- Welcome back, you beautiful people.
Now, us dudes at GMBN, Doddy, Richard, Neil,
Mr. Ashton and Henry and myself sat down
and we came up with 10 tips and tricks
that's definitely going to make you a better rider this year.
You might want to stick around.
I'm going to kick it off with this one.
Pump tracks are a great place to hone in
all those skills that is applicable
to mountain biking.
Now, pump tracks are not really accessible
for most of the people, but when you get to a place
just like this where there is a pump track,
you can learn all those fundamental skills.
Jumping, cornering, pumping,
and also you can gain fitness
from riding on a pump track,
you can do it within a small area
and it's a great place to session with friends.
And it's so easy to just transfer all those skills
that you've learned on the pump track
straight out onto the trail, be it cornering,
jumping, or pumping to maintain speed on the trail.
And flow, it's a great place to learn flow too.
Mix it up a bit, and what I mean by this is,
go away from where you ride the most.
So if your local is here, it's sandy at Roadgate,
you've got a lot of grip, you know the trails
like the back of your hand, the best thing is
is to go further afield, find somewhere
where it's a bit rocky, maybe a little bit muddy,
there's a bit rooty, it's steeper.
There is going to help you hone in all those skills
that you don't really get from your local trail.
Now, by doing this, it'll make you a little bit more
of a better rider, and also, don't be shying away
from rain, because riding in muddy conditions
can help you be a really really good rider
'cause you understand how your bike moves
underneath you when it's a bit slippery.
Fitness can be overlooked, and it's easily said than done.
For example, Jack the cameraman,
just behind the camera, he said,
I'm going to go to the gym tomorrow morning,
just before breakfast.
But it's easily said than done.
By putting a bit of time aside to build up
a fitness plan, so you can stick to it
throughout your winter months or summer months
is going to help you build some fitness within your body.
A bit of cardio.
Now, that can unlock a lot of riding potential.
And what I mean by this is you can go further afield
within your riding, you can endure your ride
when you're out, be it if it's a short one or a long one.
By doing a bit of fitness throughout the year
can help you become a little bit more of a better rider.
If you want to stay a little bit more fitter,
going on a Turbo Trainer
where the weather's a bit horrible outside,
you can sit indoors and just spin away,
you're still getting bike time.
Or, if you don't want to do that
and you like a bit of road bike,
well get some slick tires for your mountain bike
so you're still on the same bike that you love to ride
but you're running with slick tires,
you can go on the road and get in some miles.
Or, if you really want to get involved,
you can join a gym, get a gym membership.
Do some MTB-like squats, do some deadlifts,
do some bench-pressing just to build up all those muscles
that you need to have when riding your bike.
Or, do some yoga, do some stretching,
that can also maintain fitness as well.
Right, our next tip is, well, this one's come from Doddy.
Because he is a tech man, as well as Henry as well.
He said spend a lot more time
tinkering with your bike, maintaining it.
Because it is your precious bike,
you spent a lot of money on it,
so there's a few things that you would want to spend
a bit more time on, especially when you've got
a full suspension bike,
or if you've got suspension on the front.
By setting up your suspension is a great way
just to bring that bike to its peak, peak performance
where it's going to be working a lot better on the trail.
Right, the next little set-up
that you really want to do is tire pressure.
Now, I've been someone that runs really hard tires
and over the years, I've started
to bring my tire pressures down
because it gives me more grip out there on the trails
so by finding the correct tire pressure
with the tires that you're running
is a good combination when riding on the trail.
The next one is cockpit set-up.
Now, this is basically the front of a car.
This is the steering wheel, this is your brakes,
this is your clutch, this is everything
that's got to do with getting yourself down the trail.
Having a good set-up on your cockpit
is definitely going to help you become
a little bit smoother on the trail
because you don't want to have your brake levers
too far down, and I have done that before.
Being a dirt jumper, I'd like to have my levers
really really far down, but when you're descending,
that means you're going to be doing this
whereas if you bring them up a little bit,
it brings your leverage right level.
You're not trying to find it,
or they're not too far up,
especially when you're trying to climb.
So by doing all of these things
and spending a little bit more time on your rig,
it just brings that bike up to tip-top shape
when you go out to the trail, you can have a lot more fun.
Right, this one has got to be one of my favorites
because I love trail centers.
Yes, they're becoming quite popular lately.
I'm out here in Roadgate and there's a number of trails here
that you can basically hone in to every single skill.
