In Trail Tips Episode 2, Nathan shows us a few things to avoid and a few ways to deal with awkward switchbacks & tight downhill corners.
A common feature that people struggle with out on the trail is steep, tight, rocky switchbacks. In this video, Nathan shows us a few different ways to get around these difficult corners smoothly and quickly.
This corner is pretty steep and pretty tight. It’s not quite 180, about a 160 degree corner. Here on the inside line, we have a lot of roots and a lot of loose stones that have been dragged down from the top. There are a lot of different things that can go wrong in a corner like this, for example:
In the middle it’s actually quite nice and smooth. This is the line that most people are sucked into. But then they try to slide the back wheel around like a rally car. But there are rocks on the outside, which just want to catch the wheel and high side you out over the back of the corner. On the way out of the corner we have a lot of really loose stones with no berm, and a pretty uncomfortable drop into the spiky bushes in the river behind.
Some of the most common mistakes that people make would be coming into the corner too fast, not scrubbing their speed off. This means that in the corner, they’re braking really hard, and their wheels are sliding out.
Another problem would be looking dead-head coming into the corner. They’re focused on the drop on the outside of the corner. They’re not looking at their line, the whole way around the corner, or they’re really focusing on one of the little rocks that’s right in the middle of the trail.
Or maybe you have run too deep into the corner, your bars are turned to almost 90 degrees. It’s really hard to balance in this position. If you hit a small rock, your wheel migh tuck and fall into it or the front wheel could wash away from you.
There are a few different ways to avoid situations like this, and it all starts with the setup – Because it’s so steep coming into the corner and there’s a lot of loose stone, it’s important to have really smooth brake control. This will stop you from skidding out and losing control and pushing you deeper into the corner, it really helps you to tay on line.
At this point we want to have all of our excess speed scrubbed off, so that we’re entering the corner in a nice controlled manner. We’re setting up nice and wide, standing in a neutral position over the bike. That way we have plenty of grip on the back wheel, plenty of grip on the front wheel. The aim is to catch the center of the corner and then look up and let it run wide on the way out. That’ll be the smoothest arc the whole way around the corner.
If you want to go faster and start coming in a bit more aggressively, we can skid the back wheel around, which really helps it get round the corner. But on this corner, there are a lot of rocks, so if we try to skid, the wheel may get caught on these rocks, and we’re going to end up high siding. If you can do an endo, it’s a great way to get around quickly and in control – lift the back wheel up, drop it in, and then ride off down the trail.
Nathan races for Vitus/First tracks and also runs guided MTB holidays in the south of Spain:
