Since i got my first street bike in 1988, or '89, or something... there have been three
specific things that fundamentally improved my riding in a dramatic way. The first was
learning how far I needed to look down the road. What I needed to be looking at, and looking for.
Using vision as a way to slow down time; time that is used to make a plan for every corner.
The second was opening my mind to trail braking and slowing into corners until I was comfortable
with my speed and direction. I've talked about this at length in other videos, but in short,
I was about to give up on riding until i was introduced to trail braking, and that
single riding technique enhanced my joy of riding in ways that are hard to quantify. But third
was this one exercise that completely transformed every aspect of my riding. Head down to the
comments and guess what that exercise is. Is it A, yoga. B, crossfit or, C keggles
Look, I'm as guilty of this as anyone but our sport tends to focus on techniques a lot and
neglects training. Without training we have an arduous learning curve. Training speeds up and
shortens our learning curve. In today's tick-tock, viral video world, we forget that to become great
we first have to be good. And it can be hard or discouraging to be on a plateau. Plateau
stages of learning last the longest, and it can be very discouraging to feel like
we're not actively improving. But the longer we work at something the better we'll get, right?
But that means we need to train. And that one exercise that completely transformed my riding...
Well, if you guessed B, crossfit you'd be wrong. The correct answer was D, mountain biking.
Yeah, yeah. I know... every bicycle I've ever ridden has been terribly underpowered,
but and hear me out, just like motorcycles have seen incredible evolution in the last 30 years.
So have mountain bikes. A modern mountain bike is nothing like the old Rockhopper hanging in
your dad's garage. Today's mountain bikes are a marvel. Four piston hydraulic brakes with
semi-floating rotors, tubeless tires, and suspension with actual functional adjusters
for high and low speed compression and rebound damping. In other words, the modern mountain bike,
with modern rake and trail numbers, behaves almost exactly like the modern motorcycle.
So basically mountain biking speeds up that learning curve by putting the language of
our street or pavement riding into the dirt. Entrances, apexes, exits, trail breaking, finding
and respecting the slowest part of the turn... Putting that language into a low grip environment
gives us a lot of opportunities to practice and work on every aspect of our street riding, as well
as helping us be physically and mentally stronger. So first and foremost, and probably most obvious,
let's talk about simple physical fitness. So yeah, I ain't getting no younger. Fitness leaves as
quickly as aches and pains sneak in, despite the fact that how well I ride is intimately connected
to how fit I am. And I don't know about you, but I loathe going to the gym, and gym memberships,
and all that crap. However, the physical benefits provided by bicycles are so well understood that
virtually every pro racer participates in some form of cycling. But where I think
a mountain bike is better than a road bike is mountain biking feels like play. It's fun. It
feels like being a kid again. It doesn't often feel like exercise, and unlike a road bike,
a mountain bike requires a fair bit of upper body strength, where road bikes... uhm... don't.
I've worked with several riders struggling to get faster, reluctant to address the fact
that in order to achieve their goal they needed to improve their fitness level.
So not only does the bike enhance fitness, it forces us to learn how to think clearly when
we're physically exhausted, or at the very least learn what being exhausted feels like so we know
when we need to rest before getting hurt. Now, we're based in a pretty awesome place,
surrounded by mountains and canyon roads. But if I want to go for a ride after work I have to deal
with commuter traffic, sure. But there are really only four... no. Three roads worth riding within
the time I have available before the sun goes down. Give me the entire day and I can stretch the
number of available rides to about seven, or so. But how many times can I ride those same roads?
And even with as much track access as I get, that's still only seven or eight track days
a year. But with mountain biking I have access to literally thousands of trails,
all of which can be networked and connected in a myriad of different ways. I can ride almost
every day after work for a month and never do the same route twice. Greater access simply means more
saddle time, and more time to hone our craft. So, what does it feel like when your tires are
on the edge of grip? How can you tell if it's a front or rear tire? What do you do when the
front tire starts to slip? How do we as riders get to the point where we don't panic when slip
happens? Here's the truly great thing about dirt: Practicing or playing in a low grip environment
we'll encounter more environments, more variations in surface conditions, and thus learn how to adapt
faster. It enhances our sense of grip. The feeling of traction. The feeling of changing
grip. The feeling of slip happening. It teaches us how to adapt and work with the available traction.
