I tend to find that my front wheel is washing out on corners so what techniques do people suggest to improve my cornering, IE weight up the font wheel, steer it through the back wheel etc? oh and just in case your wondering ive got a panaracer fire xc 2.1 and a 90mm stem

Cheers

to avoid washing out, i generally take the corner slower.
scrub all the speed before the corner, not in it, and accelerate through the turn.
if its a switch back or tight turn, it is quite easy to put your weight back, acclerate a bit too hard as if doing a wheelie, and and the front wheel will pull up and to one side (the direction you lean) pulling a much tighter turn than steering alone.
or maybe thats just me :s

other than slower but more agressive on the brakes and the pedals, not sure what to suggest…..?

panaracer fire xc 2.1

There’s your problem then,a truly awful tyre especially in loose dry conditions

scrub all the speed before the corner, not in it, and accelerate through the turn

Hmmm, agree braking is best done before the corner, but you can’t pedal out if you’re leaning?? I would suggest that loading the front wheel a bit more will help. Personally I use a 50mm stem which generally gives a nice neutral ‘attack position’ and shift my weight forward and backward depending on how the grip levels are feeling. I do find the harder I’m trying in corners, the more I’m riding the fork, to the point that the back end gets all nice and drifty. Pump or pedal once you are coming out out of the corner. Be prepared once in a while to get it wrong and pitch yourself over the bars..

they’re the fire xc pro to be precise, tbh i was hoping this was the case, was out with my mate who has just bought a new trance x1 with kenda nevegals i think, and he took far more speed on two fast “s” coners than i could , it was his first proper ride on the bike as well and my back brake wasnt working but still , it pissed me off.

Always hate XC Pros – especially (as Emac pointed out) in dry/loose conditions. Dreadful tyre – you’ll love yourself if you swap them for something better.

Any suggestions then , i’ll look at all the tire theads as well for the peaks

Yep as above,the Pro is just as bad as the standard one.
Funnily enough I did ride with an XC pro that I haven’t used for years this morning,I’d forgotten how bad they really are…..

I dont really understand cornering but read the Lopes/Mcormack book and tend to try the following things:

1. Brake before to select entry speed but not during the corner where it will just ruin the tyre traction
2. Balance weight on both wheels going in, stay pretty low
3. Really focus on going from the outside line, through the apex and back to the outside line to straighten the curve
4. Push the bike over but stay on top to make it turn on the side knobs – this I find un-natural sometimes, esp on steep corners where the resulting body/bike positions feel weird.
5. Try to bounce (this isn’t the right word) so that your are compressing at the apex and then unweighting on the way out – this work brilliantly on S bends but the timing is difficult for me. I’ve been practising going through imaginary S bends on a flat field! It seems to increase tyre traction at the point where it wants to otherwise breakaway. It feels vaguely like carving slalom turns on a snowboard which is nice

I have masses to learn about cornering still. Life’s a journey eh?

5. sounds rather like skiing.
I’m not sure you can do it in quite the same way on a bike, but pushing through and out of the corner can help. I doubt it helps as much as on skis though, since you need to force the bend and rebound of the skis to turn properly, which isn’t the case on the bike.

feels vaguely like carving slalom turns on a snowboard which is nice

Sounds like skiing to me – bend at the hips so your upper body is relatively straight, legs and skis / bike tilted over as far as they will go, as much weight as you can through outside foot, don’t lean back.

I’ve never had an issue with XC pros. Good tyre – including in dry, loose conditions.

