How To Ride Slow Drops on a Mountain Bike with Confidence, Control, _ Consistency.

Oh yeah! Okay, welcome back to another tutorial. Bear with me here if I'm stumbling over my words. Ada and I have been out on the trails filming tutorials all day. It's been an awesome day of riding for some great conditions and I'm really excited to get into this one. In this video we're going to talk about drops. Not just drops, we're going to talk about how things need to change when we start doing slower, more technical drops. Okay, this is another question that came from our Shout out to Steve. Steve wanted to know what changes when we're riding slow drops versus riding in with a little bit more trail speed. Specifically he mentioned he's got this fear, and this is a completely legit fear that lots of other riders I speak to have, I've felt this fear myself as well, but it's a fear of the nosedive and why the back wheel is still hung up on the ramp or on the upper surface of the drop. So we're going to discuss some techniques to help avoid getting hung up on the drop even when we're pedaling in at slower speeds. This video is for the rider that already feels comfortable riding off drops like this at a jogging pace. You understand the basic dropping technique which we're going to review in just a second and you're ready to perhaps take on some more technical drops. You're looking to do it in a way that feels more controlled and inspires more confidence. If that's you, stick around. Even if it's not you, stick around anyway, you might learn something for the future. Cool. So we're starting off here in a skills area. So the run-in is really good, it's nice and straight, consistent. This is slightly downhill so we know speed's not going to be a problem. Our run out is also nice and straight. Yeah it's downhill but we've got plenty of time to shut down the speed and slow down. So that's awesome. We're going to really quickly review just the main components of doing a drop and this is the kind of the dropping technique we'd use for a straightforward linear drop like this. When I say linear it means the height of the drop is about the same as the distance. That means gravity is going to take us on a nice arc down. Things are going to be pretty simple. So all we're going to have to do to do this drop is press down through our pedals and then poke the bike forward slightly. Press and poke. The press just helps us unweight our tires slightly and then the poke helps us get the bike forward from the upper surface out into the air so the wheels can drop evenly. When we get down to the landing there's going to be a slight impact so we might think about absorbing the bike back underneath us into that centered body position. Press, poke, absorb. I'll show you what that looks like here. Okay cool. We're going to do one more demo. Regular dropping technique at say jogging pace off this bigger drop here. Making sure we're in a gear that's hard enough to be stable and to help us get enough speed for the drop is also really important. I'm going to try and do my pedaling early so I can be level pedals, stable, plenty of time to set up before the drop. Okay sweet. That one's easy to go big on. So that was regular speed. Now we're going to look at what changes when we start turning down the speed. I'll show you then we'll dig into the what and the why afterwards. Awesome. So hopefully that was a good demonstration of the differences there. As I turn down the speed I had to adjust something else. So I like to think of it really simply as two levers and by the way I got this analogy from Darren down at Endless Biking. Fantastic coach. Go and see him if you're on the North Shore. Two levers. Speed on one side, rider input on the other. So when I say rider input that's the press and the poke. So a general rule or principle we can apply to drops of all shapes and sizes is more speed, we need less rider input. Meaning we actually have to do less of the press and of the poke. I always like to at least do something. At least dip my heels. At least move the bike forward a little bit because that ensures I stay in control. I'm active. I'm moving around on the bike. I'm not just freezing up and letting the speed do it. But in general when we have more speed the speed is really what helps get the bike from that upper surface out into the air so that it can drop evenly. So sometimes rolling into a drop with a little bit more speed or one like this with a long run-in can feel easier than a slower drop. Now you will have noticed there as I turn the speed down significantly I needed to turn my rider input up. I needed to do more to physically get the bike off the drop. So more energy in my press, more energy in my poke forward. Awesome. Most of you watching this have probably got that down and packed pretty good for now. So next we're going to talk about what happens if we go even slower into a drop like this. What happens if it was an uphill entry or a corner before or maybe some roots. I can think of some good examples around here we're maybe going to go and ride some of them afterwards. We need to adjust this technique slightly rather than just doing the basic press and poke. If we're going really slow that's still not going to be enough to get the wheels out into the air before the front wheel starts dropping and we maybe experience one of those nose dives that we're fearing. So rather than just press and poke the bike out ahead we're going to absorb slightly. So it's a little bit like when we're jumping. If you've ever done a jumping lesson we press into the ramp we absorb the bike into the air. What I mean when I say absorb is we soften off the tension in our arms and legs and we allow the bike to come up into this space between our torso and the bike by bending our arms and legs a little bit. So we press into the bike unweight the tires absorb that back wheel up into us a little bit and then poke the bike forward and that's how we're going to ensure that this back wheel still being on the drop as the front wheel