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5 drills to improve your mountain bike skills
Looking to take your riding to the next level? Gee Atherton's coach Alan Milway shares some on-bike sessions that will add confidence to your shredding.
Whether you’re new to mountain biking or you’ve been riding for years, there will be areas of your riding where you feel less confident in your ability. Cornering, technical descents and jumps are all common weaknesses for mountain bikers new and old, while pumping and technical climbing can take a lot of practise to perfect.
Rather than accepting these flaws as a fact of life, you can easily work on these weaknesses with mountain bike skill drills. By developing – rather than tolerating – your mountain bike skills, you will see improvements in your riding, which is incredibly rewarding.
To speed up your progress, there are some practice sessions that can help maximise the development of these skills, allowing you to transfer them to a wider mix of terrain to help you improve your riding even more.
For many mountain bikers, these sessions simply mean sessioning a track or section repeatedly with a clear outcome – not just riding a loop. Pushing back up and hitting some turns over and over builds confidence, speed and consistency and rewards you with improvements to take on to the next trail. Using some of these drills next time you are sessioning a track will help you make the most of your ride.
1. Cornering
Practising linking turns will see your exit speed increase
© Alec Dudley
They say that jumps are for show, and corners are for dough… If you want to improve your speed down the track, the corners are the sections that will really make the difference. Staying off the brakes through the corner to carry the most exit speed is key and making sure body position is right with good set up to look through the corner will help you flow through each and every turn. Here are some great cornering drills:
Flat corners can be a test of grip and body positioning
© Alec Dudley
- Linking corners: Quite often you will find cornering one way easier than cornering the other or will make mistakes in turns that are in series. Practising a section of two corners linked together allows you to focus on flowing out of one corner and through the next as you change body position and direction. Staying off the brakes between corners to increase entry speed will help progression and repeating them over and over is a lot of fun to do with friends as you carve the turns into the hill.
- ’No pedal’ runs: Pedalling hard between corners can make up some of the time lost in the corners, but this takes the focus away from smooth and fast cornering – where exit speed is king. Riding steeper tracks without pedalling will help you focus on hitting corners with pace and ensure you carry speed through the corner, as any mid-corner braking is really highlighted
- Practising flat/off-camber turns: Trail centres often have bermed turns throughout, but finding grip and correct body position on flat, or off-camber corners is vital and often overlooked. Setting up a fresh track will let you carve turns into the hill, but emphasising foot position by dropping the outside pedal to find grip where needed, while hips and shoulders facing through the corner and head leading the way will improve grip and speed.
- Breaking out the stopwatch: A great way to up the ante is to time a section of corners or ruts. Filming the riding will also help you compare technique and spot errors in body position much more easily.
2. Technical downhills
Finding the perfect line is all about patience and practise
© Alec Dudley
As a downhill coach for the likes of Gee Atherton, technical sections are a key component to race run success, and I often see many areas that will benefit riders of all abilities. The main focus should be to know the section you are riding – which means riding it multiple times, and even walking it to check the lines and visualise where to ride. If you ride it once and it is hard, don’t just move on, but find out why. It could simply be you had chosen a poor line through it, which you can easily avoid next time.
Spend the push back to the top looking for better lines
© Alec Dudley
- Practise technical sections: It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to hit the perfect line first time, so riding the same spot over and over will help you find the path that works best for you.
- To brake or not to brake: Focus on key braking points and where you can find grip. Try changing these points or not braking if you think you don’t have to and can carry speed.
- Take your time: Use a stopwatch to time sections and try repeating the same spot using different lines to compare times.
- Up the ante: Seeking out more technical trails – whether at bike parks or local spots – will really bring on your skills, especially if can ride with someone more experienced than you or watch some of the locals to see their lines and approach to the section.
3. Jumping
Continue riding up the face of the jump and focus beyond the landing
© Alec Dudley
If there is one area of a trail that gets the most attention, but can cause the most excitement and fear simultaneously, it is a jump line.
From a small table-top jump, through to a large man-made double, there is a huge variety of jumps you can come across. For many riders, small jumps are not a problem, but larger jumps with gaps between take-off and landing will cause mental blocks and avoidance.
Issues occur when smaller jumps are cleared with poor technique and excess speed, as this can build confidence to try larger jumps, where poor technique will, unfortunately, be punished.
- Inspect the jump: The takeoff defines the size of the jump and how high you will go. Look at the size of the take-off, as you must be prepared to continue riding up the take-off and on that same trajectory. Imagine bolting another take-off of the same size onto the original transition, extending it at the same angle. The front wheel will stay higher than the back, and start to create the arc of the jump.
- Stay centred on the bike!: Try to keep that ‘ready’ position on the bike as leaning back will absorb the energy of the back wheel and pull the front wheel up and into your chest, which won’t create the natural arc you need.
- Look beyond the landing: Focusing your attention past the lip of the landing will help keep your position on the bike and balance.
- Practise makes perfect: Practise the same jump over and over to build confidence, and gradually increase the size of the jumps. Even when confident, it is worth warming up on smaller jumps first.
4. Pumping
Expect a small jump in the middle of your pump
© Alec Dudley
Pumping the bike through terrain helps maximise control and speed but is often seen as something solely for a pump track or BMX track. Transferring this skill to a mountain bike trail will help you improve speed and control by pushing through downhill slopes and keeping the bike closer to the ground over rises and dips.
- Roll with it: Where there are natural rollers on a trail, try to lift the front wheel as you approach the rise, and push through onto the downslope. This ‘pre-jump’ will help you keep flow and rhythm on the trail. Although you may take off, it will also help with your control and speed through the terrain.
- Adjust with your surroundings: Stay centred on the bike, which may mean effectively pushing forward on sudden downslopes.
- Pump it up: Visiting a pumptrack will really help you focus on this skill and give a fun and rewarding time on your bike. Combining this pumping focus with not pedalling will highlight how best to generate speed through rollers (whether natural or man-made).
5. Technical climbing
Marginally lowering your seat with a dropper post can make climbing easier
© Alec Dudley
This is an often underrated skill, which is becoming more relevant with the advent of e-bikes. Electrically-assisted machines open up more technical climbs and make them a more rewarding prospect compared to attempting them under your own steam.
- Technique underpins traction: Stay centred on the bike, pick an easy enough gear to spin legs and look well ahead.
- Test yourself on climbs! Pick routes that aren’t easy but reward good line choice and grip by making a ‘trials’ section to ride without putting a foot down. Repeating this and competing with friends is not only fun, but can show where you are losing grip – through lack of grip on your rear wheel or looping out on a steep corner for example.
- Take turns: Turning uphill is very challenging as it is easy to loop out. Look well ahead and through the turn but practise these both ways as sometimes turning one way is much harder than the other in steep terrain.
- Electrify proceedings: E-bikes are a lot of fun on the uphills and seeking out difficult uphill sections will help improve balance and grip on this type of terrain.