Thanks everybody ,

Buzz some good ponts there, in regards to point 5 this is what ive been trying to achieve , by increasing traction by compressing the bike , in a similar way to driving a car and you weight the front to improve traction via braking . The key is i suppose to find the balance between loading the tires enough to maintain grip and overloading them . I expect to crash a lot this weekend! 🙁

it’s nice to trust your tyres, i’ve had some pretty bad ones (a tioga DH rear on the front was the worst!).

nevegals are supposed to be good, high rollers are good, kenda small block 8’s rule on hardpack. Maxxis tyres are all good, just gotta pick the right one. Maxxis crossmark are next on my list to try they got great reviews on mtbr and reportedly roll fast and have oodles of cornering grip. i can’t find one in a 2.3 though 🙁

I’ve lways felt there’s quite a bit of skiing/boarding crossover in terms of the weighting/unweighting thing, and the body angulation to make the tyre shoulder grip.

Learning to evenly weight front and rear is important for getting max grip through the corner. Usually seems easiest to start with wieghting the front more, get used to how much grip is available and then start bringing the wieght balance back until you find your ahppy balance.

Once you get both wheels hooking up properly then you can start to slingshot corners more, preserving more speed through the corner in firing yourself out the other side 🙂

You can pump a corner in pretty much the same way you can a downslope. The extreme example is a berm, you can really notice it, but the same technique can be used in a flat turn to a lesser degree. Once you are in the corner and everything is loaded up and gripping nicely as soon as you are past the apex push down and slightly backwards on the suspension/tyres to drive the bike forward and out of the corner.

I agree with the other’s that Fire XC Pro’s are terrible in dry conditions (bit of a jack of all trades, master of none), it would be worth looking at your technique again in terms of weighting the outside foot, easing the bike over and ensuring you’re ‘counter steering’ to keep weight over the bars/forks/front wheel. I have to say that for all the money we spend on kit, MTB’ers as a whole are particularly bad at having lessons or technique sessions to iron out failings in our skills.

XCPros are the most confidence-inspiring tyre I’ve used in the dry, easily better than Conti, Tioga, Michelin, Nokian, and the terrifyingly gripless Specialized.

All a matter of taste I suppose.

5. sounds rather like skiing.

I’ve thought this before on S bendy stuff (especially at Glen Tress). Similar in principle – unweight the bike between turns to get position then sink into it to weight the tyres and gain traction in the corner. Nice feeling… when it goes right…

I have to say that for all the money we spend on kit, MTB’ers as a whole are particularly bad at having lessons or technique sessions to iron out failings in our skills.

Straightliner, i agree with this , even more how often do people actually practice skills on their own, i never go back andrepeat a section / think about what i’m doing on a ride at the time i might do it the next week but i think i will start to spend more time practising sections on the trail

It definitely helps to have sections of trail that you either session, or just happen to ride really often (several times a week). When you’re intimately familiar* with the trail then you can start to push your technique around more and try things out and you know it’s you making the difference, rather than the trail being different.

*no… not like that!

Totally agree with ‘sessioning’ to improve technique. Good fun with a few chums, no shame in a bit of filming/photography too. It’s amazing how far you think you’re leaning, how fast you think your’re going and how ‘core you think you are. And then you see the film…..

I’ve never really thought about how I actually negotiate a bend,just get through them as quick as possible. I’m using Kenda Dread Treads at the momment. Good ,grippy tyres especially on roots.They inspire total confidence.

I have a set of fire pros in the shed that have been used twice every corner with them I was convinced they were going to roll off the rim went back to Bonti Jones and have total confidence in them

wot jimmy said but look for anything that can be used as a berm (like trees /trail edges)

vaguely unrelated but for motoX I was taught to weight the outside peg on corners,

I’m hardly a pro but here is what I ‘teach’ people based on years of dh riding, following riding instructors and tons of practise on loose turns till I fall off…

Technique party is depending on the tyres you are running but the theory is the same. MTB tyres generally have the largest tread on the side of the tyre. To make use of this grip you need to weight the bike correctly, just leaning forward/back won’t work.

Most people are aware that weighting the outside pedal is important but most don’t realise the importance of weighting the inside handlebar grip.