starts to go down doesn't buck us forward because we're absorbing it up into that space and our torso should still stay stable in that nice consistent plane. Let me show you that in action. Our three words to keep in mind when we're practicing this press absorb poke. Okay just for fun I'm going to pretend there's a corner before this drop maybe give it a bit more of a practical application when we get to some more technical drops on real trails later on. Same three steps press absorb poke the bike forward. Okay nice and slow. So practicing slow drops in this way in a controlled environment like this a practice area if you've got it or a trail you're already confident with is the way to building confidence with slow drops. Instead of just riding at full trail speed what we actually do by changing the variables by reducing our speed or maybe adding the cornering beforehand is practice a slow drop without committing to the real thing on the trail first. So we're able to practice that new skill set without feeling like we have to commit to a really big really high consequence drop. So I really suggest you try this build it up step by step like we've done in this video less speed more rider input and if we get to a point where our speed's really really slow we're going to have to add in that absorb in between the press and the poke. Remember that absorb helps soak up the pressure it's created as the front wheel starts to dive the back wheel still on the drop we soak it up with our knees with our leg suspension so that it doesn't push our whole body forward and we feel that nose dive. Cool cool now we're going to go out and explore some actual slow drops on some actual trails let's do it. Okay we're at a drop here a real wild drop out on a trail here in Squamish this is called another roadside attraction short sweet little trail. This drop's interesting because it kind of starts with a bit of an uphill to get up onto the platform here it's quite blind as we come in we go over an old log and then we land in a bit of a rocky transition there. This one is actually quite easy to pump beforehand and get quite a lot of speed for works well if you actually land a little bit deep into that landing skip some of those sharp edges edge rocks. That said I'm going to try and go a little bit slower on this one so that we can talk about the slow dropping technique. As I come in a little slower some things I'm going to think about on my run in is making sure I get that pedaling done earlier so I'm going to make sure I'm in an appropriate gear to get up here with a little bit of speed and hopefully be set up by like a bike length or two away from the edge level pedals so I can think about the technique we talked about at the drop zone there that press absorb poke the bike forward. Awesome let's do it. The great thing about drop like this with a nice steep landing is that even though we're going slow quite high there's potential for a lot of impact there on the landing that's kind of soaked up by that nice steep landing we keep moving downhill carry that momentum downhill instead of taking it up through our body. I'm going to do one more demo yeah then we'll move on to an even bigger slow drop. That's about as slow as I So we're here at a super cool feature. I wanted to include this drop in this video because it's a great example of a quote-unquote slow drop but it's really hard to do slow. As you can see here quite a tall drop coming off this steep rock slab. I'm a little bit nervous just to walk down but my landing is quite close to my uh my takeoff even though it's quite tall so it's taller than it is long to get into that sweet spot there and really hit that nice transition. I'm going to want to go quite slow off this one so my plan of attack for this one is actually to come in nice and slow this is really grippy this rock slab so controlling as much as that speed as I can as I near the edge of my drop I'm going to get a little bit lower in preparation you guys can't see in the frame there but there's two cracks on this rock when I get to this crack I'm standing on that's like go time about a bike length away when I get down to the edge here I'm going to do a small press and a small poke I'm not going to need to do too much of an absorb because as soon as I get off those brakes at the last crack that's about that far away from the edge about a foot and a half two feet as soon as I get off those brakes the bike's essentially going to be out there in the air ready to drop both wheels at the same time so there's not too much risk of the back wheel getting hung up the front wheel diving on this one that makes me feel good the real risk on this one like the place I can see a lot of people going wrong is actually getting off the brakes too early perhaps out of that fear of not making the gap then we're going to go deep into this one land flat it's going to be very hard to remain stable on the bike okay so the keys for this one is a good setup staying calm staying composed a little press little poke just to stay active just to get the bike out there into the air and big absorb as we land on the landing kill kill on that composure piece I'm going to make sure I take a big exhale as I go through my point of commitment which is up on top of the rock slab there and I continue to breathe all the way down that's going to keep me nice and calm relaxed and composed okay let's do it oh yeah oh that feels good gonna be honest that was my first time doing something that big since I broke my back eight weeks ago so that it feels good to be back in action and that felt really smooth so just to summarize what happened there what I needed to do there because this drop has a steep takeoff I didn't need as much rider input as you might remember from the start of this video more speed usually means we need less rider input because the speed helps get us out into the air like I said at the top there so less rider input that said I always like to do something because it helps me avoid freezing up and just holding on