[GPERKINS]

When it comes to techniques, turning sometimes gets overlooked. This is exactley why I attented the Shaums march camp last year at Snowshoe mountain. Shaums taught me to keep both feet level and keep the seat against your leg at all times, but what I see pro rides doing is putting there leg down in courners, like if your going into a left turn you put your right foot down and so on. As I was learning this new technique that shaums taught me, I noticed that I felt more prone to having my front wheel completley slip out on me, and when I did the other technique, I felt I had a lot more traction. What type of turning technique do you guys do?

 

[DirtyMike]

Weight on teh outside pedal, and inside handlebar. Thats basic countersteering right there. For me it totally depends on the turn, I might stay verticle and lean the bike, I might have My inside leg sticking way out whil staying seated, I might be leaning hard into the inside handlebar pushing the front end into the dirt as I swing around, possibly even just a little lean of the body. Like I said, all depending on the corner, how loose, how banked, how fast, and how sharp.


My suggestion is to practice all styles you can come up with, and learn which work better in which situation.

 

[DarrylB]

If your front is starting to wash out your not getting enough weight to the front of the bike. Get agressive attack the corners, as long as your front holds and you have enough room under you for the bike to move around (knees out). you'll be good.

as for outside pedal down... if you lean you bike over and put weight on the outside pedal the bike wants to stand upright. thats not good, you need the bike to stay leaned over to get those cornering knobs working and carve through the corner. Keep your pedals level. steer with your belly button, and look through the corner. watch Minnar he is sooooo smooth carving the corners.

 

[Jm_]

Being a former ski-racer, I never thought twice about putting the weight on the outside low to the ground, I've always done this, as well as I've noticed that the better I got, the more independantly I work the brakes, being able to enter the turn faster and exit faster with just a hint of front brake at the beginning to slow the front to prevent the washout, and a hint of rear brake to keep the rear from sliding out and increasing the weight on the front to increase the traction about midway through the turn. This only works in certain situations where you have to slow down to some extent to clear the turn, but these things kind of go without much thought for me. Also lowering your body to lower that CG helps, sometimes biasing the front wheel obviously. One thing I could not stand were bikes that didn't appear to corner very "neutral", beacuse they required excessive body english to get the most out of them (radically changing body position).

I do pretty good on technical switchbacks, often clearing stuff that others do not, but smooth switchbacks are still a mind-f*ck for me in terms of keeping speed up. It's not that I can't, it's just that I can't seem to be very consistant about it.

 

[Jm_]

as for outside pedal down... if you lean you bike over and put weight on the outside pedal the bike wants to stand upright. thats not good, you need the bike to stay leaned over to get those cornering knobs working and carve through the corner. Keep your pedals level.

Maybe it's due to the proliferation of 12" bottom-bracket DH bikes?

I gotta disagree with keeping the pedals level, weighting the outside pedal has the effect of weighting the side-knobs of the tire and pushing against the dirt, just like when you weight the front tire or whatever.

On the other hand, it's not cool to clip a rock with your pedal when you're dropping and weighting the outside pedal. It's gunna stop you REAL fast.

 

[NJHCx4xLIFE]

as for outside pedal down... if you lean you bike over and put weight on the outside pedal the bike wants to stand upright.

I never thought of it like that but it makes sense. I've always dropped the outside foot thinking it gave me more control but people tell me I need to lean my bike more too. Maybe this could be part of the issue.

 

[GPERKINS]

so keep your feet level, lean the bike more, and put more weight in front of the bike is going to give me a sharp fast turn? makes since!

 

[DarrylB]

It's worked for Shaums! He has been coaching me for a year now, and I have really noticed the difference. but he still tells me " you need to find what works for you"
practice - practice - practice. Go set up cones in a grass or all weather field get some speed in the corners and try different techniques to find out what feels best.

 

[GPERKINS]

thanks DarrylB you have been most helpful!

 

[jus]

Like others have said the main thing is to find what works for you.....feet level, one foot down it doesnt matter as long as you get through the corner fast. One thing everyone should do regardless of style should be to KEEP YOUR HEAD UP AND LOOK THROUGH THE CORNER!! When your half way through the corner you should be looking to the next corner or if there isnt one you should be looking down the trail.... Make an effort to look ahead throughout the entire trail and your riding will become faster and seem easier.... You can deal with the terrain if your looking ahead and pulling the trail in with your eyes and there are no surprises!! Hope this helps.

 

[tlproject7]

look where u wanna go,

 

[Arkayne]

http://ridemonkey.com/forums/showthread.php?t=197522&highlight=cornering

 

[NOOP]

Cornering at speed, especially on flat turns, requires that you push your tire's side-knobs directly into the ground. In order to do this, you'll need to lean the bike more than your body. In addition, you'll want to ensure that your body weight is as low as possible and distributed over the tires contact patches in such a way that you can react to changes in the riding surface.

