[PhillipJ]

I can't pump the corner with my outside foot dropped so I only do that on low traction corners where I might want to dab.

 

[maxtorque]

I was a roadie same time as I took up mt biking, we learned to put outside foot down and shift weight to that foot when cornering. Was supposed to help keep that slick tire planted on the asphalt. I do that naturally when cornering on a mt bike. No idea if it helps.

Also a roadie racer here. There's a photo of Davis Phinney

It is not MotoGP where the heavy bike squishes tires to ground, it is doing all we can to keep the skinny light bike pushing down. Road or MTB.

A recent Mountain Bike Academy YT bugged me with insisting pedals level because of knee lockout with foot down. For someone with legs and a dropper, getting low keeps the knee flexed, the tires weighted, and the inside pedal up and out of the way. I will also weight the outside handlebar to stay atop the bike. Level is for banked corners.

The pedals level only crowd need to suit up and try it over off camber marbles!

 

[Varaxis]

The pictures don't show their riders' speed, to get an idea of the lateral forces. With more lateral forces, from carrying more speed, I would adjust quite a few parts of my technique. One thing that remains constant is that getting weight lower simply makes cornering easier. Can't think of any case where that is not true.

You get severely limited options to manipulate weight and positioning when high-posting (not dropping saddle)...

 

[Jayem]

It depends is the best answer. In some cases, you can keep em relatively level. Even then, they usually aren't level relative to the slope IME and you usually have one foot that you favor forward, which makes it somewhat asymmetrical turning L and R compared to a foot down. Then, with the foot down, you get more edging capability, so if you have the traction, this can still work better, but not all of the time, really depends on the turn. Last night, in the snow race, I got third overall. There were a few turns where I unclipped the inside and lowered/drug that foot on the inside, whilst the outside was the only place possible with one foot on the pedal, down.

And then there's pedaling while you are turning.

 

[wolfmw]

I'm not aware of anyone who says that instruction absent practice will help that much. I'm an actual coach (I teach VERY beginner riders 99% of the time), and I tell anyone I'm working with that I'm giving them tools to help them practice at home.



it's not because "it's easy to teach" and it's got nothing to do with berms. it's because of a concept called "scaffolding" or "progression" or however you want to call it. you start with small pieces before you move on and build on those pieces. "level pedals" is important for a great deal more than just cornering, so it's something that riders often need emphasized. when a rider is BRAND NEW, they can only absorb so much. everybody's a little different, but everyone reaches a wall where throwing more at them gets them no farther. trust me, it takes a lot of reminding to keep beginners thinking about it.

as I've been instructed (a combo of clinics I've taken myself as well as coaching training), talking about dropping a pedal is a component of pressure control, which is a subject that is more of an upper-intermediate to advanced topic.

Makes sense.

I'm not trying to attack coaches or coaching. Every video I've seen and I assume any coach worth hiring basically starts and ends with "it takes practice". In the process of practicing you discover things beyond the basic skill, and that's my point. This type of discussion seems to roll around every few months when someone discovers that maybe the rule they were taught isn't the end of the story.

That said, I do think that "level feet" is more beneficial on bermed turns, and I doubt it's coincidence that it's a commonly taught core skill when a lot of beginning riders are hitting pump tracks, flow trails, and bike parks. But maybe cornering fast on flat turns is an advanced skill now?

 

[Scott_123]

There is plenty to learn about cornering techniques and the coaches that do it should be applauded. With that being said, no two corners are the same especially in the hard packed desert where many corners are like riding over marbles. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s a buzz kill because you have no choice but to tippy toe through the turn. I always see the giant slide marks that end at the jumping cactus in mid turn and say to myself…I wonder what happened to that guy?

 

[jergrah]

Fluidride is good: I took a half day class with Simon a few years ago. I'm convinced that one should partially drop the outside foot like he suggests. I think the fully dropped outside foot is a leftover from road bike racing, and fully extends/locks the knee too much.

He’s a great coach and the classes are fantastic. I’ve taken quite a few - but even after riding for many years, taking his basics/essentials…which is mostly on cornering and foot placement in berms was a huge unlock.

For anyone in the greater Seattle area - he does the courses at Duthie. There is a lot of repetition done on Bootcamp - flowy berms - and I’ll share that (for me) consistently pressuring with the outside foot enabled me to go faster and carry speed on that trail at a higher rate than I thought possible. Heading into the class, I was a mostly level pedals in the corners rider.

 

[teK--]

There's no hard fast rule.

You move your feet and cranks in combination with weight shift via hips and chest placement, to either keep the bike balanced for max grip, or to intentionally load one wheel more than the other such as to drift or schralp.

When you ride clipless versus flat pedals there is further consideration of keeping enough pressure on each pedal (and within each section of each pedal such as by tilting the foot). This needs to be done to control the bike and in the case of flats, to maintain grip on the pedal. This is why being able to ride flats (or better, to ride them interchangeably with clipless pedals) since you learn the best of both worlds.

Sometimes it's good just to get a couching session or two so they can observe what you're doing.

 

[OiLoikBoiks]

Straight line everything. Problem solved.

 

[jsma09]

Maybe it’s off topic, but I feel it’s a pedal-drop adjacent question: do you only lean the bike or do you lean with the bike?