hucking and hoping for the best doing something helps me be active be in control as a rider so I still do that little press little poke forward as you would have seen in the side frame there and then as I land on that landing I'm absorbing the bike back into that centered position ready for whatever comes next in this case we've got this sweet let's go do some more drops sweet we're up here on a trail called cakewalk in squamish uh if you're from squamish if you've been to squamish you know this trail's got a couple of very nice drops on it but there are also a couple of drops that are a little bit more technical than your standard kind of linear setup drop this first one we've got to here is a bit of a classic slow drop it's not slow in the sense that we can't get speed or the trail doesn't give us speed but it's slow in the sense of like I want to go slowly off it because of what's coming next maybe we can pan the camera down and show the run out there it's kind of yeah a bit of a steep rocky rooty shoot before a sharp left-hand corner so I definitely want to be able to go slow off this one I'm also considering the fact that this takeoff here it's relatively flat our landing too it's not super steep so going off this one I'm going to be thinking about that slow dropping technique we've already talked about small press down through the feet just to help unweight the tires slightly I'm going to be absorbing the back of the bike up towards my torso as the front wheel starts to drop pressing the bike forward okay so press absorb I'm going to show you what that looks like here sweet so hopefully you're able to see the technique there I'm going to do this a couple more times and just play around with the speed this is a drop that we can definitely do at lots of different speeds we can use the classic just kind of press and poke technique usually what happens when we do that though is we land really deep the landing on this one's quite flat so it doesn't feel nice a lot of pressure there to absorb and we usually end up being somewhat out of control for the the steep little technical bit and left-hand corner coming next so I prefer to do this one slowly and rather than just pressing and poking I press absorb the back wheel as it comes up towards my torso absorbing that back wheel and getting the bike and my body down onto the landing earlier means I have more time to break less impact to absorb and everything feels smoother afterwards going to give you another example show you another angle of what this one looks like let's do it okay drop it sweet so hopefully you got some good demos there of doing this drop nice and slowly that absorption using your range of movement by bending the knees and absorbing the back of the bike the back wheel up into you is key to not having that horrible feeling of the front wheel drop in while the back wheel is still on the wood and your torso your center of mass also being pushed forward okay by absorbing that pressure I allow my torso to maintain that nice natural arc down to the ground without being pushed forward okay so getting really good at absorbing your bike using your range of movement is key as well as that making sure you're actually coming into drops like this tall enough to have that range of movement if we're already squatted down over our bike and we go to absorb something it's kind of like riding a bike with not much travel there's not much space there so we're going to get pushed forward okay coming in nice and tall press absorb poke the bike forward sweet let's go get the next drop oh I love this feature look at that view okay another slow drop coming up put a pedal uphill into this one take a look nice okay drop in nice awesome we're at the next drop here on cakewalk and this is the specific drop uh Steve over in our mental about mountain biking community was talking about when he was talking about tricky slow drops this one's got an uphill running you come around a corner it's kind of bland so from the start it's kind of hard to know what is the speed what gear should I be in and to get that setting up or to get that setup done early is kind of key to having success off this drop let's go and take a look at the running quickly I'm going to show you the rest of the feature hopefully you can hear me over this beautiful waterfall creek that's running today but as you'll see we come around a corner here over a bridge and we've got some slightly flat uphill ground to deal with before this right hander and then we're pretty much immediately into the drop from there so this space here is really key to setting yourself up for success I'm always thinking about getting myself into a gear that will allow me to accelerate while also still having something to press against on the pedals so that stability we're looking for coming into a feature like this not too easy not too hard and ideally we want to set our speed get pedaling done early so that by the time we're coming around this corner coming past these last couple of trees here we're able just to coast on those nice level pedals in our taller neutral position that's going to allow me to be nice and stable as I leave the drop surface here as you can see from the landing the delta is checking out down there this one's a little bit steeper and it's also a little bit longer that means there is more margin for error there we can come off this one a little bit faster yeah we're going to land deep and that impact is going to be harsher probably still going to be okay on the other end of the scale we can also come off this one quite slow and hopefully then landing that sweet spot higher up the landing it's going to be less of an impact it's going to feel nicer and we're going to have more time to prepare for either that jump that comes next or taking that corner out and around technique-wise getting off this drop it's going to be exactly the same as what we've been talking about that slight press just enough to unweight the tires absorbing the back wheel while poking the bike forward now