Killing under steer.
- Thread starter Hougham
- Start date
Run slightly less pressure in your front tyre, but most importantly it sounds like you have your weight too far back. Weight distribution on a bike is massively important, and because you weigh so much compared to the bike, your position makes all the difference.
Exactly my first thought. Slack DH bikes need to be ridden over the front to get any kind of decent predictable traction. Not only to put weight directly over the wheel with the most traction but also to load the fork and steepen the head angle a little. Ride it like a moto! Lean the bike over but keep your body somewhat upright. Rest the inside of your outside leg/groin near the nose of the saddle. Get your elbows up and your wrists straight as if you were doing a pushup from your knuckles. Lock your arm position in and focus on using your traps/lats to control your arm movement. Shift all your weight to the outside pedal (think: standing on that foot only) The other foot, even if still on the pedal has very little if any weight on it. Look ahead towards the exit of the turn and try to stay off the brakes! Hitting the brakes will only make the bike want to stand up and/or lose traction.
Traction is a finite element, you can use 100% of it for cornering or you can compromise cornering and allocate a percentage of it to braking. Ultimately though you only have 100% and any time you brake you are stealing potential traction from cornering. It's important to enter a corner with the proper amount of speed to avoid braking in the corner for the above reason. You can also use your inside arm to counter-steer. If you feel the front end starting to push (understeer) you can stiffen and slightly extend your inside arm and counter that. In a nutshell, be conscious to put your weight/muscle into your outside leg and inside arm when cornering. I'm by no means a cornering expert but riding a moto has helped me a ton with mtb corner skills, and even on the road bike believe it or not.
Thanks for the replies there is some great information there. Unfortunately its not my riding style for once as several other people have said the same thing about it. My aim is to have a neutral bike where both wheels will brake away at the same time when your carving or possibly the rear going slightly before.
I dropped my front tyres by 5psi and that did help slightly. That is very interesting rockwool that you say about handle bar height. I did lower it by 5mm today and it did appear to help but I could not tell if it was just in my head or not. I may try moving another spacer or two on to the top of the stem and see if that helps any more.
I dropped my front tyres by 5psi and that did help slightly. That is very interesting rockwool that you say about handle bar height. I did lower it by 5mm today and it did appear to help but I could not tell if it was just in my head or not. I may try moving another spacer or two on to the top of the stem and see if that helps any more.
In addition to some of those things mentioned above, you can tune your suspension to help the rear break loose easier. Usually, running the rebound on the fork a little slower will help the front bite more while speeding up the rebound on the rear can help the rear slide easier.
And depending on the conditions, i.e. soft/hardpack/soft over hardpack/loose/etc.... you can get mixed results. But as a general rule of thumb, start with slowing the rebound on the fork a bit and speeding up the rebound on the rear. Then experiment with compression both front and rear.
And if possible, make sure your front and rear suspension is relatively well balanced regarding spring rate. Too soft of a fork will force you fall too far forward and the front will wash, too stiff of a fork and the front will be 'flighty' and wash.
Good luck!
And depending on the conditions, i.e. soft/hardpack/soft over hardpack/loose/etc.... you can get mixed results. But as a general rule of thumb, start with slowing the rebound on the fork a bit and speeding up the rebound on the rear. Then experiment with compression both front and rear.
And if possible, make sure your front and rear suspension is relatively well balanced regarding spring rate. Too soft of a fork will force you fall too far forward and the front will wash, too stiff of a fork and the front will be 'flighty' and wash.
Good luck!
Good advice.
More to add:
- Tire choice can make a huge difference. Having the same tire front and back is the biggest thing you can do for neutral traction balance front to rear. Minion DHF is the most wash resistant tire I've ever used.
- Also try moving your seat forward a little bit. That can make a difference too.
Lowering your bars will help for sure. It's not just in your head. It helps to shift your weight more forward over the front tire.
