going off line.
Sometimes this is because you misjudged the speed
and drifted wider in the turn than you thought
or maybe you just need to look a bit further
around the turn to plan it a bit better.
Hitting unexpected obstacles can also make you crash.
Almost like the drop off, it's good
to have that manual ready just in case you need it.
There's a bit of wood sticking out into the trail here.
It would be really easy to drift a little bit wide,
hit that, slide with my front tyre, especially if it's wet.
I always try to scan for these things down
in my peripheral vision and get ready
to just move my weight back, do a little manual if needs be.
When it comes to crashing, brakes can play a massive part.
Obviously not enough you can be going to fast, you crash.
Similarly, using too much brakes can
actually get you into trouble.
This is a great example.
I've got a really steep short chute that's loose.
I'm gonna need to break really hard,
but too much front brake for example,
it's gonna slide and I'm gonna be in bother.
So I need to drop in nice and slow, use my brakes
and actually ease off when I get into that loose stuff.
There you go, there's a few reasons why people crash
and hopefully now you know how to avoid some of those.
Send your videos to the dirt shed
for progression session of you improving
and if you're not quite improving,
if you fall off your bike, send it as well
and hopefully you'll get to fails and bails
so send them to dirtshed@gmbn.com.
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for another video that's gonna hopefully
help you stop crashing, that's how to manual
and how to corner over here.
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