This has got steadily worse over the last couple of years and I want to try and do something about it.

I can corner fine generally, but real tight, slow speed hairpin right hand turns I fail with. I can nail left hand ones no problem. For example, descending the switchback on Nan Bield the other day, flew round the left hand turns but dabbed on all the right hand ones.

I am right handed and very much so, all I can think it that my less confident hand ie left is at furtherest extension on and tight right hander and maybe thats the problem, or is it psychological ?

Any tips on how to improve ?

Cheers all.

Outside pedal forward

Corner with your outer foot forward and look at the exit as soon as you’ve entered the corner.

Wider line?

it’ll have more to do with your feet and head than your hands/arms TBH

are you left or right foot forward? right foot forwards means your hips/pelvis are already facing left hand corners making them more natural. but right foot forward also means it’s more natural to drop your left foot for righthanders.

anyway, look where you want to go.. ie. the exit of the corner rather than the actual corner and your body will follow. all you then need to do is keep your weight distribution sorted for balance and grip..

The biggest single tip for this (and just about anything else) is to look where you want to go. Everything else is secondary to this. My personal preference is to have your outside foot down rather than forward. If you are right-handed, and therefore probably right footed, you are probably doing this instinctively when turning left but when turning right you need to do things the other way. Make a conscious effort every time you get to a corner, no matter what sort of terrain you are on or what type it is, to look where you are want to go and get your foot position right. Eventually it will become habit and make things easier, just don’t expect it to come naturally overnight.

Practice track stands in the garden with your left foot forward and front wheel turned right for ten mins every night. Once you’ve got that dialled start to go round in circles to the right as tight as you can. Don’t pedal in circles to do this, push down a little on the leading for then ratchet it back up again. You’ll be wondering why you ever had a problem with right hand hairpins by the New Year.

are most of you actually recomending he learns to ride switch? not many people can actually pull this off and pretty much every top DH racer in the world rides same foot forward regardless of the direction of the corner.

Outside foot forward is a common snippet of advice, I’m right handed and Im also better at left turns than right BUT…. I ride left foot forward (unusual for a rightie I believe) so that screws that idea.

Assuming you normally ride right foot forward (so the outside foot thing rings true) then try right corners left foot forward, it’s supposedly the better technique…. but not one I ever bothered to persevere with. But as GW said concentrate on turning your hips and shoulders and looking where you wanna go.

EDIT

are most of you actually recomending he learns to ride switch?

I’ve been told several times its the best way but as I said I didn’t bother with it – but there are times when riding switch would get your pedals round a corner without striking.

Doug that sounds a decent training tip, will try to incorporate it into my commute by trackstanding at red lights switch

Keep Pedalling, better grip and on the gas for the exit ??

Like ever one says in my opinion outside foot forward but slightly down and turn more at the hips and the bike will do the rest (i.e. the bike will lean over and your pedals will go in to the best position) Try turning with your hips more , it might work or it might not 😉

unless it already feels fairly natural I wouldn’t bother trying to ride switch. I can ride switch naturally but I’m still better thru technical sections and turns or in the air right foot forward.

I picked up a bad habit of dabbing the front break … killer. Things improved once I’d stopped that!

Go wide also … but I’m still not great at this stuff. May be one for the Single Track team to do a video tutorial on. I enjoyed the other ones they did with Jedi/Oxley etc.

IME you can go round a tight switchback with almost everything wrong, EXCEPT for looking. If you don’t look you don’t make it. Feet, hands arms, legs aren’t anywhere near as critical.

I dont have a problem if the corner is wide, its just slow speed TIGHT switchbacks or hairpins.

GW, what do you mean “ride switch” ?

Doug, but thats just it, I do look ahead.. (learnt that riding motorbikes, look where you want to be, not where you are going) and I can fly round left hand switchback, so I must have the technique, its just right hand ones.

Thanks for the tips, I’ll give them a go.

Had the same problem and used the ideas mentioned above.
Look ahead , outside pedal forward ,push the bike away etc.
But the one that made the difference for me was to consciously drop my inside elbow. Once I built my confidence up it came natural/automatic.

Interesting point about riding one foot forward.
I had been haveing difficulties with fast cornering and one of the things I was told to do was outer foot down – this just gave me one more thing to concentrate on especially going thru a series of rights and lefts so another friend suggested feet level and concentrate on body position and looking thru the corner – that helped a lot

I prefer right foot forward but it makes almost no difference to me – I don’t mind being left foot forward and will ride both in any section of trail

So to the OP – don’t worry too much about your feet position – look round the corner and push the bike down into the corner

Get a skilled pal to watch you – they will be able to see what you are doing wrong.

Edit – I saw you said riding motorcycles – its a different body position on a mountain bike – on a motorcycle you drop your bodyweight into the corner and the bike follows – on a mountain bike you should keep your body more upright and push the bike down – this is what I have issues with – I tend to adopt the motorcycle position not the mountainbike

Mountainbike – head outside the line of the bike

Motorbike – head and bodyweight inside the line of the bike

Maybe it’s your fat gut weighting your left side down? Making it harder to turn right.

Interesting that people are saying not to bother riding switch!
I’ve always seen people teaching that technique, but it never felt natural to me…

ignore all this it is because you are sh1t and have no bike skills
…..
Nan bield you said perhaps best I dont take the pi55 we know what happens then eh 😳

Switch is rding with your wrong foot forward. Which foot do you normally have forward?

