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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Five requisite skills for mountain bikers

A participant rides a skills station in the Spokane Mountaineers Mountain Biking Skills Clinic. (Diana Roberts)

1  Anticipation - Focus beyond the bike’s front tire. Analyze upcoming terrain so you can be ready to brake, shift and adjust body position in the most efficient time.

2  Body position  - Like a snowboarder, a mountain biker’s body often shifts off the center of the bike. Body position is critical to balance. A cyclist must experiment to know where his body needs to be on the bike.

Mountain biking is a dynamic movement that requires riders to regularly be off the saddle. It’s different from road biking, where riders are more static and in the saddle most of the time.

• Staying on your saddle compromises the technique and body movements needed to maneuver rough terrain effectively.

Boards or log “balance-beam” courses can help hone counter-balancing skills by swaying your body right or left. Other drills can help a rider get off the saddle and move forward and back.

• The limbo is one of the most popular stations at the Mountaineers’ clinic. Bikers have to ride under the bar, getting lower and off to the side of their bikes as the bar height is lowered.

Practical application: ducking tree limbs and other trail obstacles without getting off the bike.

3  Shifting - Mountain bikers should take time to study the range of their gearing, using right and left shifting levers, and the alignment of the chain in different front-back sprocket combinations. Avoid extreme angles on the chain, like big-big or small-small chainring combinations.

• Key to effective riding is anticipating the shift before it is needed while ascending, descending or cornering.

Master the “power stroke” – a surge on the pedals going uphill or accelerating followed by easing of pressure and shifting simultaneously to reduce chain tension for a smooth shift.

4 Braking - Some people learn this the hard way by going over the handlebars: The braking power of the front wheel is greater than the braking power of the rear wheel. The front brake should be feathered lightly or not at all when cornering. The rear brake is feathered for control in a turn.

You might squeeze the bike’s front brake lever while cornering on pavement and not have any trouble, but the same amount of pressure on the front brake while cornering on dirt or gravel can cause the front wheel to lock up. That spells doom.

• In most braking situations, riders should slide their butts back off the saddle to apply more weight to the rear wheel.

5  Physical strength  - This is what pulls all the other fundamentals together to advance a mountain biker’s riding, regardless of whether it’s hill climbing, descending or managing obstacles and endurance.