Twisty tight singletrack – how do i ride it??

Struggled in the trees at times at SITS due to lack of confidence and not really riding tree lined tight singletrack.
Obvious answer is to ride it more!! But any "technique" tips for carrying speed and not grabbing handfulls of brake at every twist turn? When following a fast rider i am fine but when its up to me to "direct the riding" i am shit at best!!

Be mobile on the bike, move yourself about on the bike.

slowly…………..like me. 😆

its a totally alien feeling for me – wide rocky stuff is my staple riding

I had the same thing when I moved up to Scotcheggland rob- suddenly there were 180 switchbacks in spaces the width of a peak trail. Smooth, tame, but I couldn't carry speed through them.

I'm fine with them now, and to be honest I couldn't explain why, it's just practice.

the once/twice a year that i ride me are not providing the practice 😉

Get more weight over the front to dig the front wheel into turns a bit more.

Doesn't come easily to those of us used to 'wide rocky stuff' where the biggest risk is the front wheel suddenly stopping resulting in yet another OTB.

Riding a twisty 8" wide groove at even moderate speed is awesome – there is only one line and you have to focus tostay in it. Looking ahead and precision steering is key, remembering that the back wheel trails inside the front helps avoid hooking up. I treat the little ramp up the outside edge of the trail like a mini berm. 95% of the time it works out. The other 5% you clip something and it gets messy.

What screws me up at this time of year is overhanging brambles – they are unavoidable on tight singletrack. Mucho wincing and screaming all the way down. Today, a work colleague in all seriousness was concerned about the state of my arms. I assured him it's not self harming.

Well, yes I suppose it is.

Smoooothness is the key. Try riding slower to be faster if that makes sense. More haste less speed innit.

The best technique I've found is to just ride in a straight line.

Occasionally one of the trees will get in the way 🙂

Do a skills course – the cornering technique that James Shirley taught me is working a treat for carrying speed and having confidence in corners. Its all about flow and maintaining momentum.

Like Buzz says above, looking ahead works for me. 99% of the riding I do is twisty singletrack, and learning to look 5-10m ahead rather than at the front wheel really helps me maintain speed. Also, I try and stay light on the handlebars otherwise I end up going over them more often than not.

I did a skills course in Sherwood Pines a few years ago, it really helped me in riding singletrack. Suppose I should do another one really.

Being smooth is the important bit, not hammering into corners and then having to slam the brakes on.

look as far along the trail as you can and

and?

I think for the rest you need to cross his palm with silver. Seems a fair deal given the responses thus far.

Sorry it didn't post all my reply.
Stand up and put outside pedal down in corners etc..

Also force the bike from side to side to turn it. So when going left, force the left handle bar down to tip the bike. Right foot down, weight forward, head up. This gets the front tyre to bite and pushing the bars gets the bike to turn, you stay more upright than the bike does, but you still use your body weight to assist in the turn. Its faster to tip the bike than tip your whole body.

Dont do it fast, do it slow till you get better, then you will speed up naturally.

come to Swindon and ride the croft trail, its all about the twisty turny, if you can carry speed on that trail you've got it.

The faster you go the easier* it is

..
*easier may not be true, but it's definitely more fun!

Another tip i got was dont put your inside knee out at 90 degrees – Like motorbike racers do.

Instead, imagine your knees are tied together at about 12" bring your inside knee in towards the top tube (outside foot down).

This encourages you to turn your upper body at the hips into the corner, it also encourages you to lean the bike more into the corner (apparently most people dont get the bike over onto the outside knobbles and end up riding on the bit in between the outside and inside tread pattern). This technique also gets you standing higher from your saddle and in turn puts your weight further forward onto the bars and through to tyres.

Anyone would think I'm a bit of an expert after typing all that – in hindsight his instruction was great my execution is still somewhat off ideal.

Stand up, stay loose on the bars, use the pedals to weight the bike through flat or off camber corners , look far ahead and make sure you control your speed before the bend not in it. Keep a fair bit of weight over the bars so the front really digs in and keep your heels down as that helps drive the bike over and through obstacles like roots and stuff. Really it's mostly about staying active and not just being a passenger.

