TEN MOUNTAIN BIKING MISTAKES
1.
INSUFFICIENT WATER AND FUEL. For any activity involving heavy
muscle use and a lot of sweat production, ample hydration is critical.
If you don’t take in plenty of fluids you are inviting all sorts of
unpleasant physical repercussions, from cramps to nausea to collapse.
And even very minor dehydration can negatively affect your performance.
As your rides increase in duration, pre-ride and on-ride fuel also becomes
important. The energy you expend must be matched by energy intake, to
assure maximum performance and to avoid “bonking” (running out of energy).
Stoke up on plenty of fuel a few hours before any long excursion, and bring
along “energy bars” or some other food source to nibble on during the
ride.
2. MECHANICAL
HELPLESSNESS. Mountain biking often takes place in some pretty
remote locations, and even if it doesn’t, you will often find yourself
distant from where you started, from your home or your car. Ninety-nine
percent of all cycling breakdowns are either flat tires or something becoming
loose on your bike. Carry flat fixing and bolt tightening equipment with
you, and learn how to use it in the comfort of your home (or at Great Basin
Bicycles), before you actually need it. If you put in a lot of miles on
your bike, sooner or later it will fail you—know how to get it up and
running again.
3. SHIFTING
ERRORS. For your mountain bike to perform properly and durably in a
wide variety of situations, the manufacturer has put gears on it. A
rider should establish a “feel” for what is a comfortable amount of pedal
pressure for them. Learn how the gears work, front and rear, then commit
to memory which shifter controls which set of gears, and then finally, learn
the interaction of the two. Don’t ride around in one gear all the
time—shift up or down depending upon the terrain, keeping it at your
comfortable pedaling pressure. And always avoid shifting under extremely
heavy pedal pressure—that loud clunking noise it will make translates to a
lot of strain on your bike’s drive train. If there is a hill ahead,
shift prior to reaching it while you are still pedaling gently.
4. IMPROPER
APPAREL. If you take your cycling seriously then you should consider
wearing the proper clothes. Avoid cotton t-shirts and sweatshirts—when
you sweat they stick to you. Consider shirts or jerseys made from
synthetic fabrics that “breathe”, that wick away moisture. Also
avoid cotton jeans, sweatpants or shorts. If you obtain shorts made for
cycling they will be made from synthetic material, not have annoyingly placed
zippers or seams or buttons to chafe you, and have a “padded butt”.
Posterior pain is the number one complaint of cyclists, especially from those
who don’t wear cycling shorts. Once you get proper clothes, top and
bottom, consider gloves. A good pair made specifically for cycling will
improve your grip and cut down on problems with your hands (like cramps,
numbness and bruising). And they are great to have for hand protection
should you take a fall.
5. POOR
BIKE MAINTENANCE. Some people just ride their bike “until it falls
apart”. Part of owning any kind of mechanical equipment should be
ordinary maintenance and regular safety checking, the kind you can do yourself
(for yearly tune-ups and for big problems bring the bike into Great Basin
Bicycles and let our mechanics do the work). Every week or two you
should make sure the tires are fully inflated and that the moving parts of the
derailleur and brakes and the chain are lubricated. Also on a regular
basis, make certain that rubber and leather parts (especially the tires and
brake pads) are not wearing out or deteriorating, and that the metal parts are
not loose or broken—check the bike over carefully, from stem to stern.
With proper maintenance and regular checkups modern bikes will give you good
service for many, many years.
6. INATTENTION
TO TRACTION. A critical key to successful, crash-free mountain
biking is maintaining traction in a wide variety of situations (and knowing
how to get it back when you lose it). The reason mountain bike tires are
covered with knobby bumps is to keep the rear tire from spinning helplessly in
sand, creeks, etc., and to keep both front and rear tires from sliding
sideways (especially when you are cornering). If you have the wrong kind
of tires for the places you ride or you don’t ride in such a way as to
“keep the rubber on the road” (the major factor here is speed), you can
lose traction and run the risk of crashing. Aggressive mountain biking
will include brief periods of loss of traction. Practice controlled
traction loss, like jumping curbs, sliding out the rear tire on turns, and
launching off of little berms (“catching air”), to make certain you can
efficiently regain traction and continue riding.
