How To Track Stand On A Mountain Bike | Essential MTB Skills

Track stands, you beautiful people. It's time to learn how to track stand. Yes. Whilst you might not be standing still all too often, they're great for learning balance, brake control, and general bike control. Here's how to perfect them. But before we get cracking, why not drop GMBN a like and subscribe for daily great content. Right, over to you, Blake. Yes, thank you very much, Rich. Don't forget to hit that like button. Now, the first step is to find a nice open area, flat or preferably with a slight incline so you can get yourself onto it and rock your body back and forth on the bike to get your balance. Thank you very much, Blake. Now, onto our foot position. Where should they be? Well, you want your dominant foot forward. If you lead with the right foot, that one wants to be facing forward. It's going to be around the three o'clock position. Maybe 245 free, we'll call it that. You're going to put it there because it's going to give you the best of balance and control. Now, talk about control. What gear are you going to select when it comes to learning the track stand? Now, if you find yourself right down on the bottom of the gears, it's going to be really hard to keep the bike from moving. Likewise with the top. If it's at the top, it's going to be too light and it's going to feel a lot jerky. I would select a little bit lower down from the top, probably fourth or third in the gears. What about body position when it comes to the track stand? Well, it's a split opinion as to whether or not standing up or sitting down is easier. I think that comes down to personal preference. If you're going to be standing up, which I prefer because it allows you to move around the bike a little bit easier, you're going to be, like I said, pedals in that position we spoke about earlier, lead foot at three o'clock. From here, look, you can see my body's bang in the middle of the bike. I'm able to move it backwards and forwards ever so slightly and I'm actually focused on that block there. I'm not even looking at my front wheel, but just having something to focus on like the camera here, shall we say, means it takes your mind off of looking everywhere and you're getting all wobbly and throwing your balance out. Yes, now this is where we find ourselves learning the track stand. Like I said at the beginning of the video, find yourself a nice incline to learn this on. It's a bit easier on an incline because you can feel the pressure in that front foot of yours. By doing that, you don't really need the brakes. The place where you'd find using the brakes would be on the flat where you need to just manipulate it by letting it rock back and forth. Remember to keep that pressure in that front foot. When you're doing it on an incline, you don't want to do it straight dead-on. You want to go a little bit against the slope, the incline. Turn the bars and then rock it. Don't go dead-on. What about when it comes to steering adjustments? Well, you can see I've essentially got the bike leaning over one way, so to my rider's right here, and I'm turning the wheel to the right as well. What that does is make a nice stable triangle for you essentially to lean into. It gives you more of a solid base. You can see I'm doing minor adjustments. As my body moves backwards and forwards, I'm also doing minor adjustments to the bars as well. What that does is shift the bike around from underneath me. If my body does shift the other way, look, I turn the bars the other way. I'm combining this as well with small brake adjustments. Like Blake on that previous point had the incline to work with, on the flat here, if I put pressure on the pedals, I shift forward. As I shift forward ever so slightly, any touch that I'll put the brakes on and I can roll back off that. Brakes are on, roll back, pressure on the pedals, roll forwards. It's a constant little back and forth, if you like. It helps you keep that position nice and stable. Now, this section's all about practice. Practice makes perfect. A lot of time doing this, you definitely nail the tracks down, but you want to be experimental with it. You want to have fun with it, like there's a sign here. When you're riding along, go to the sign, stop without putting your feet down, look at the information, and then ride off. Some top tips for track standing then. Hope they've helped you out. If you're brand new to it, we've got some bonus bits for you. Now, don't forget, soft ground is great for learning on because it doesn't hurt when you fall off, eh, bud? Exactly. Flat pedals are pretty easy to learn on. Yes, and try to stay relaxed as well. Now, if you want to spice it up, maybe take a handle for two. Holy moly, that's some pro tips. Right, from us for now though, from the beach. See you. See you. Oh, my knee. Honestly, he needs to learn these tips more. Oh, my knee.