(upbeat electronic music)
- Hey everyone, so I'm here in Whistler
about to catch up with Katrina Strand up in the bike park,
we're gonna go work on jumps and drops today
which I'm stoked about
because haven't really done any of that with cross country.
So I have no idea how I'm gonna go, a little nervous.
But pretty stoked to get some skills and yeah,
let's go up to the chair lift now and meet up with her.
(electronic music)
- It's comfortable.
Well my name's Katrina Strand but what I do is complicated.
(laughs)
So, in a nutshell,
the shortest version,
I'm a strength and conditioning coach
as well as a mountain bike coach.
More focusing on developing the athlete
but also I do do instruction coaching
and have done instruction coaching for years.
- [Katrina] Hey, Zoe.
- Hey Katrina, how's it going?
- [Katrina] Good, welcome to the bike park.
- Thanks, good to be here.
- [Katrina] Today we're gonna learn how to drop and jump.
- Sweet.
- [Katrina] Pretty essential skill for Enduro.
- Absolutely.
- [Katrina] Yeah and over here we've got a little skill park
that we'll start our lesson.
- Awesome, that sounds great.
I haven't done any of this stuff with cross country
so I'm super stoked to learn.
- Awesome. - All right.
- Let's go check it out. - Let's do it.
(electronic music)
- Dropping. - Woo hoo.
- So drop is a feature
that you absolutely cannot roll.
- Okay.
- And if you do,
we actually won't have that discussion,
bad things can happen.
(Zoe laughs)
Approaching the drop, the first thing is,
is the amount of momentum that you need.
- Yep.
- You want the appropriate amount of momentum
and that's gonna depend on the drop.
- Yes, obviously.
- So today, obviously I'll guide you through this one
and what you will need to get off this drop safely
and over time you understand by doing and watching
what you need to do to have that perfect momentum.
- Practice makes perfect.
- Exactly.
It's all very subtle
if you come in with the right amount of momentum.
- Okay.
- The slower you go, the more energy
and effort you're gonna have to put into that push.
- Right.
- And in theory the faster you go, the less effort
you're gonna have to put into it.
- 'Cause you're kind of more on a trajectory
it just keeps your pace.
- Right, your goal is to land
with both wheels on the transition
so if you come in like a bat out of hell,
you're gonna blow past transition
and then that could lead to bad things too.
- Yep. - Right at the end of the drop
that's where you're gonna push the front end forward.
- Right. - So it's not simply
just shifting your hips back,
'cause that's not gonna do anything with the front end.
- Right, and am I landing both wheels at the same time or?
- Good question-- - Rear wheel, front wheel.
- The ideal situation,
is you're landing with both wheels at the same time.
- Right. - And absorbing the lining
with your arms and your legs,
you've got all the extra suspension in your arms
and your legs you wanna absorb the lining
just like you would with a jump on the ground.
- Yep, okay.
- Should we try it?
- I'll see you do it first
and then I will give it a crack after.
- Okay. - 'Kay.
(electronic music)
Ah, so smooth.
- [Katrina] So as you can see, it's all very subtle right?
- Yeah. - The minute I come in
with the right amount of momentum,
I don't have to do a awful lot at the end of the drop.
(electronic music)
- [Zoe] Woo!
- Awesome.
The one thing that I would adjust
with everything that you did,
just one thing and that's your momentum.
- Oh. - The momentum
you came in with was just a touch too hot.
There we go and push.
- [Zoe] Yeah! - That was better.
- [Zoe] So it's good to feel both ways and, yeah,
backing off actually made it smoother.
'Cause mostly with mountain biking so far I've learnt is
momentum makes things smoother.
Whereas here--
- Momentum is your friend, not necessarily speed.
- Yep. - But with that second one,
the front wheel touched like a millisecond before the back.
We don't really care, it still looked great
except that we could fix that
by a little bit more of a push of the front wheel forward.
- [Zoe] Now with these tools, like I've practiced
and go to maybe a next size up?
- Sure. - Okay.
(Zoe laughs) Yeah!
(electronic music)
- [Katrina] Sweet!
So now we're onto slightly bigger drops.
- [Zoe] Yep.
- The same concept, the landing is further down the takeoff
and really not much is going to change
from what we just went over on the smaller drop
but we are on a different drop,
so we now need to evaluate our momentum
and make sure we get there with enough momentum
to land safely on the landing.
- [Zoe] Right.
- But luckily, we've got all this space
to create as much momentum as we want.
- [Zoe] Okay, a good run up.
- [Katrina] So right here,
the landing doesn't start right as the base of the drop,
there is a little bit of a space
but the thing about these ones here
is that we have so much space to create momentum
to get to the landing
that we likely don't need to step down to get to the drop.
- [Zoe] You can just flow.
- [Katrina] Like this guy here,
he came in with great momentum,
just pushed that front end forward
and landed with both tires on the landing.
- [Zoe] Okay.
- [Katrina] So if I were to come in a lot slower,
I'd have to use a different technique
and that we'll exploring more when we go into jumping.
- [Zoe] Awesome.
Ah.
So easy!
Sure I'm gonna be able to do that,
that was a lot of air right there.