TJ isn’t it due to all that tandeming that you don’t mind which foots forward? I’d have thought it’s tricky to always get the correct foot. Oh yeah what what it you have a leftie and a rightie onboard? can you stagger the two cranks at build time?

some discussion on it in this thread with some excellent photos from stevomcd showing the wide entry needed. near bottom of first page.

HTH

I’m feeling the love here.

I ride with right foot forward nearly all the time, Remember Skipton Donk ?

Wors… I have to ride slow round the right handers… give you chance to catch me up.

Countersteering.

To initiate a right hand turn, turn the bars momentarily to the left. This throws your weight to the right and you steer to keep yourself upright.

Lee McCormack wrote about imagining a torch in your navel when cornering. Position your body so that the torch is “shining” along the line you want to take through the corner. I think, in reality, this is putting your hips and so rest of your body in the right position. Plus look through to where you want to go.

His site (www.leelikesbikes.com) and book (Mastering Mountaingbike Skills, version 2) are really good. I’ve usually found him really good at explaining how to do stuff.

AFAIK most people have a stronger cornering direction. Pump tracks are good for learning and practicing with the other foot forward (good for cornering technique full stop). Personally I tend to feel more comfortable with cranks level than outside down.

I ride with right foot forward nearly all the time

So “natural” for left handers, your body is already turned slightly left, and if you need to put in a 1/4 pedal stoke you are in the right position. If you try riding right handers left foot forward you may (with practice) get better at it – or you could just concentrate on improving all the other stuff instead. I reckon you’re always gonna have a favoured cornering direction and if any track is gonna show up a weakness it’s NB, but you do seem to be saying right handers are quite a bit worse than left.

Just for the record on faster more open corners I always put my outside foot down, I agree 100% with that advice.

Lowey – switch = opposite foot forward from your natural way.

TJ isn’t it due to all that tandeming that you don’t mind which foots forward?

no, it’s because teh old bugger hasn’t got a clue what he’s doing. 😉
TJ – stop thinking about **** motorcycles.. they have completely different physics and an engine to get you out of trouble.
you can corner on a MTB with your head inside or outside the line of the bike, both have their place. but every corner is different, the reason someone told you to get your outside foot down (and hopefully they knew this) is to weight the tyres for more grip, and you don’t actually have to drop your outside foot to do this. you can find corners where you’d still want as much grip as possible but outside foot down would not necessarily be the best approach.

GW – I have nearly got rid of the motorcyling body position now.

My point merely was that I found it easier to concentrate on one aspect at a time and as the OP mentioned motorbikes I thought I would share what my issue was in case his was the same.

Wider line
Left foot at bottom of stroke
(relax) Lean back a bit
(relax but…) Arms tensioned
Eyes and right knee pointing at exit
……stop being a big girls blouse

My corners was tranformed by outside foot down and looking. The best forum advice I can give you is DO A COURSE WITH JEDI

i havent read all the other post but i had this problem with tight left handers and im left handed!! my mates who race dh said think of it being a right hander and push the bike into the corner if that make sany sence

Countersteering.

doesn’t work at low speed, you need to be going fast enough for the gyroscopic precession forces to overcome the inertia of the bike, so on low speed hairpins it’s unlikely to help..

toys19 – Member

My corners was tranformed by outside foot down and looking. The best forum advice I can give you is DO A COURSE WITH JEDI

toys19, thanks for your kind words

you need to email me your ride updates! 🙂

Lowey – can I suggest you have a lifestyle change and don’t get pi~~ed the night before every ride 😉

Cheeky Monkey – Member

“Lee McCormack wrote about imagining a torch in your navel when cornering. Position your body so that the torch is “shining” along the line you want to take through the corner. I think, in reality, this is putting your hips and so rest of your body in the right position. Plus look through to where you want to go.”

The Darcy Turenne Tits N Ass Technique- point with your tits and your ass will follow

Deejay, cheeky bugger!

I;d sobered up by the time we got to Nan Bield so no excuses.

NB was just one occasion. There is one turn on the NFT in Grizedale just below Mustard Hill that I always fail on and thats a sharp right hand hairpin.

I’d try to ride in tight circles on the road, but the kids just laugh at me.

Cheers all anyway… there is food for thought there.

lol at deejay, 😉

I can understand loweys situation though,following a few riders on the Nan bield route I thought a few looked tense (cold?) on the bikes,Its best to try and relax and let the bike “run on” if that makes sense.

For hairpin tight bends,I try to steer the bike from the hips,point your belly button in the direction you want to go,and look through the turn but not directly at anything,stones etc.

keeping your centre of gravity as low as possible(below hub/axle height) is always going to be a good thing,and by having bodyweight on the outer pedal this helps with stability and grip.

with a low bottom bracket on my bike I prefer a level crank,but try to keep my heals below the pedal axle,to maintain a good posture/balance and reduce foot/pedal strike.

hth a bit.. 🙂

it’s all in your head, did you have the same issue on a motor bike?
You’ll find that sub consciously your body is tensing up causing you to hesitate and think about it to much way before you actually hit the turn. Pick a right hander and hit it as many times as you can starting easy making sure you head is up looking at the exit, I find for me pushing the bike down into the corner works and weighting the outside pedal.