Was out at Swinley forest and given a very interesting lesson by Crust(my 50 year old mate). Not so much ‘teaching’ but more ‘i’m going to show you my arse…’ type lesson.

Now, anyone who has seen us ride and knows us, knows that on the fittness side of things i have Crust well beaten… However yesterday i was REALLY struggling to match him for overall speed. Why ? In simplest terms, he’s been learning new techniques, learning better cornering, control and overall speed. So, i therefore had trouble on the flatter/twisty sections.
There were times when i could have cruised past using strength, fittness and power, but overall… he wasn’t holding me up in the slightest… maybe even the opposite lol.

Was interesting to see us come into/out of a corner and me lose 3-4 bike lengths for really no apparent reason at all. He just seems to have become a bit of a tiger out there.. or maybe i’ve become a pussycat

It was also interesting to see him using the techniques like pumping that we picked up in our lesson recently, more so than me, but in my defence, he has been doing more ‘forest’ riding than me lately. Whereas i’ve been mostly in the gym lol

It has always intrigued me when MTB racing how far down the field i finish compared to what i think is my relative level of fittness. Well it was proven to me yesterday that it’s not necessarily my fittness where my lack of finishing position lies.

On the plus side, my Giant 29er got it’s first real taste of proper MTBing since i bought it yesterday and i really do LOVE the machine. It’s absolutely brilliant. 90% of the time you wouldn’t even know it’s a HT and it cruises round the trails brilliantly. The Bontrager Mud-X rubber is totally brilliant in the Swinley conditions, i had only 1 moment which was a slippery root, but that was only uphill anyway.

Very very interesting day.

What does your friend ride?

Honda 250 two stroke.

That’d do it

No surprise there, everyone knows 29ers are much slower round corners 🙂

I reckon he must have lost a serious bet to have to write up such a gushing report on his mates new skills.

Why do they call him crust?

He rides a Zesty 514. Recent purchase, it certainly seems to have improved his speed compared to his CUBE AMS100 if you ask me.

He’s called Crust becasue of some old Pastry nickname to do with pies from when he was a motorbike courier.

So he is on a 140mm full suspension and you’re on a 29″ hardtail. That might be a factor if he’s faster on the downs, but you say he was pulling away on the flat bits too?

I was asking about his nickname, because I thought it might have referred to a preference for eating the bread crust, in which case the speed discrepancy would be obvious.

That’s correct on the bikes mate.

The ‘flats’ are not really ‘flat’ they’re sort of a tight twisty XC type forest flat. He seems to have developed the ability mid corner to get power down compared to me…. i don’t think it’s me getting ‘worse’ over time LOL… although i guess that’s possible.

Overall on the flatter parts he wasn’t necessarily pulling away, but i was having to work a lot harder than i should to keep up…

So he is on a 140mm full suspension and you’re on a 29″ hardtail.

Wouldn’t make a differnce at Swinley, there are no really technical downs, but if your cornering techniques not 100% then as the OP found it can really punish you making the trails feel slow and stagnant*. A 29er or a very short travel FS would be about as fast as you can be. I’ve been there and folowed guys on DH bikes through Deerstalker and Axle Run and theres no speed difference between them and a rigid hardtail.

*The opposite of flow, can’t think of a better description for my first impression of the place, you definately have to sort out your cornering to ‘get’ swinley.

Cornering is all about judging and adjusting the speed before you enter the turn. Good line – start wide and follow the apex of the turn and then get on the pedals on the way out. At least that’s what I’ve been told!

Cornering is all about judging and adjusting the speed before you enter the turn. Good line – start wide and follow the apex of the turn and then get on the pedals on the way out. At least that’s what I’ve been told! [b]ignoring the little voice in the back of your head telling you this is going to hurt, not braking, putting in one last pedal stroke, fixing your eyes on the exit and hopeing[/b]

FTFY

The superbike school place does a good exercise for motorcyclists. Doing a lap of a fairly small twisty track but not using the brakes. All about being able to judge speed for a corner, staying off the brakes in the corner, getting a good line and carrying speed. Instead of the usual barrelling in too fast, way too much panic braking, getting the line all wrong and making a complete hash of it. Find doing a similar thing on some nice twisty singletrack to be very helpful, just brake way early, set your speed, then focus on cornering technique while staying off the brakes. Start slow and build up speed.

Or try a cross bike!