Seriously, something that will help.... Take an Offroad Moto coarse. remember to put your weight into the front wheel, by this I mean, litterall Push your tire into the ground, Basic counter steer, Weight on the outside pedal, and on the inside bar, let the back end break loose, and just shove that front tire into the dirt...
Good comments.
Knowing how to corner on a road bike can mean life or death. I seldom find a fellow road biker.
Thanks tidan I will give it a go and see how goes. I have Minion DHF on both the front and back Spokompton, I was thinking of trying a thicker front tyre and see what its like. Thanks for the recommendation but your preaching to the converted. I stared racing over 10 years ago, I’m really looking just for something to make the bike inherently more balanced rather than having to ride round a problem.
Shaums March has some great clinics. Check out his style for an example of perfect riding stance, especially cornering.
Lower your fork in the crowns a couple mm at a time (if you have room). A little goes a long way there.
One possible factor related to setup, not riding style could be chainstay length. Longer stays change a lot as far as distributing weight farther forward. I'm coming off an Enduro onto a ReignX and loving the additional .5" of length in the stays on the Reign versus the Enduro. It makes a huge difference in cornering stability and of course high-speed stability as well.
I agree! Longer chainstays are king! Can't wait for the trend of short (easy to manual in the parking lot) chainstay mentallity to fade away into obscurity! ;-)
Long chainstays, long downtube, slack head angle.....are all good qualities in a downhill bike!
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I always look at tires as they only like to do one thing at a time. They like to corner or brake, pick one. If you try to do both things at once braking always wins, making the front tire push through the corner.
Are you really getting yourself as far forward as you think you are? Have someone who knows how far forward you should be watch you or take video/photos. I am always surprised how I think I am doing something then see a photo and realize how much more I could do.
Thanks Hacktatic I will see how much space I have lefts. Slack head angle you say tidam. Was that just a general things you like or do you think that could help slackening it? I have got a bit of adjustment there so I guess its worth a go at least.
I can ride round the issue CRoss there is no problem there. Its just I would like inherently more grip at the front or even less grip at the back.
I can ride round the issue CRoss there is no problem there. Its just I would like inherently more grip at the front or even less grip at the back.
Flong chainftays are the Devil!
You're not imaginating, by lowering your bars you allow more pressure on your front wheel as you're placed more above them than before. If you have more spacers, lose them and play around with that a week or two so you will get used to that position. Depending on how tall you are, you might find the need to ad a spacer later.
Remember that making the fork taller to slacken the HA, will place your bars back up where you had them.
Thanks for all the help every one, it feels great now. slightly softer front tyre, all spacers removed from under stem, slackened the bikes geometry off, pushed the seat further forward and a slight fettle of the suspension have sorted it. Each little tweak helped and as a combinations has transformed the bike beyond belief. It really does feel like a totally different bike. It just feels so balanced and you can lean on the bike so hard now with total confidence.
Thanks again everyone.
Thanks again everyone.
This thread brings back all the memories of the evolution of DH. Starting from the Overgrown XC bikes you were fixing all the time, to the 60lb tank ships that could kill a spectator if they got hit by them, right into the Huck factor bikes. Decending supersteeps in there as well, back when it was all about getting behind the bike, tall fork tall bars, short short stem. To now, where our suspension technology, tire technology, Metal technology give us a bike that is capable of being less than 40 lbs without major effort, the right balance of Geometry to decend supersteeps, and still be able to corner, seat position is no longer ALL THE WAY DOWN, but usually about an in below the bars for DH now. Etc Etc ETc.
Its just awesome to see how things have evolved in the biking world!!!
Its just awesome to see how things have evolved in the biking world!!!
I'm bookmarking this thread, lots of good info. Thanks!
Punkassean: "Rest the inside of your outside leg/groin near the nose of the saddle."
I'm having a hard time visuallizing this. Do you have any pictures? Thanks.
