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10 Tips for Mountain Biking in Sand from renowned coach Gene Hamilton. Its fall and time to start heading south to ride which means desert riding season is upon us! Riding in deep sand can be frustrating experience. If you follow these tips it will be much more enjoyable.
The winter is the best time to improve your skills and take a mountain bike skills camp. Many skills, such as cornering involve a lot of different movements/components which means practicing "cornering" is not deliberate practice. Deliberate practice would be practicing vision through a corner three times, stopping and analyzing what you did right and wrong then refocusing and doing it three more times. This is why you see all the basketball, football, ski teams and pretty much every sport requiring skill teams doing drills more than 70% of their practice time! A few weeks of this quality practice (mixed with resistance training and cardio work) will do more than years of just winging it on the trail (according to Ross Schnell who said, "I learned more today than in the last 10-11 years of just riding" (in a rushed 3.5 hour lesson, BetterRide camps are 19-22 hours over 3 days!).
I have been having a problem getting out of position before cornering, primarily caused by hard braking (especially if there are rough terrain before the corner or if I come in too hot). Interesting question, I have been working on the same issue, especially last weekend at Snowmass. The problem stems from getting back while we brake, getting low is good but we need to stay more centered so when we release the brakes and the bike accelerates we are centered and ready to attack the corner. I was taught the old school, “get way back while you brake” which does help the rear brake a bit but actually hurts the effectiveness of the much more powerful front brake.
