- One of the best things about riding in a bike park
is seeing how much your riding progresses, even in a day.
However, you do need some basic skills to master
before you get to the park,
and even when you're here you can build on them.
So here are five of the best skills that you need
to ride in a bike park.
(upbeat electronic music)
Now in bike parks out west you're gonna see a lot
of features like this with big rock rollers.
They can be very intimidating to ride,
but there's a lot of traction on them
even when they're dusty like this one.
What you're gonna think is, slow in, control your speed
before you roll over the edge,
and then just let it flow.
As you approach rock features like this
you need to be in your attack position.
All your body weight should be on your hips
driving through the bottom bracket of the bike.
Have you best foot forwards and fit those heels.
Upper body should be nice and relaxed
and be controlling your speed as you approach
the rock feature.
As you spot the rolling entrance just slow down slightly,
make sure you've spotted your exit,
and then come off the brakes and let it roll.
(upbeat electronic music)
The berm is the most common feature you'll find
in any bike park around the world.
What is a berm?
Berm is simply an abbreviation for banked turn.
As you can see behind me it's just a nice rounded turn.
It gives you a bit more support and grip in the corners.
The thing with berms, it's all about three main points.
Controlling your speed on entry,
looking at your entry point,
and when you're in the turn spotting your exit point.
That's all there is to it.
You don't need to break in the turn.
All this does is lose traction.
(upbeat electronic music)
One of the things you see in all bike parks
is a variety of ladder drops like these.
In Whistler you get a lot of areas like this
where you can practise your skills on smaller options
before taking it out onto the trails
and honing your skills on the bigger ones.
So just like the smaller learner drops
that we saw in the park,
this is exactly the same just on a different scale.
And as with the learner drops you don't wanna go too fast
and land too flat.
The idea is to try and match the transition of that landing.
Same principal as rock rollers as well.
Easy in, defensive riding position,
control your braking, spot your landing,
and keep your weight back.
You don't have to pull up.
If you pull up you're going too flat
and you don't wanna do that.
It's all about relaxing on that bike
and keeping your position back.
(upbeat electronic music)
Learning to jump is something everyone wants to do
and the best place to do that really is a bike park,
because there's so many different options.
Things to look out for at Whistler,
the little orange flags.
That's your telltale there's gonna be take-off coming up.
Now as with anything, you've gotta start small,
start basic, a bit slower as you're coming in
to just get the feel of the transition
before you start moving on to bigger jumps.
Before you get carried away jumping
the first thing you wanna do is actually
get your bike set up to do that.
Get that saddle out of the way, slam it in the frame,
whether that's the good old-fashioned way
with a quick-release or Alan key,
or if it's a dropper post.
Nice and low, it's not gonna kick you out the back.
Second option, if you've got a rear shock
put on a few more clicks of rebound
than you would normally run.
The last thing you want is if you preload into a jump
and it ricochets you off funny.
A little bit of rebound can help control that
and makes if feel a lot more comfortable.
Luckily most of the trails here are built in such a way
that it's quite intuitive the speed you need
to attack a jump like this.
Really, it's just rolling speed coming into this.
Any faster then you are gonna get in a horrible kick
you don't want.
Go in, stay nice and relaxed,
again keep your body weight through your legs.
You don't want to suck up the jump,
you wanna just let the jump just push you naturally
off the ground.
As you come off the takeoff, you must try and level
the bike out in the air and ideally meet with the landing.
(upbeat electronic music)
You'll often see stuff like this in bike parks
all around the world.
It's known as North Shore,
and it takes its name from the famous North Shore
of Vancouver.
Riding on the North Shore of Vancouver
was made famous in the 90s
by a bunch of free-riding pioneers who used to build
these sort of trails.
Now the reason they'd build these laddered slats
is to cover gaps in the ground, boggy sections,
and even huge chasms.
It wasn't there to make it fun to start with,
it was to make a trail purposeful.
But as you can see it's pretty fun stuff to ride
and this style of riding is a credit to bike parks
all over the world.
(Men on Bikes yelling)
One of the things that freaks people out
about North Shore riding is the skinny like this.
But let's just take it back to riding
on a concrete car park for a minute,
and you think of how easy it is to ride
in a dead-straight line.
All this is is head games.
Anyone can ride along a bone-straight
piece of trail like this,
it's just elevated above the ground.
With North Shore riding like this you just gotta approach it
calmly and spot your exit points.
It's that simple.
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