Also, is there anything wrong with giving the back brake a little tap to get the rear wheel to loose traction to initiate a drift? Or should you just try to force it by loading the front even more or does it really matter?
Punkassean: "Rest the inside of your outside leg/groin near the nose of the saddle."
I'm having a hard time visuallizing this. Do you have any pictures? Thanks.
Also, is there anything wrong with giving the back brake a little tap to get the rear wheel to loose traction to initiate a drift? Or should you just try to force it by loading the front even more or does it really matter?
Well, I like the slacker head angle for drifting in most situations. Slow tight trails will accomodate a steeper head angle. With the slacker head angle, I can actually move more forward without the risk of augering in, and the slacker head angle gives more feedback with countersteer pressure. E.g. if you lean a slack bike over to the side you will notice the front tire flops over that direction. If you are countersteering you are opposing that pressure which helps to break the rear end loose.
A steep head angle on the other hand does allow you tire more contact area with the ground when you turn the bars at slow speed, but it does not inspire you to want to lean too far forward, and in fact you'll see alot of people on steep bikes pushing themselves back away from the front.
Also, remember that if you lower your bars TOO much you'll intuitively ride more rearward for fear of falling off the front. I've seen this alot. With long travel forks you need some height up front to allow for the suspension loading in the turn so that you aren't in a 'stink-bug' position.
Another point that many people overlook is the relationship(or coefficient rather) between vertical load (gravity/weight, pressure, etc) and lateral load (weight/intertia). Weight doesn't neccessarily give you traction, or in this case, cornering force. It does give you more friction between your tires and the ground, but weight also adds intertia which what you are trying to avoid. Too much weight on one end or the other of the bike is also going to add more inertia and there will be a coefficient in effect between the friction added by the weight between you tires and the ground and the inertia or lateral loading.
The way around the intertia factor is by loading one end, not with actual weight so much, but rather by way of body mechanics and pressure during counter steer. Yes, the coefficient will be in your favor by moving forward somewhat, but at a point you get diminishing returns.
Your best bet it to take what people here are saying and try it out! Find a nice DG style flat area and do a 101 turns and compare the results! ;-)
I could get a picture but it might be a little offensive. Basically if you are turning left, rest the area between your right nut and your leg on the edge of the saddle and vise versa for turning right. Does that paint a good enough picture ha-ha
I don't think there's anything wrong per se with using the rear brake to initiate a drift, ideally you might try to avoid doing it but depending on the radius of the corner, exit speed, or the amount of traction, etc., etc., it could totally prove useful.
Moto has certainly helped me corner. Now I always work on pushing down with the outside foot and inside arm. Like an X. Once you get it - you want it.
Gonna put all that to work at Ptap today?
You know a LOT of the senior members started doing this on '01-'02 right? The stuff Sean is talking about was pretty much the norm for expert+ riders then (as he was back then too). Only difference is that our bikes were 40# on the nose for light, everything else is the same...
werd. I ran a DHi that was as light as 38 lbs depending on tires/tubes. It had an X-Vert carbon and full XTR spec. That bike would still be a good race bike today. If it didn't crack ha-ha....
Ummmm Yeah!!! I was looking at DH overall further back than 2k!!!!!
Man, I wish I could have made it out last night but there's just too much going on at home right now. My July is pretty much shot.Gonna put all that to work at Ptap today?
We need to session that 90 left at the top and the 180 to 90 left at the bottom so I can really get this turning thing down. Hitting them once per run doesn't do much because I forget to focus. I think spending some time working those two spots would really pay dividends on real trails.
Yeah Im all for that. Plus that shuttle is way more efficient with 3 cars. We did 6-7 runs yesterday 3 on each trail and in a row. It helped a ton. Cutting some of the brush back would help us alot too.
I think we could get away with that on the drop trail. It would be nice to clean up drugs too. I wouldn't want to mess with the main trial. Too conspicuous. Have any small tools that fit convieniently inside of your pack? :biggrin:
