How to overcome nerves?

I’m also convinced this ‘getting off the back of the saddle’ thing is a red herring. maybe useful if you’re a xc racer where seat height adjustment isn’t practical, for the rest of us, before a steep down, dropping the saddle makes a big difference.

Whether that’s by the old style way or a new dropper post, you pay your money, you take your choice, but the confidence it give me by having my CoG just that few inches lower is huge.

And of course +1000 to going to see Jedi, who i never go for a ride without (others are also available and by all accounts very good too)

So should any good coach/instructor.

Different coaches will recommend different things – they are teaching the student how they think something should be tackled.

Neither is “right” and neither is “wrong”

Walk the tricky section in question. Pick lines. Pick braking points. Pick “no braking” sections.

Give it a go.

Repeat

Repeat

Repeat….

Have a beer, and wonder what all the fuss was!!

(All the above is best done with 1 good mate, who is a good rider. An audience won’t help!)

Do you spend any time on flat ground practising the same obstacles?

Any time in a car park practising monoevering?

Start small and build up.

Dont get up on “hanging off the back” it’s bad practise, just a strong, central standing position. Put the seat down as far as it will go too.

is the right answer. All the other stuff about flow/hanging back/breaking points wont help with nerves. A pint or two will. A bong might help with nerves but it wont help with riding (We call it the de-motivator 😀 )

Practice
(Pick your line, watch videos etc, go out and practice, get some knee pads and/or elbow pads won’t make you invincible but helps keep skin intact, get rid of the SPD’s you will not get a feel for what you are doing wrong and switch to flats, practice, ride with some mates if you can always helps)

enroll in a Skills class is a good investment (i do this once a year.. only been riding for two :D)

enjoy falling is part of learning, if you can’t do it the first time pick something with a sligthly less degree of difficulty build up your technique and move up slowly….

I don’t think that following someone will help a great deal, at least not for me. You need to find the line that you’re comfortable with and compatable with your riding style.

Learn how to wheelie like a boss for better bike control?

Now idea what I’m on about but hope this helps.

Don’t ride with us!

Here is a recent example of what you’d have to put up with 😉

Practice
(Pick your line, watch videos etc, go out and practice, get some knee pads and/or elbow pads won’t make you invincible but helps keep skin intact, get rid of the SPD’s you will not get a feel for what you are doing wrong and switch to flats, practice, ride with some mates if you can always helps)

enroll in a Skills class is a good investment (i do this once a year.. only been riding for two :D)

enjoy falling is part of learning, if you can’t do it the first time pick something with a sligthly less degree of difficulty build up your technique and move up slowly….

Why ditch the SPDs?

flats will also help you massively

In what way?

warns74 – Member
Do you ride with someone you trust to guide you down a few slopes to help build up your confidence? If so then just follow along behind them, let them pick the lines and the speed and you can focus on following them rather than working it all out for yourself.

If I had done that on Saturday I would probably be sitting here broken.
Quite happy “advising” people on how to do it, just don’t ask me to do a demo!
As I get older and the more people I have helped out of the forest with broken bones the more my ” nerve ” is disappearing. Last casualty was a heli job!
Here
If I had followed him I would have been in the copter along with him!

I think flats will help for 2 reasons:

1/ I can get my feet securely on the pedals quicker that with spd’s at the moment

2/ One of the things that’s affecting my confidence at the moment is that I’ve had a couple of offs which have been partly caused by me not being able to get my feet out quick enough.

I’d rather concentrate on getting some confidence pointing downward that spd release technique at the moment…

Cheers

Danny B

Drop the seat for the downhill stuff

Drop your seat a bit, don’t stop at the top of a section just ride it, try riding it as slowly as possible and give yourself time to pick good lines then add speed later, stay in the middle of your bike (no weight on the front = more likely to wash out = try to get your weight even further back next time…) but mainly… distract yourself.

I used to ride a bit of motoX, and I went fastest and smoothest when I sang songs! Any old crap, bit of Kylie, you name it I sang it 🙂 If I concentrated too hard on the riding I added to my tension, by chilling out a bit I loosened up and left the bike to do more of the hard work. used to wind my mate up too 🙂

Maybe take up Golf?

