STEEP ROLLER
BRAKING ZONES
Let’s look at a large roller drop. There are loads of reasons why you wouldn’t want to send it off a big drop like this. Perhaps you don’t have the speed to clear it, or maybe it leads immediately into a sharp turn. Whatever the reason, you want to roll it with both your wheels firmly on the ground and arrive on the level trail afterwards feeling neutral and composed. The best way to do this is to get close to the bike on the way in, and to allow the front end to drop away while you fill the gap with your arms – the bike will take a big plunge off into space but your body weight should feel like hardly anything has happened. Your range of motion has allowed the bulk of your weight to stay separated from the sudden lunge of your bike. It might look like a rider has their weight back when negotiating a steep roller like this, but in actual fact their weight stayed neutral throughout, and it was their deliberate and exaggerated range of motion on the approach that allowed them to do this.
When riders take on difficult trails, the rhythm is often the same. There is an easy section of trail that leads into some sort of problem. This might be a drop, some roots, or a rough part of trail, but generally this loses them momentum and they have to make that time back up on the other side by putting effort in. Turn this on its head by doing the majority of your braking on the smooth part of the trail where you can trust the grip. By controlling your speed on the way into a choppy part of the trail, you’ll have the time to get low, open up a good range of motion, and deliberately come off the brakes. Letting your wheels spin freely will not only mean that you have more grip from your tyres, your stance will also be way more fluid, meaning that you can track the ground smoothly and keep your bodyweight separate from all the spikes generated by the trail.