Holy (beep).
All right, let's go send this now.
No worries.
- I wanna see, I would like to see Zoe come in
with a decent amount of momentum
so that when she gets to that lip,
all she has to do is be subtle
with a little push off the lip
and hopefully land with both tires safely on the transition
and I think for her,
she's so solid with her body positioning
it's all about the momentum
that she uses to execute this drop properly.
Yeah this looks good, ready and--
- [Zoe] Oop, down. (laughs)
- I did say that a drop is a feature that's not rollable
but there's exceptions.
So a drop like this,
some people would find it beneficial to have a tow in.
So then they don't have to think about the momentum
and then they can just work on their technique.
- [Zoe] That makes sense.
- So something we could try.
- [Zoe] Yeah so should I follow you--
- D'you wanna do that?
- [Zoe] Yeah, that's a good idea.
(Zoe screams)
Yeah!
Definitely took a bit of that,
yeah you just kind of have to push yourself over.
Just like, here we go!
- Yeah it's like a switch, let's do this.
- It's on. (laughs)
All right.
- [Katrina] Yeah give it a try on your own.
Yeah, looks good, looks good.
Ready and push. (Zoe exclaims)
- [Zoe] Yeah!
- I wouldn't change a thing.
- Okay, so I just followed Katrina down this guy
onto the third one here
and finally got the experience
of having two wheels in the air.
Hadn't had that before so I was pretty nervous
but oh my god it felt so good,
pretty stoked on this now.
So, having said that, we're gonna go try number four.
Little larger, so we'll see how this goes.
(electronic music)
(Zoe screams)
- [Katrina] Another scream of fear and success.
(Zoe laughs)
When you start getting confident
with the amount of momentum you need
for whatever drop it is,
it does make all the difference.
- [Zoe] Yeah and it's like, having these skills
and trusting those skills and committing to it.
- [Katrina] Yeah, and committing.
- [Zoe] Just like throwing yourself off the edge.
- She's kinda got the perfect combo of confidence
and really putting what I have to say to use.
So taking those tools and using them properly.
Looking good, commit to that, yeah, you got it!
- [Zoe] Yeah, woo!
- [Katrina] Yeah!
- [Zoe] Oh my god.
Just being in the air suspended,
it's like time stops for a minute.
- [Katrina] Okay, awesome.
- [Zoe] Thank you.
(clapping) - Killed it.
Now you get to learn how to jump.
So we're gonna head down Crank It Up,
it's a great trail with
progressively bigger jumps
but every single one of them is rollable,
so super safe.
And that's what we're gonna use to learn how to jump.
So, from following you down
with zero instruction whatsoever,
I have to say you're doing really well.
- Oh awesome!
- You have a lot of the key concepts in place.
Like corners, like drops, every jump is slightly different
but we can have some general guidelines
that will work to get us up in the air
and landing on transition with both tires evenly.
Have you ever heard of the concept freeload before?
- [Zoe] I've heard of it
but I haven't been gone through with what it is.
- You were doing it.
- Sweet!
- What you're doing is up the takeoff of the jump,
you're gonna be loading your suspension front and rear.
So you're gonna be pressing into the front
and the back of your bike
with your arms and your legs.
- [Zoe] So physically pushing down--
- [Katrina] You're pushing down into your bike.
When you reach the lip of the jump
at the end of the takeoff,
that is when you're gonna let go of the pre-load
which, in theory, is gonna lift you up off the jump.
- [Zoe] Right, that gets me in the air.
- That's when you're gonna stand tall.
So we're really gonna focus on that pop.
So the pre-loading and the pop off the lip
holding the bike with us.
If you land both wheels together on top of the jump,
awesome, that's fine.
All that's gonna make it better and bigger,
is either going faster, a more aggressive pre-load or both.
- [Zoe] Okay.
(electronic music)
Oh, smooth.
- [Katrina] And pre-load, yeah!
(Zoe laughs)
That was really good!
You committed to that centered stance basically.
Imagining that when you're in the air
that you have an impression on the tires.
- [Zoe] Yeah, that makes a huge difference,
it really does.
'Cause yeah, I just felt like the bike just stayed with me
that whole time
and I probably was lifting it
without actually thinking about it
but it was just happening.
(Zoe laughs)
Just having these few little tools in the back of your mind
and just, yeah mostly as well just being aggressive,
not aggressive but committing to it like you said.
Just say, okay, we're going for this.
Not gonna touch my break just gonna ride with it.
- [Katrina] Not freezing.
- [Zoe] Yeah, exactly.
All right, so we just hit the Whistler bike park,
jump and drops dialed in today.
- Dialed, dialed. (Zoe laughs)
- Thanks to this lady.
Yeah I got some serious air time,
pretty frickin' stoked with that.
So, what's say we go send it and finish up on Crank It Up,
hit some more jumps?
- Sounds good to me.
- Sweet! - Let's go.
(electronic music)
(Zoe whooping)
(electronic music)
- It's like the 1, 2, 3.
Low, look, lean.
(mumbles) Sweet trail,
we're just working all sorts of different corners.
- [Katrina] I heard the scream.
(Zoe laughs)
The scream of fear and success.