Much like the outside pedal loads the side of the tyre, as a the handlebars are effectively at the opposite end of the ‘lever’ at the top of the bike, you need to load the opposite side, the inside handlebar. Loading both grips in an even fashion can actually reduce your grip, the outside bar grip loading will make the front slide off the side tread.

So basic technique for a right hand corner is…

Load the right hand grip with body weight.
Hold the left hand grip but try not to load it with weight.

Load the left hand pedal with body weight, if possible have it in the down position.

Keep the weight load on the right hand pedal to a minimum.

Experiment with putting excessive weight over the front via the inside bar grip. With practise you’ll easily start drifting the rear alittle, it’s quite surprising how much grip it generates.

Contrary to common advise I think keeping ‘loose’ on the bike is bad in a hard corner situation. I recommend keeping wrists loose to absorb any slight deflection but keep the arms and body firm, this will keep the bike upright far better if/when you slide either wheel. Most people fall off from front wheel slides because they don’t hold the steering angle and let the bars twist around.

The final part is leaning the bike over more than the rider. This depends on the tyres, lots of xc tyres are designed with the style of sitting upright inmind, so they don’t need to be leant over so hard to reach the side tread. However some tyres like a highroller are designed to be leant over aggressively so for best grip the bike often needs to be leant over more than the rider to keep the side tread biting.

Leaning the bike over more than the rider is fairly simple and a lower saddle helps alot. It is very useful on loose surfaces, as you won’t have enough corner speed to get the bike on the side tread just from corner speed. In these situations the bike needs leaning over more than the rider. On fast grippy corners where the bike will naturally lean over hard, you can keep the bike more inline with the rider angle.

Never try to keep the bike upright like a motorbike racer!

Watch a Jason Mcroy video for tips on weighting your front wheel.

As for Fire XC’s, I’ve always found them a great all round tyre, but have put one on the back of my new build (and a Fire FR on the front) and find they are washing out a bit.

solamanda wrote:
but most don’t realise the importance of weighting the inside handlebar grip.
Loading both grips in an even fashion can actually reduce your grip, the outside bar grip loading will make the front slide off the side tread.

I’m not sure I quite agree with the explanation. When you ‘weight’ the inside grip I’m not sure if that would have the effect you suggest. If by ‘weighting’ you mean push forward a little on the grip which results in counter-steering then I agree to a point.

On a motorbike counter-steering is important when getting a bike to turn due to the much greater mass of the system compared to the rider and gyroscopic effects and getting ‘on-the-gas’ stands the bike back up.

MTBs are light enough to man-handle around easily and the speeds are low. On an mtb which turns much more easily, the initial counter-steer effort is slight otherwise you can ‘tip-it-in’ too far/sharply and you can’t ‘gas it’ to make it stand back up.

Contrary to common advise I think keeping ‘loose’ on the bike is bad in a hard corner situation.

I’d argue that keeping ‘loose’ is a good thing in almost all cases. Once turned in with some effort, the bike can do its thing without having an 80Kg mass fixed rigidly above it when negotiating bumps.

Most people fall off from front wheel slides because they don’t hold the steering angle and let the bars twist around.

Do they? I’d be more inclined to think it was due to insufficient weight over the front wheel for the turn speed/terrain or innapropriate braking.

On fast grippy corners where the bike will naturally lean over hard, you can keep the bike more inline with the rider angle.

Do you mean that on faster corners the rider has to lean in further which will be closer to the angle of the bike?

My tips:

Be smooth on brakes and steering, but turn quickly

Look well ahead and not at the front tyre

Stay relaxed in the legs and arms. Just grip the bars hard enough to keep hold.

Slow down before the turn and, if necessary, use brakes very carefully in the turn to slow or adjust weight.

Weight the front end, especially on a hard tail.

Look at where you want to go, not an obstacle.

Don’t bottle it!

loose the shitawful tyre for a decent one and then go in hard and fast on a high roller, no washout then problem solved…

go in fast to the corner, lock up the back brake and get a skid on. It’s good enough for rally drivers…!