Menu Close

Basic Mountain Biking Technical Skills That Work

mountain bike technical skills

I remember my first time out on a mountain bike trail like it was yesterday. I was baptized on a black rated trail, and it was an absolute total disaster!  Looking back, had I practiced and gained some basic mountain biking technical skills it would have made all the difference.  I don’t regret the experience at all because it made me realize I needed to get a lot of work in on my technical skills.

I was just too eager to jump into riding a trail on a new bike with a new hobby.  Too much excitement can get you in trouble.  Yeah I could have taken a green or a blue which would have been the smart thing to do, but I seriously didn’t know the different levels of trail difficulty either.  I didn’t have any friends who rode back then so I learned my lesson the hard way.  Pretty embarrassing, but it makes a great story either way.

So today I want to focus on what I could have done better in terms of technical MTB skills that are actually useful and not just for show.  Flashy skills like wall rides and bunny hops are sweet tricks, but most of the time they’re not always necessary when you’re out there on the trail.

Contents

5 Basic Technical Skills for Mountain Biking That Work

Sure there are mental MTB skills like: looking ahead, relaxing, planning your route and lines, spotting problem obstacles so you don’t crash, etc.  but I’m going to assume you are past that and just want to keep momentum going on your rides so you don’t have to put your foot down. Put your foot down on your skills and get’em done!

Technical trails are not going to be fun if you’re stopping at every 2 inch tree root jutting out of the ground.  Leave that to my girlfriend who isn’t a big fan of mountain biking (she loves road biking, though, at least).

These skills will seriously increase your fun factor, and can be obtained riding around at home before applying them out on the trail:

1. Lifting Front and Rear Wheel:

I go over this in my How to Bunny Hop post, but I’m only talking about the lifting each wheel independently here.   So just to summarize the front wheel lift in 3 easy steps:

  1. Preload
  2. Shift body back
  3. Pull on handlebars

The rear wheel lift in 3 easy steps:

  1. Stand up, shift weight forward placing most of your weight on top of handlebars and front wheel
  2. Thrust hips forward to unweight rear wheel while scooping up pedals to get rear wheel lift
  3.  There is no 3, just do it in 2.5 easy steps!

This technical skill should help you avoid slamming into low tree roots and rocks that might leave a tire flat.  It’s common to lift the front but not as easy to unweight and lift the rear. Most novice riders smash their rear wheel onto objects like curbs and rocks trying to get over them, which is fine but your bike hates you for it.  Knowing how to do this skill smooths out the trail and your bike will love you.

2. Riding Up and Over Obstacles

real bunny hopLet’s say you’re doing a climb where you don’t have much momentum, all of a sudden you turn a blind corner after a hairpin turn and *bam* a few feet up the trail is a downed log 6-8 inches high.  What do you do?

So in this technical skill, pull your handle bars to get the front wheel up and onto the obstacle, then shift your weight forward to help the rear wheel get up.

There’s a few options for applying this technique on a real trail:

  1. As tough as it’s going to be, you need gain a little more speed before the obstacle so you can gain more momentum to lift front and back wheels, rolling over the top.
  2. If you don’t have enough speed, you need to do a powerful half’ish pedal stroke while shifting your body back to unweight the front which should bring it up.

You use a bit more energy to save yourself from potentially crashing, or the dreaded hike-a-bike.  You’re essentially rolling over the object by applying the 1st technical skill above.

The hard part in this skill is shifting your weight forward when the bike is already angled upwards due to the front tire being on the obstacle.  This is a tough hurdle to overcome, but with practice you’ll get it.  Use a curb to get a feel for it then progress to higher rocks and objects.

3. Riding down steep stuff

On my first black trail, there were plenty of steep rock gardens and loose dirt.  That’s pretty scary stuff for a beginner to go down.  And yes, I crashed a few times.

The technical skill that you need for riding down steep trails is to use your body weight and shift it back.  This way you keep your body weight to the rear and over the cranks/bottom bracket as that will help you avoid tipping over your center of gravity and crashing or going over the bars.

Had I known to keep my weight and butt behind the saddle I wouldn’t have fallen off the bike so many times.  This is a pretty simple technical skill, but applying it onto the trail when stuff gets loose and chunky is can be very different.  It takes some getting used to but it’s super fun when you get it down!

4. Cornering

Seems like a simple task; just turn the handle bar right? Not exactly!  It takes a little more finesse.

Going around berms are very different from going around a flat corner.  berm corner

Berm cornering allows you to attack the corner with speed; and with the appropriate amount of speed you and your bike can go “more parallel” to the ground as you see in the picture above.

flat cornerIn flat cornering, your body should stay ‘more’ perpendicular to the ground, but lean your bike.  This allows more downward pressure onto the shoulder of your tires maximizing grip for speed.

Cornering braking tips: Brake before you get to your corner, so you can focus on cornering! You’ll slow your momentum down too much for what’s around a corner if you end up braking during your turns.

You want to be able to accelerate out of a turn, you can’t do that very well if you’ve been braking going around it.

5. Small Drops

Even on green trails there are a few parts on the trail where you’ll be faced with a 5 or 6 inch drop.  Which is about the same size as a street curb.

You should roll off the drop similar to the way you ride down steep stuff, or you can practice getting how to get both wheels to land at the same time at the bottom of the drop.  This requires a really small manual/wheelie, so practice that to get this down.

Because you’ll be walking or riding a different path off BIG drops, so we’ll focus on what beginners can do.

6. (BONUS) Balance and Control Skills (BONUS)

What do I mean ‘balance?’ Well, if you can ride a bike without training wheels you’re already well ahead of the game!

Knowing how to use your body position / weight placement on a bike is an unimpressive skill, but more important than any other skill!  That seems obvious, but it’s definitely overlooked.

Balance gets you in tune with your bike.  Balance makes you ONE with your bike.  May the bike force be with you always.

Here’s a list of random balance drills you can practice:

  • Figure 8 riding in a parking lot.  Make the 8 of all sizes and speeds.  This helps with balance, control, cornering, weight distribution, envisioning your line, braking and accelerating out of a turn.
  • Riding with one hand / no hands on handlebars
  • Riding skinnies aka narrow obstacles (try the edge of a street curb)
  • Wheelies and Manuals (oh yes, balancing on one wheel)
  • Riding standing up
  • Riding with your weight shifted as far back as possible and then as far forward as possible
  • Trackstands – staying on your bike

Balancing is actually an endless list because everything you do on a bike requires balance and control.  All the technical skills require a finesse of balance so it needs to be at the top of this list actually… but I know it’s kind of a boring topic so I put it last, even though it’s most important!

Practice Essential Mountain Bike Skills!

Practice makes perfect is very much true for mountain biking too.  A balance skill like the trackstand took me MONTHS to learn.  But when you get it, you get it! It’s all in your head – what you need to do is drill these skills over and over until it turns second nature.

Gradually you’ll be able to get onto the bigger stuff: bigger jumps, drops, longer skinnies, crazy downhill, impossible uphill climbs.

It’s all fun and games when you get the skills.

Find your bike and ride it out my friend, you’re in it for the long haul.

Catch y’all later Rider Up!