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Kaos Seagrave’s 7 tips for taking your mountain biking to the next level
Elite World Cup racer Kaos Seagrave gives his top tips for improving your mountain biking skills.
Kaos Seagrave is not only the best-named man on the elite mountain biking circuit, but also the younger brother of multi-World Cup winning rider Tahnée Seagrave, and a man whose fast and loose riding style have garnered him a lot of fans on the trails.
At four years old, Kaos and his family moved to the French MTB mecca Morzine, and it was here he learned the craft. Now the Seagraves live in North Wales, one of the UK’s best spots for bikers.
Below, Kaos offers some great advice that'll help take your riding to the next level and improve your race craft.
1. Turn your body into armour
“When we train off the bike, in the gym, we focus on our upper body, our core and obviously the legs, but we don’t go the gym to get big. The general aim is that we go and train our body so that if we do have a crash we’re not relying so much on luck.
"We’re basically trying to make our body into a body armour, a second body armour, so when you crash you know that you can take the hits and won’t break yourself!
"A proper gym routine means you’ll be strong enough to take most crashes you end up in.”
2. Make your riding partners your friends
“I mostly ride with Kade Edwards, and of course I ride with Tahnée a lot too. Riding with them has definitely helped me progress. If you ride with one of your best mates all the time, and if they’re at the same level or even better than that, it always encourages you to do more stuff and try out more things while you’re riding. You always feel like you can try more when you’re with your mates and you’re sessioning.
“They don’t even have to be the same level as you. They can be worse, or they can be better, but they should be one of your mates!”
2 min
Sound of Speed: Kade Edwards and Kaos Seagrave in Whistler
Young pretenders Kade Edwards and Kaos Seagrave go huge on the legendary Dirt Merchant trail at Whistler Bike Park.
3. Make sure you’ve got the right bike for the trails you’re riding
Kaos Seagrave with the steeze 🔥
© Boris Beyer
“I am actually riding a new, longer bike this season, so I’m still getting used to that now. For us at the World Cup, all the tracks are getting faster and straighter, so it’ll be better to have a longer bike – not too long though. This is so the bike is more stable in the fast sections.
“My favourite kind of track is steep and technical, but they don’t really have that as much anymore. I think Maribor is the World Cup track I’m most looking forward to because it is maybe the most natural.
“Some of my places to ride are just around my house in Wales, though, and then there’s Whistler Bike Park of course – but that’s just jumps!”
4. Film your sessions
“If you’re filming with your buddies you can watch the footage back over and over, and then every time you film yourself, when you go out you can look back, see if you’ve improved, and use that to find your strengths and weaknesses, plus what you need to work on.”
5. Keep your speed round the corners
“If you’re going around a flat corner, like we had in Portugal [at the Portugal Cup at São Brás de Alportel], then stick out your outside foot and put some weight onto it that so it digs in. If you put that down and put a bit of weight on it then that’s going to give you some more traction, which gives you more time to push around the corner and carry speed around it.”
6. Don’t stress on race day. You’ve done all you can…
Kaos can't help but look stylish
© Bartek Woliński
“I used to struggle a bit with the pressure when I was racing in the juniors, but now it’s not too bad. I’ve realised that it’s only riding your bike and that, really, it’s how you prepare for it that matters.
“If you come to the race and you know you’ve done everything you can in terms of training and riding, and then you get to the race and you’ve got good people around you, like I do, encouraging and helping you, there’s no reason to be stressed.
“When I arrive for a race weekend now, I know it should go well and that at that point, all I have to do is relax, warm up on the turbo to make sure I don’t feel tense on the bike, and then go race one!”
7. Have fun or it’s all pointless!
“I’ve been given loads of tips on how to race and how to prepare yourself for racing and all of that, but the best tip that I’ve ever really had is that if you’re not having fun on your bike you won’t ride well and there’s just no point in doing it.
“We had a few years where Tahnée knew that she had the speed to win, but she just didn’t win. She always came second or third, and I remember she went through a few years of not actually enjoying riding her bike. All she liked doing was racing and I would ask her to go riding and she would say: 'no, she didn’t want to'. She didn’t like it. All she wanted to do was race. That’s since changed for her. Now she loves going out riding and sessioning with us, and her riding style has changed because of it, as well as her racing. Since she’s loved her bike again and started having fun – you can see it in the races and in the practice. She’s not as tense on the bike, is just having more fun, and she’s become faster because of that.
“It’s still the best advice I’ve had to this day. If you’re having fun, that’s the best you’re going to be riding. If you’re ever riding and it’s not fun, then there’s literally no point in doing it!”