All this translates into:

CARVING TURNS:

Definition: General cornering technique; generally on flat ground where maximum traction is needed and the turn is not extremely tight.

Description:

* Approach the turn with your feet level (pedals at 3 & 9 o'clock), in the "attack position", in the middle of the trail or even slightly to the outside, braking late.

o You should feel balanced over the bottom bracket, standing on the pedals.
o Relax the upper body​

* Enter the turn with a light counter-steer towards the outside of the trail, opposite the direction you intend to turn.

o This initiates moving your body mass towards the inside of the of the trail, into the turn.​

* Head should be up and eyes looking through the turn. The head should be rotating towards the inside of the turn
* Commit to the turn and initiate it in one flowing and dynamic movement by:

o Leaning bike and body into the turn, while lifting gently and naturally on the outer grip of the handlebar.
o Weighting the outside pedal and rotating it towards the 6 o'clock position (Your pedal doesn't have to go all the way to 6 o'clock - but it should move down in that direction, even if just a little bit). Your center of mass should feel like it's in the outer hip/thigh.
o Pointing the inside knee into the turn

+ These movements should lean the bike more than your body - driving the side knobs of your tires into the ground. The bike saddle should be closest to your inside leg.​

* Carve the turn by:

o Maintaining the same (optimally) bike attitude through the entire turn and trying to tightly cut the apex of the corner.
o Use as much of the trails width as needed. Don't be shy about using all of trail, if needed.​

* As the turn concludes, the bike should begin to stand back up, and you can start pedaling or, at a minimum, rotate the pedals back to 3 & 9 o'clock.



I'm pretty sure almost all the great riders do this - whether they know it or not - even Shaums.

 

[TomBo]

Depends on a lot on things, most turns for me its outside foot down (in side foot is often off in lose stuff).

If my feet are level, outside foot leading (its really rough, or the corner has a drop in it, ect) . Looking ahead is key as jus, states. For me thinking of keeping my hips and to some degree my feet / ankles, pointed to where I want to go. Helps heaps. If your front keeps washing, try to lower the front end and or, just lean forward more.

 

[dirtdigger]

before you change your riding technique get a bro to video what you are doing in turns then look out for what looks wrong, then make some adjustments to your tecnique.
just find out whats wrong before you change things up i reckon

 

[Kanye West]

Flat turns, drop your outside foot. Berms/ruts, keep them level. All about downforce. Effectively you want a straight line between the bottom of your feet to always be perfectly horizontal for flat-ish turns. Keeping your inside foot level lets you put weight to it whenever you want to in order to undercut the rear wheel or to use both feet to apply a ton of downward force into a berm face.

As for the front, is the wheel pushing towards the outside or wanting to tuck under? If it's getting wobbly or steering too much towards the outside, lean forward just a tiny tiny bit, and extend your inside elbow to be a little bit straighter as you're going through the turn. You don't want it to be completely locked, but you don't want to be chicken winged either.

Always always ALWAYS keep your eyes level with the horizon. As you get better with quick turns, make a quick snap with both your knees towards the inside of the turns. When you're riding on pavement, keep your whole body still and steer by pointing your knees. You'll see what I mean.

Watch Jared Graves and Mick Hannah. Especially on 4X bikes.

 

[pelo]

Making good turns in various situations is pretty d*mn hard.

 

[Alloy]

It's worked for Shaums! He has been coaching me for a year now, and I have really noticed the difference. but he still tells me " you need to find what works for you"
practice - practice - practice. Go set up cones in a grass or all weather field get some speed in the corners and try different techniques to find out what feels best.

Yep, Mad March rips! I tagged along with him for a week while he taught people. ...I was skeptical at first of his levels pedals technique... but tried it for awhile and it does work. In wooped out banked corners it works amazing. On flat corners I would come in foot out sliding, Mad March would brake hard last minute, keep his feet on the pedals and always had greater exit speed. So yeah I'm a believer. ...Although I still think the foot out full moto slide is more fun!

 

[Tootrikky]

I think everyone would agree that the most important technique to concentrate on is to lead with your head and look through the corner.

As far as body positioning I have heard a few different things to work on;
Butt up, Elbows out, Head up, Body centered over BB
Point your inside knee towards where you want to turn and turn with your hips, (or butt over the outside of your rear tire).
Basically the goal is for your hips and shoulders to lead the bike through the turn.

Weighting the inside handle bar can improve traction in the front and be usefull in controlling the amount slip in a drift. (try cutties with and without weighting the inside bar)

Outside foot down will help the inside knobs bite better, and is usefull on long sweepers, off camber and flat turns, but can be a cumbersome in series quick left to right (or vice versa) corners or when pedaling out of a corner is important.

Something that I have been wondering about lately, whether it's better to turn with the knees bent like Lopes or more straight legged like Minaar, or does it matter?