Also go really, really fast because speed is always your friend.

Cut down the fashionably wide bars you may be using?

I'm going to go against the grain here..

I did a skills course and I was shown that if you stand up and keep both pedals level, you can corner far quicker, I always used to have my outside foot down, but it was explained to me as that when you're really in twisty sections (so say right, left, right) you waste energy and time moving the pedal.. so into the right and your left foot is down, into the left and you're swapping to get your right foot down etc etc.

By standing up and keeping the pedals level, you move the bike under you, staying up on the pedals and leaning the bike keeps it planted but is far, far quicker

I was sceptical until I tried it, I've never ridden the top section of Cwm Carn so quickly, a couple of people not on the skills session took off after us and we left them, no pedalling, just using momentum and the ground to build speed. My mate who was on the course didn't use the technique and was way behind, second time round he did and was flying

I'll await the flames 😉

Trust in the force!

Keeping your peggills up also means you wont catch the tree stump you cant see in the undergrowth.

Here's what I'm trying to do at the moment having watched a load of videos and going on a skills session…

Lower your saddle (not always possible, but my uppydowny seatpost has transformed my cornering and fun level)

Elbows bent (to keep more weight over the front and give you room to react in any direction)

Outside pedal down (for grip)(I've had to unlearn having pedals level). This can mean changing pedal position quite often sometimes, but it's surprising the level of grip it offers.

Look further ahead than seems natural.

Having ridden in the peaks for 10 years (i.e. straightlining over rocks), I'm finding all this pretty difficult. But it's loads of fun!

this is what beards are for, like cat's whiskers, you know how far to lean over when your hairy chin tickles the bark, carry speed much better this way as it acts as a "sixth sense"

I agree pedals don't have to be down to be weighted. It's a bit like skiing where your hips decide what side your weight is on.. Oh and don't slow down for roots, really, don't. .

I'll admit that I haven't read the whole of this thread but my magic tip that isn't usually mentioned is to practice by not pedalling between the corners.

Quite often people will make mistakes by getting the usual things wrong, and try to compensate by pedalling really hard between the corners. But that tends to just repeat the same mistakes. If you decide not to pedal, you'll enter the corners slower and try to carry more of the speed you have. That's the important bit. Once you're carrying good speed, you can worry about pedalling later.

Register where the trees are then forget about them and concentrate on the trail.

Don't go at it like a bull in a china shop. Don't think 'unless I take this corner REALLY fast, i'm a crap rider' – some corners have to be taken slow.

Start off taking things at a comfortable pace where you feel 100% in control, and then gradually try to take the corners faster until you feel you are at the limits of your skill/traction.

If I hold back and try to 'flow' more I can usually clear a section faster. If I try and force things I can end up understeering, correcting etc. and generally being poo. I

And if you can find a section of twisty singletrack and session it, this is usually the best of all!

close your eyes and scream like that matey off pineapple dance thingy.

This thread has made me want to go riding.

yeah cheers_drive has it right, especially for the stuff at SITS. i was thinking about this a lot whilst riding the wooded sections and i kept finding myself slowing down as my vision got sucked into what was right on top of me, but when i made sure i was looking as far ahead as possible i found i was quicker through it.

also on that kind of stuff, keep pedalling. select a gear which you can spin and be as agile on the bike as you can. sometimes you can lean around trees as your bike keeps more or less in the sam position.

really enjoyed riding these sections, you don't often get chance to do so.

Saddle height. Drop it an inch, this is known as Woods Height. You can still peggill but you have more mobility and can wear much baggier shorts.

I always refer to that as slipping a comfort inch or two.

On tight switchbacks at the end of straights the key is to let your front wheen follow around the outside of the corner. Intuitively you may want to take the corner really tight (i.e. inside line) after all, it is a tight corner. Try letting yourself drift along the outside and back into it, however, and you'll find it much easier.

It really helps to make whooping noises..

I say, "Look through the trail, not down at it."

I'm also a fan of encouraging people to slow their thoughts down in order to go faster – when you're on the hurry-up you can lose clarity, whereas is it faster and more sustainable (not to mention enjoyable) to stay relaxed and keep a sense of flow.