“OUTSIDE FOOT DOWN”

Let’s look at a few common mistakes that riders tend to make. Some of these are left over from the early days of mountain biking. Some of them might be the consequences of poor advice, resulting in weak technique. Finally, some of them might just be natural instinct making us do the wrong things.

This is a bit of a hard one to explain because there are actually loads of times where your outside foot should be down. The misunderstanding comes when people drop their outside foot all the way down with a straight leg. While it’s true that dropping your foot will allow you to lean the bike, lower your centre of gravity, and mean you can rail the traction, what it also does is stop you from being able to adjust how much pressure or push you are exerting on the trail. This ability to weight and unweight your tyres is what allows you to control how much grip you have, and if your outside foot is all the way down with a straight leg you are in no position to adjust your traction.

INCORRECT Andy’s foot is all the way down here with a straight leg. This means that although the grip is good, it is also unnegotiable. If his wheels were to slide there is no way of controlling the traction.

✓CORRECT With both pedals kept level with the trail, Andy can drive his weight back into the ground and actually generate more grip. What it also means is that as soon as that grip is starting to fade, he can back off the push and come back into a place where he has control.