You've got some steep ones,
you've got some fast ones,
you've got some with jumps,
you've got some with so many corners in there
you can learn how to turn, and it's grippy.
But you've got other trail centers
to choose from because in the UK we've got some rocky ones.
We can go over to Wales and there's Forest of Dean,
you can go to Bike Park Wales, that's a bike park
but you can go to Afan,
there's a lot there you can choose from.
And all of these are great place to hone all those skills.
Visit them, because they're going to make you
a better rider this year.
(bell ringing)
Racing, now okay, don't take this the wrong way,
it's not for everyone, but it's a great way
to just go out there and have some fun
with some like-minded people just like yourself
that loves to ride your bike.
And it's a good place to be under the clock
just to make yourself get out of your comfort zone,
just to express all those skills
that you've tried to learn on your bike,
you can go and try and do it at a higher pace.
Trail centers are a great place to go and find out
if there's any local races in your area
because they hold some.
Roadgate hold one, you've got Wind Hill Bike Park,
they hold one.
Forest of Dean, they hold a mini downhill race
throughout the summer months.
Also, these races are all age group, you can go in,
you don't have to go race against the World Cup.
And it also doesn't mean you can go jump yourself
straight into racing a downhill.
You and your friends are trying to race against each other,
and it's a good place, like I said,
to hone in all those skills at a high rate.
Nutrition.
Right, now, I'm not going to tell you to turn vegetarian
or go vegan and stop doing what you're doing.
But I'm just saying, bring it down a little bit.
Knock off a few of those things.
Maybe throughout the whole week
you can just eat a little bit more healthier,
when you come to the weekend,
you can eat what the hell you want.
Because I love a good beer and a pizza
as long as you don't do it every single day of the week
because you're just going to pile on the pounds
and it's going to make riding your bike
a little bit more uncomfortable.
Yes, a man cave, somewhere where you can tinker
on the things you love to tinker with!
People want somewhere where they can go in,
hibernate and look after what they love the best.
And for me, it's a mountain bike, take a look at this!
This is the bike cave, Doddy suggested it.
Look at it!
Look at all these beautiful, beautiful man caves
that people just have dedicated.
They can go in there and get lost in something they love.
Organization, yes this can be anything,
by setting goals or targets throughout the whole year.
This can be within racing as well,
if you're racing you can organize all your race dates
in a calendar and you know when they are,
and you can work towards them.
If you're a racer, all that organization is key
when it comes to racing, because if you're not organized
you're not going to be in tip-top shape.
And now getting stuff organized before going for a ride.
If it's your garage, if it's super messy,
having everything a bit cluttered
just makes your mind a bit cluttered,
makes your thoughts a bit cluttered,
makes your bike a bit untidy.
Be it if it is kit or something that stays in your car
the whole time like tools, I have a little tool set
that stays in my car in a bucket
and it's got lots of things in it.
Inner tubes, spare pedals, spare everything,
but I'm organized because if something goes wrong
I can just dip into my car, get it,
and get my bike fixed.
Which brings me onto maintenance.
Yes I think we're all a bit guilty about this.
And that is neglecting the one thing we love the most
and that is our bike.
Now, a little key thing to take away from this,
when you're on the trail and you find
that your brake pulls to the bar
or your gears are skipping, take a little mental note
so after the ride you get back to your car,
you go home, you wash your bike,
you get down, you go ah yes,
before I go out for the next ride
I'm going to maintain my bike.
I'm going to look at my brakes, why are they pulling in?
I'm going to them a little bit more of a bleed.
Why are my gears slipping?
Maybe your chain's a bit stiff in one link,
or just needs a little bit of an index.
Spend a little bit of time maintaining your bike
because the next time you go for a ride,
there's going to be no problems.
Thank you very much for watching this video,
hopefully you've taken some of these pointers
away with you, even if it's just one.
At least we're here and we've helped you
make your year a little bit more better
when you go out riding your bike,
which I want you to do.
Go out there and have some more fun on your bike.
Now, if you want to stick around
and continue to binge watch GMBN,
there's two videos on the screen just for you right now.
This one down here is a Tech video from Doddy
all about gearing.
'Cause if you've got some skippy gears,
that's going to definitely help you out.
And if you want to be inspired
and you want to go on an epic ride, click just over there.
Don't forget to hit that beautiful globe to subscribe
because you're definitely missing out
on some rad content from us.
Give us a thumbs up like if you're ready
to shred your bike throughout this whole new year.
See ya!