7. IMMOBILITY
ON THE BIKE. Some people try to plant their rear, hands and feet on
the bike, sit straight up, and ride all kinds of trails that way.
Efficient (and safe) mountain biking entails a lot of body movement—shifting
your weight in relation to the saddle, standing up and sitting down, and
leaning—all through your ride. Just for comfort on long flat rides,
you should shift a little forward, a little back and occasionally a little
sideways on the saddle (move your hands and fingers around a little,too).
When the riding is tough and technical you need to move around a lot more.
Shift your weight significantly forward when climbing steep hills or you will
“pop wheelies”. Shift your weight way back when doing steep descents
or you are inviting an aerial move over your handlebars (the “endo”).
Lean your weight to the inside of corners. The faster you go and the
sharper the turn, the more the lean to take them smoothly. Stand up on
the pedals for increased power, for climbing or more speed. Your
position on your mountain bike should not be static—relax and go with the
flow.
8. DRAGGING
THE REAR BRAKE. Many inexperienced riders seem inclined to avoid the
front brake, while almost constantly dragging the rear one. First, get
very clear in your mind which lever controls which brake (in a standard setup,
“right is rear”). Then go out on a flat and try them both
independently, to get a feel for each one. You will find that the front
provides more dramatic stopping power, but it can mess with your steering and
balance. Locking up only the front brake on a steep downhill can toss
you over the handlebars, so be careful. Learn to use both brakes for
most situations, at first applying a little more pressure to the rear than the
front. Practice “feathering” the brakes (gently pulling on the
levers), not just either have them fully off or fully on—you want a smooth
and gently “modulated” ride, not one of extremes, of stops and starts.
9. STARING
AT YOUR FRONT TIRE. One way to be sure you have a non-smooth,
crash-filled ride on technical singletrack is to fix your vision on the trail
a few feet ahead of your front tire. If you are going fast, by the time
you see an obstacle chances are good that it is too late to slow down or go
around it. Sometimes just blinding speed will take you over some pretty
“sketchy” trail, but taking it that way should be a matter of choice, a
decision you make based upon seeing what’s ahead. Learn to “scan”
the trail ahead, looking out in front to around 30 feet, then back to a couple
of feet, then back out to 30 feet, and so on. Scanning eliminates most
surprises and allows you to make judgment calls as to whether to slow down or
to speed up and “go over the top” of whatever obstacles confront you.
If there is a sharp turn or drop ahead that prevents you from scanning then
slow down until you can resume checking out ahead.
10. CRASHING
WITH THE ARMS. Even if you are careful to avoid all nine mistakes
discussed above, if you ride tough terrain sooner or later you will crash.
Many times when you get in trouble you can make a “dab” (put one foot
down), jump sideways off your bike, slip off the back of the saddle, or
otherwise avoid heavy impact with the ground. But sometimes you may find
yourself out of control, headed for a fall, no matter how much you plan
against it. Most crashes happen so fast that you really don’t have any
time to think, so some riders practice “forced falls” into soft sand or
something similar to train their body to react in certain ways. The more
you can fall onto your body and avoid the major impact being taken by your
limbs, the less likely you are to have to finish the ride at the emergency
room. Instinct seems to force us to brace ourselves during a fall, which
usually amounts to reaching out with the arms. The most common serious
mountain biking injuries are broken (or very badly sprained) wrists, arms,
collarbones and shoulders—all these can be the result of reaching out to
“break the fall”. Whenever possible, land with your body and then
roll. If you can do that you are unlikely to break anything and won’t
lose a lot of skin from sliding across the ground.
