- This is six easy ways to get better on your bike.
Guaranteed, super easy, you can do it
and you'll get better.
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Number one, just mess around on the bike.
Now this is the thing that many teenagers do.
I know I used to do it when I started riding bikes.
Go outside in front of the house
and just learn how to track stand
and do some really sort of slow speed maneuvers on the bike.
And it's really good that actually
sort of all round riding skill
so learning where your balance needs to be on the bike.
So something I used to do when I was coaching
with school kids, something called the box game.
So make out a little box with t-shirts or whatever,
just mark it out on a flat bit of ground
and then keep making that box smaller.
And you've got to ride around inside that box
if you get outside of it you're out of the game.
So put four people in a box,
you've got to learn a nice track stand
if you put your foot down, you're also out.
So you really try and learn
those low speed bike handling skills
and how to keep your balance.
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Learn how to lift the wheels if you're not doing it already.
So we've done loads of videos on how to wheel
and how to manual so go away and watch those
if you've not done it already.
Give you all the basics but also some little hints
and tips to help you out.
It really will be worth spending a bit of time
to learn these 'cause it shows how your weight balance
on a bike affects it at the extremes.
Not often will you be using a wheelie on the trail
but that's pretty much as far as I can get
without looping out.
That's gonna really show you the sort of subtleties
of bike handling, how much your weight does affect that.
But also you need them for really getting good
at riding jumps and drops.
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Number three, try and learn about your brakes
and really grab them, learn how they affect the bike.
So if I'm really grabbing a handful like that
you can see how that brings up my back wheel.
So again it's sort of like the wheelie,
just trying to learn the subtleties of how hard
and when you can really pull those brakes.
'Cause sometimes you're able to do that, grab a big handful,
other times you have to be really careful with them.
Too much back brake is gonna 'cause it to skid
but it's a great way of learn how much grip
you've got on the trail but also how to drift a bike.
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There's so much stuff you can watch nowadays
things like the World Cup Downhill racing,
the cross country, even YouTube edits of course.
Those pros really are the masters of riding.
Back in the day I used to watch loads of VHS videos
of Motocross, BMX, try and imitate the pros,
to try and drift like Kovarik,
move the bike in the air like Brian Foster
or rail a turn like Ricky Carmichael.
Just try and watch the nuances of that body language
and try and copy it yourself.
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Try and set yourself a climbing challenge.
This one's a bit tricky, whoa.
Not much grip but it's gonna tell me a lot
about gear selection
to make sure that I've got enough sort of enough power
to get up there, I need to be in quite a light gear
so it tells me a bit about that.
But also a bit about how much grip
and how I need to balance that using my weight.
In that situation I'd stand up
to get the power to the ground.
You could see my rear toes spinning up
so try and set yourself a little bit of an obstacle course.
Sometimes it's a bit of a challenge to get up.
If you complete it, make a harder one.
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It's important to try and time your pedal strokes
to avoid your pedals hitting the ground.
'Cause that's gonna complete stop your momentum
but also the gear choice is gonna affect that.
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If you're talking about easy ways to improve your riding
well crashing is probably the easiest way.
Going a bit too fast I've fallen off
it happens to all of us.
Of course we probably all know people
that crash a bit too much
but they do learn probably a lot quicker
than those who don't quite push their limits often enough.
So that's six easy ways to try and improve your riding.
If you wanna see some more in-depth videos,
there's one if you click over there for how to manual
so it will give you all the little skills.
Thumbs up if you wanna get better on your bike
and hit that subscribe button.
And if you wanna see a video of me versus Blake,
the climbing challenge in these very woods
where there's a bit of crashing going on,
click over there as well, it's a lot of fun,
dead easy things to do, grab a mate,
go out and try and beat them.
Try and pick a super tight or really hard little climb
you might learn quite a lot.