You want to get good at front end grip? Go get good at front end feel on the trail. Go work on
front end feel when you don't have a ton of grip, but you're also not going 100 kilometers an hour.
Go learn what the front tire "working" feels like, and getting it wrong has a much lower consequence.
I mean, I'd way rather get it wrong going 10ks per hour on a 15 kilo mountain bike than when I'm
going 100ks per hour on a 250 kilo motorcycle. On the trail there are so many distractions
things pulling our eyes down. Like roots and rocks or trees growing into the trail.
The trail becomes an amazing opportunity to exercise those muscles that move our eyes.
Yeah, our eyes are muscles too. We can practice keeping our eyes moving, not fixating on a single
hazard or feature. Practice seeing everything, but looking at nothing. Looking past those hazards and
down the trail as far as we can see to find our entrances and apexes. Figure out brake timing,
scanning for when we can see out of the corner, and because so much is happening so quickly, not
only will our eye muscles get stronger, we will learn how to still use our eyes when we're tired.
As soon as we point our bicycle down a hill a few things become abundantly clear. First,
there's no way to get down the mountain without your front brake. Second,
when you progressively load your front tire, it's insane how much grip it'll provide. Even over dry,
crumbly, dusty, muddy or otherwise slippery conditions. You'll be shocked by how much grip
a front tire has, even in the dirt, when we apply the brakes correctly.
This gives us incredible opportunities to work on our braking when there isn't much grip. Nothing
has enhanced my mastery and understanding of the front brake like the humble mountain bike.
Braking over bumps? Leaning through a bumpy turn? Well, bumps are everywhere and the mountain bike
teaches us how to become comfortable with feeling the suspension move beneath us,
especially when we're leaned over. It teaches us how compression damping feels different
from rebound damping compared to preload. What if you live in a land of ice and snow,
where the rivers freeze and the canyons close? [aaah-ah]
Well, there's a bike for that! Goofy looking fat bikes with five inch tires running 0.3 bar
of air pressure, that trundle and bumble over the snow, offering up even more low traction practice;
because when riding on snow, traction is more of a concept than a reliable reality.
Fat bikes take everything to expert level but with significantly lower exposure to risk.
I'm not kidding, you have to pedal to go downhill on a fat bike. The other advantage is that we
can be on a bike year round. Always be bike-fit while continuing to practice our craft. Training
to become the best rider we can be. Training to shorten that learning curve rather than
sipping bourbon next to the fireplace binge watching television for half the year.
And finally, if you've not been paying attention, there are these new things called
"flow trails" that are as joyful as some of the best race tracks I've ever had the
pleasure to ride. So talk about translating street language into trail language...
And did i mention these race tracks through the trees are all over the place?
So yeah, mountain bikes have taught me a lot. Not least of which is the value
of being conservative with my corner entrance and mid corner speeds. They've taught me how,
if I'm patient, and I wait, I can make up a lot of speed on corner exit with a lot less risk,
than trying to make up speed going into corners. Depending on where you are in the world your
bicycle brakes might be on the wrong side of the handlebars. The front brake belongs on the right,
just like, well, the rest of the civilized world. So, you know, you may want to swap those brakes
and put the front brake back where it belongs, because we're trying to shorten that learning
curve, and to build good muscle memory. We want to enhance our riding skills cross-platform.
Look, I love two wheels. I love the whole leaning thing, and the the mountain bike, well,
I get to spend more time on two wheels, in lots of different environments. I'm exploring the world
around me, watching the sun filter through the trees... yet every one of those rides on
my woefully underpowered bicycle, I'm getting all the same things I love about motorcycles.
I'm getting my turns in while refining my riding skills, especially trail braking.
I'm improving with every corner and every stop and every tire slip. I'm learning how
to use my eyes better, and to not use my arms too much. I'm forced to use my legs more,
engage my core. It enhances my motor control and my balance and at the same time it's just
so much fun! And on those short, mellow, slow rides... I can ride with my dog.
So, do you practice in the dirt? on a mountain bike or maybe a dirt bike? Because dirt bikes
work great too! What dirt bike skill has helped you become a better street rider?
Or are you too an avid mountain biker? Guys, thanks so much for watching and ride well!