in the little demos you've just seen there I towed my friend Eddie off this drop we're talking about kind of that poke angle of that poke he mentioned that he felt like he poked the bike a little too far ahead that led to him landing kind of in the back of his bike and having to adjust what we want to do with that poke is really match the angle of the landing so because this landing is a little bit steeper I'm going to poke the bike forward and down rather than just forward like we would for a drop with a flat landing so press absorb I'm going to show you what that looks like here sweet so now you've seen this drop at a few different speeds really emphasizing that press absorb poke the bike down technique we're going to ride out the rest of the cakewalk have some fun we'll probably get into a trail called one man's garbage after this that's got a couple of smaller but maybe technical little single track drops on it then from there we're going to get down into a classic to finish this tutorial the airplane mode drop on the one up trail down near the parking lot there let's do it we're here at another pretty famous drop here in squamish this is on a fantastic trail called airplane mode sponsored by one up components this drop's interesting it's not a super slow drop so it maybe doesn't fit this particular tutorial too much but I couldn't ride past it for two reasons one it's super fun two I think lots of riders kind of have it on their list and actually there's three reasons the third one is it's a bit unique in the sense that the trail actually starts just up there past my bike so you don't actually have much of a run in and even though it is still a it's a big gap it's a lot of height there it does feel like we're maybe coming in slow to this one so there's definitely that that confidence piece or that headpiece there to work through so about to do this drop here if this is your first time here looking at this feature riding this trail I definitely recommend going and getting a warm-up lap in first doing some other drops like we did today maybe even just riding out the rest of airplane mode it's great to do a sighting lap on then you can come back nice and warm and hit this drop don't recommend getting out of the car especially if you drove up here and then hitting a feature like this right away when you're cold not really going to set you up for success unless something you feel confident doing that's kind of okay sweet so my tactic getting into this one knowing that it's quite easy to overshoot and actually quite easy to get a little bit of speed as we roll in down this short downhill run in I'm just gonna do like a pedal stroke come into this one it may be like a fast jogging pace press and poke I'm not gonna have to do too much of an absorb because my speed's gonna help get me out there into the air I also know I've got a nice steep transition or landing that's going to take a lot of the force when I hit the landing cool ah such a nice one highly recommend might do it like once more maybe get an angle from down here I'm gonna call it a day okay sweet so wrapping up here I think an important thing to take note of is that often drops can be made really complicated different techniques for different drops and then often we can get into that overthinking analytical space where it's like what type of drop is this what technique do I need let's keep things super simple we use that same dropping technique press poke for all drops if we're coming in really fast our rider speed is up we're going to perhaps use less pressure less energy with our rider input the press and the poke if the speed gets turned down the more it gets turned down the more we need to turn up that rider input so the more active we need to be press and poke we need to do more of the work to get the bike from the upper surface to the lower surface hopefully that makes sense now if you're at a more advanced place in your riding progression and you maybe are riding some really technical drops some really slow drops that's where we can start thinking about absorbing the back of the bike using our range of movement as the front wheel starts to drop slightly and the rear wheel is perhaps more or less up on the drop still press absorb poke again the way to get better at this is to practice in a controlled comfortable area first even on drops that are maybe rollable practice doing them really slow get really good at this technique play around lots with the speed rider input the variables and eventually with that mileage the confidence is going to build to as always i don't claim to cover every aspect of dropping we've really focused mainly on the technical skill component here because that's a component i see it's kind of lacking in a lot of the riders i work with there's obviously a whole lot we can do on the mental side in terms of mental strategies to stay focused keep our mind on the task at hand and embody a confident riding state we can do loads in terms of our equipment setup and we can obviously do some strength work to make sure we've actually got what it takes to take these impacts it's like i've been working on post injury there's also a couple of other techniques such as like the wheelie drop which we can do off really slow drops that's an awesome technique that deserves a whole video of its own so i'm not even going to go there today we're going to call it here if you've enjoyed this video i'd love to see you in our mental about mountain biking telegram community it's a free space to connect with like-minded like skilled riders ask questions get tips and receive feedback on your riding we do a weekly remote coaching breakdown in there where we chat about other people's technique there's a potential to chatter about your technique as well if you're ready to deep dive if you're ready to work with me you can also check out our full circle coaching program and our global expeditions links to both of those ones are down below thanks for watching guys we'll see you out on the trails or on the next video