Good cornering technique

Joe Rafferty explains when to carve turns and when to rail them

Pushing your body weight and tyres into the banked outside edge of a berm lets you ride it faster than if it was a flat corner. But the faster you ride and the tighter the bend, the more you need to lean. If you find yourself grabbing the brakes halfway around, it’s usually a symptom of not leaning enough rather than going too fast.

Instead of separating corners into berms and flat turns, it’s better to think of them in terms of two different techniques, which we call ‘railing’ and ‘carving’. Railing a turn is when you lean with your bike and your pedals are nearly level. This is best done on high-sided berms with big positive cambers, where there’s no chance of losing grip or where you want to pump the turn. Carving is when you lean your bike more than your body, which you need to do in really tight turns or when you need grip (as in this picture). You can carve both flat turns and berms.

Enter the corner at a speed that’ll allow you to make it round without dragging your brakes. Choose a wide line. Look towards the exit, and enter with your pedals level and chest low over the bar. Start to lean the bike by twisting your hips towards the exit, pushing your inside hand down and transferring your body weight onto your outside pedal. To lean even more, turn your hips further and push the bike down onto the edges of its tyres. As you exit the turn, allow your bike to stand itself back up. If you’ve leaned enough, you should have made it round without having to jab at your brakes.