Only joking, try going to some places where you are there to ride DH. One minute descents with a push back up. Wear some knee/shin/elbow pads and get a full face and go out and learn that falling off doesn’t hurt that much in that gear.

You will get much faster and more confident in what you/yourbike and the tyres can do quickly that way.

Then jump back on the normal trails in your usual gear and you will be more confident.

Hope this helps… then if that fails sell the bike and get some golf clubs 😉

I went fastest and smoothest when I sang songs!

that sounds like a cracking idea, I know when I’m chilled out and riding well I often start singing, maybe it can work the other way around too 🙂

Just to be different…..I personally find riding with others makes me far worse. Not wanting to be the cr@p one, I suppose, plus they go through stuff far quicker than I can ever contemplate.

I am naturally a very rubbish rider but definitely ride much better / more fluidly when out on my own.

But it may just be me.

I ride better by myself as well. Get a bit self conscious or something when others are around.

I generally ride better alone, but then get concerned about trying things with no-one to scrape me up. I suspect it’s just having fewer distractions, and not feeling rushed.

I let myself off the hook when I ride alone. I make some internal excuse as to why I don’t have to commit to something a bit steep and end up walking it. Been trying to sort it by seeking out some rocky stuff and being stricter with myself. A good mate might be a slightly less freaky way of doing this.

You’ve had most the good advice so I will go with

MTFU

One thing that made a big difference to my riding confidence, was being able to balance on the bike at zero or low speeds! Most people, when they see an obsticle they don’t like the look of slow down (naturally) and tense up. This pushes you well off balance, and you brain starts to concentrate on simply sitting on the bike, in effect moving your focus right back to the middle of your bike, rather than down the trail to the next obsticle where it should be etc. Luckily, this is easy to work on, just spend 5-10 mins before/after every ride practising in the car park maneouvering at slow speeds etc. I’m not really talking about being able to trackstand for 20min, or “endoturn” on a 1pence (although you may well find that those skills suddenly become a lot easier!) more just the “well i’ve nearly stopped moving, but i don’t need to panic to put my feet down” kinda thing.

Once you have a decent balance at low speed, then it becomes more inate and natural to have that same balance at high speed without thinking about it, hence freeing up your brain to scamper ahead down the trail and i find really adds to the “flow” of the trail.

One word of warning however, the quest for what perhaps could best be described as some “trails” skills seems to be a very odd shaped learning curve (well for me at least) At the start you can’t balance to save your life, then you can for a second, then the next day you can’t again, but then the next day suddenly you can manage 10 sec, then back to useless. Not a linear progression that can be quite frustrating

I went fastest and smoothest when I sang songs!

I often do this as well. I’ve spoken before with a top sports psychologist and he said that when trying to perform any given task in sport, if you can stop your mind being preoccupied then it allows it to concentrate on the job in hand. Easy when it’s put like that but anxiety is a proven factor in limiting performance, the greater it is the worse your performance will be if you let it affect you. Why do you think England are so rubbish at penalties for example?

I watched a documentary on the big wave surfer Laird Hamilton about how he does crazy stuff without being terrified and he said he usually sings to himself to allow him not to panic. Said it has the effect of allowing him to slow things down so he has all the time in the world to do it.

Whilst I’ll always recommend training in something so you know you can do it, try using something like maybe singing to clear you mind of worry, or whatever else may work but you get the idea.

Hope it helps.

flats will also help you massively

In what way?

simples…by not having your feel clipped in it will give you the confidence needed as you know your can pull your feel away at any time…for someone who is feeling nervous already, the last thing you want them to be worrying about is that their feet are going to get jammed in the pedals at the wrong time…jammed cleats have got me before…it will also boost his confidence knowing that he can alter his foot position on the pedal if needed …once he’s got the confidence then he can go back to his spd’s…
sometimes you need to go back to basics….just like riding a hardtail can help you spot your lines…

danny – if you’re ever in the north west i’d be happy to give you some pointers