Cornering! Learning to corner properly is so important to carry speed into the corner, around the corner and out of it. Its easy to go fast in a straight line but it takes technique and practice to maintain speed when cornering.
When I first started mountain biking the advice I had off one rider was to drop my outside foot while cornering, as much as this isn’t necessarily a bad thing to learn to do, I also learnt from doing my own research and asking people that are experts at riding that it isn’t always the best thing to do as all corners need to be approached differently.
The straight outside leg has its limitations, because you cant control how much weight you’re putting through the contact patches. Not only that but if you drop your leg so its completely straight your body will be rigid in the turn. But there are good points to droping your outside leg, you lower your centre of gravity meaning you’re more stable and your inside foot is nowhere near the ground so you’re less likely to catch a pedal. So here are some top tips to get you flying around corners in control!
Basic cornering techniques:-
- Bend your knees! Being rigid means you’re body cant adapt to the changing terrain. Bending your knees will help you control how much traction you have because you can pushing for grip or back off.
- As a general rule you’re feet should be level to the surface you’re cornering on!
- Braking before the corner and not in/during the corner – putting your breaks on while going around a corner is going to up the chances of you skidding out of control! So look ahead and slow down enough so that if you need to break you only need to feather them gently.
- Looking ahead to where you want to go (looking out of the corner). You want to make sure you’re ready for the next section of trail at all times.
- Keeping speed – You want to stay in control of the turn so that the last part of the corner you have enough control of your traction so that you can push with your legs to generate speed out of it.
How to position yourself for different types of corners:-
- Flat corners – have outside pedal down but only enough that your pedals are parallel to the ground.
- Off camber corners – this is when you’re going to be dropping your foot the most as well as leaning your bike over.
- Bermed corners – have pedals level. Why you ask? Well, because the berm is designed so you can go high up on it while leaning the bike and yourself over creating the most effective traction.
When turning your bars in the direction of the corner make sure you keep your head and shoulders lined up with the front of your bike and that your are elbows out. I find that relaxing and not over thinking helps too!
Get out and practice!
Sadly the only way to get good at cornering is by riding all types of corners and practicing different types. Everyones cornering can be improved, mine is still a huge working process! But heres a good way of getting better at it.
- Find a well ridden constant radius turn on a gently sloping hill ( Flat or bermed)
- Start by rolling into the corner approx 10 meters away, so that you travelling at a slow and controllable pace (don’t pedal into it) and practice the techniques above for that particular corner.
- To improve techniques and speed start rolling into the corner further back always using the same techniques – keep increasing the speed so that the techniques become harder and harder.
- Try and get a friend to film you progression on the corner so that you can see exactly what you’re doing and if you’re using the correct techniques every time. (Video footage has played a huge part in progression for me! Not just for cornering better but for all aspects of riding as you can see exactly what you’re doing right and wrong).
Alyssa Podesta 