♪ [music] ♪
- [Neil] First thing, you should always wear a helmet when riding your mountain
bike. You'd be surprised how many people I see with an ill-fitting helmet or
not stuck on their head correctly, so get it square on your head, a helmet
that fits, and use this ratchet system to tighten that helmet up. It shouldn't
move around on your head in any way. And make sure this chinstrap's nice and tight.
Not like that.
- [Marc] Like this? What, like this?
- No, Marc.
- What, like this?
- No, Marc.
- Or even this.
- Closer.
♪ [music] ♪
- Something else that I see as essential when I'm riding a bike is gloves.
I know some people like to ride without gloves. They feel it gives you a bit more
extra control, maybe. But personally for me, I always wear them.
It's the first thing that hits the floor. I don't want to scrape my hands up.
- Especially riding on those hard-base trail centers, you're always going to just
cut your hands to bits and you can't ride the next day or the coming weeks.
- Yeah, sure.
- Moving on from there, another essential bit of equipment that you can see both
Neil and I are wearing is knee pads. I have quite a thin, more Neoprene-style
one. It's really comfortable and I can wear it for long rides all day,
and it doesn't bother me.
- I've got slightly bulkier knee pads on. Offer really good protection,
I guess they're not quite as nice to pedal in all day long, but there's a lot of knee
pads now on the market that are nice and light and not too bad for pedaling in.
- Lastly, basically we're just look at extremities here. Knees,
elbows is a good option. Sometimes you go hands then elbows down on the ground so
that might be something that you could consider wearing also. They come in
similar styles to both our knees pads and nice and comfy and you don't really know
you've got them on.
♪ [music] ♪
- Most trail shorts nowadays come with a padded liner on the inside.
I always wear those, just nice and comfortable for a full day's riding.
- Personally, I like to wear a Lycra-style chamois road cycle short underneath my
trail shorts with the bibs as well. These are really comfortable also, and work
really well for me. One thing that is a massive don't is wearing your boxer
shorts, or your knickers for the ladies, underneath your Lycra there. It's just
going to bag up, cause chafing in those uncomfortable areas, and just
not very nice. You don't want to be walking like John Wayne, do you, Neil?
- I don't, no. I never go for the full Lycra look anyway.
- You definitely do.
♪ [music] ♪
So the next fundamental piece of advice is watching other riders,
be it out in the woods with your friends like we are today, out at a trail center
watching strangers, or even at races and events. As you can see,
this is quite a technical section so I'll watch Neil through, see his line,
and hopefully learn from that.
Right. Now it's time for me to give it a go.
♪ [music] ♪
- It's really important to use one-finger braking. So I'll use my one finger
right on the very end of the lever so I've got maximum leverage. I also run my brakes
quite close into the bar. That's just more of a personal thing, really.
- I use one finger too, also, Neil. Pretty much all of the time, I think.
The good thing for me is one finger on the end of the lever,
like you say, but then you've got the three fingers and plenty of strength in
your hand to hold on, especially in rough sections.
- Yeah, most modern bikes nowadays, one finger should be plenty with the brakes
you've got nowadays. Two fingers, really for last resorts.
- Let's crack on.
♪ [music] ♪
So how should you set your seat height? Basically, what you want to look for is
the seat to be at hip height. That should be a ballpark guide.
Right, then you get on the bike, and what you want to look for is put the heel of
your foot on the pedal, and as you can see my leg is pretty much straight. So from
that point, once you go into your pedaling action, you've got the ball of your foot
on the pedal, you've got a little bit of a bend so when you're pedaling at the
bottom of your stroke, your leg is not locking out completely straight.
- Too low, your knees are going to hit you in the chest, you're going to feel cramped
on your bike, and your pedaling efficiency will be really poor.
Too high, and probably equally as bad, your hips will tend to rock on the saddle,
you won't be able to get full power through the pedals, and last but not least
you'll get sore and you probably won't enjoy your ride very much,
and you'll end up coming home early.
- Having the correct height for pedaling, however, does limit you when you're riding
technical stuff, especially riding down steep descents.
On those descents, it's good to just drop your post a little bit, or if you've
got a dropper post like me, you can use this on the go and I'm up and down
all the time to give myself some space on the harder bits of trail.
♪ [music] ♪
The attack position, or I call it the ready position, it's just when you're up
to any sort of speed on a trail, stand up nice and tall so your knees are slightly
bent, your arms are slightly bent, it should feel like most of your weight is
controlled through your feet and into the pedals.
- Here, Marc stood really tall, arms are slightly bent as well, but his feet are
doing most of the work to control his weight. On steep descents,
move your body position to the back of the bike. Think about getting your hips down
nice and low to the back wheel by dropping your heels.
♪ [music] ♪
Keeping your head up and looking right along the trail is a really key skill.
I'm looking for obstacles that are coming in the trail, but also looking for ways of
making this trail flow as much as possible. So this section, even though
it's a straight, you can actually see there's a stump half way down.
So I'm looking for the line early. You can see, if you drop too far left,
you'd end up riding towards that stump or even have to do a wiggle around it,
so I try and spot that as early as possible and look to where I want to be.
It's almost the opposite of that target fixation thing. Rather than fixating on
something I don't want to hit, I want to look at where I do want to be.
♪ [music] ♪
Don't bite off more than you can chew. Try to aim to ride a route that you can
complete with ease. Trail centers grade their trails, from green being the easiest
through blue, red, up to black being the hardest. Start off nice and mellow and
then advance when you feel like you're ready.
- The last thing you want to do is to pick a loop that is too far for you, and your
fitness won't allow you to go that far.
- The fun will soon run out of it, you're tired, you can't ride to the level that
you should be able to, and, as you can see, it's not a lot of fun.
♪ [music] ♪
So the next fundamental piece of advice is hydration. It's critical that you
hydrate before you start your ride and then also carry enough fluid with you to
get you 'round that route. I like to use an old-fashioned, if you like,
roadie-style cage and bottle.
Nice and easy to use and obviously you've got plenty of fluid in there should
you need a drink while you're out riding.
- I'm not sure about that bottle choice. I tend to use a pack for most rides.
Definitely good on the longer rides, if you can chuck some food in there,
also some tools to get you out of bother.
- So that's it for fundamental tips for the beginner mountain biker.
Don't forget, if you did like our video and it was helpful for you,
please click "like" below.
- There's also a few good tips in there for the more advanced riders,
definitely the keeping your head up thing, looking down the trail.
I find I have to tell myself that all the time.
If there's anything you think we've missed, leave us a comment down below,
or for more videos on GMBN, click up here for the M check,
check your bike before your ride.
- And another useful one is what to pack in your bag
when you're going out on a longer ride. For that one, click down here.
- Or just click on us if you want to subscribe to GMBN
and get all the videos.
- And then when you sit on the bike...
I'm not tall enough to do it on this ground, Tom.