Many of the tutorials out there state how you must only lean the bike and you have to be in a vetical position to transfer weigth down to the tires, rotating only the hips towards the corner. But if you look at most pros they actually lean with the bike. There’s a decent comparison in this video:

 

[goldsbar]

Another vote for "it depends".

 

[790097]

Maybe it’s off topic, but I feel it’s a pedal-drop adjacent question: do you only lean the bike or do you lean with the bike?

Many of the tutorials out there state how you must only lean the bike and you have to be in a vetical position to transfer weigth down to the tires, rotating only the hips towards the corner. But if you look at most pros they actually lean with the bike. There’s a decent comparison in this video:

I was going to mention this earlier, but yeah, it comes down to bike/body separation. You want more of that for flat corners and that's typically when dropping an outside pedal will help. Even when you do separation, you still lean a little bit. You become susceptible to high siding if you remain completely vertical and just lean the bike.

If you watch UCI races at a place like Les Gets you'll see a lot of dropped outside feet and bike/body separation on the fast, flat corners on the smooth, grassy slopes. OTOH, most other courses, I tend to notice most DHers keep their pedals level, most likely to avoid pedal strikes.

 

[kapusta]

One more vote for “it depends”.

Learn both.

In general, the flatter (non-bermed) and smoother it is, the more likely I am to drop the outside foot.

 

[Hexsense]

How about 45 degree between level and drop?

And how about cornering in wave, not keeping constant pressure?

 

[67King]

And then there's pedaling while you are turning.

Yep. The track car driver in me wants to start pedaling pretty much at apex, or as soon as I feel the bike take a "set" into the corner. Obviously that can't be done if the turn is flat and the bike is laid over, but if there's a berm, I try to start high, drift down towards the middle, start pedaling, and drift back out again. When I do that, i'm usually pedals level. Body position between the bermed and flat corners is also totally different.

FWIW, NICA is pretty adamant than its coaches teach pedals level.

 

[Harold]

Makes sense.

I'm not trying to attack coaches or coaching. Every video I've seen and I assume any coach worth hiring basically starts and ends with "it takes practice". In the process of practicing you discover things beyond the basic skill, and that's my point. This type of discussion seems to roll around every few months when someone discovers that maybe the rule they were taught isn't the end of the story.

That said, I do think that "level feet" is more beneficial on bermed turns, and I doubt it's coincidence that it's a commonly taught core skill when a lot of beginning riders are hitting pump tracks, flow trails, and bike parks. But maybe cornering fast on flat turns is an advanced skill now?

did you read what I wrote?

level pedals is a core skill. full stop. I'm not making any claims about where it's more relevant or more beneficial. it's a skill that all riders are going to use. Beginners have no concept of where their feet are and are highly likely to whack their pedals on EVERYTHING unless they are trained HARD to do something else. Level pedals is that starting point. I teach it a LONG time before anything remotely associated with corners. But yeah, I emphasize it to beginners doing cornering, too, because they still fail to pay attention to where their feet are. If they're not aware of their pedal clearance to the ground in the first place, this thread doesn't happen.

In addition to clearance with the ground, level pedals is step one of bike-body separation. It's what allows riders to stay in a solid, balanced position when they stand up on the pedals to get their first taste of bike-body separation. For a lot of those beginner riders, this feels weird! It's ludicrous to teach beyond this point for them. If they ask, I emphasize that variable trail conditions might call for adjustments to this "base" that I'm teaching, but that they need to get comfortable with this and using it should be natural before they start working on variations of it. How would you expect a beginner to be able to handle bike-body separation as shown in the first picture when standing up with level pedals feels weird and induces a little bit of panic for them to pinch their saddle with their knees? You can't.

Cornering is one of those things that has components at ALL skill levels. At the beginner level, riders are only just learning that they can move their bike independently from their bodies. As intermediates, you're looking at coordinating some of those movements together. But it's not really likely that riders at this level are hitting flat corners fast enough with a deep enough of a lean to NEED to drop a foot as shown in the pic in the first post. At the intermediate level, it's more about the overall body position. Rotating the body through the corner, looking at the exit, "butt to the berm", those elements. Yeah, working on those things often begins to lead a rider to start dropping their outside foot without focusing on that specific thing. That's the thing about introducing complex topics - if you can get them thinking about/working on one thing that just so happens to get them doing some of the other things you want them to do without yapping about each of them, this is a good thing. FOCUSING on dropping the outside foot (and how much to drop it and when) is absolutely an advanced topic. This is getting into subtle minutiae of refining things.

Every step along the way lets a rider take corners a little bit faster and in more variable conditions. Even the most advanced riders are continuing to work on their cornering because there absolutely are a lot of little elements and moving parts.

 

[127.0.0.1]

I hate threads with title like this, it's
just more clickbait. what controversy ? you like just making stuff up for a stupid thread ?

corner how you want w/o pedal strikes is the only rule.

 

[jeremy3220]

View attachment 2084948

So if you look at his feet you'll notice they're level to the ground. This is because he has roughly equal weight on each pedal. If you articulate/lean the bike under you and keep equal weight on the pedals your outside foot will drop relative to the bike but your feet will still be level relative to the ground. As you start to lean the bike under you it becomes really hard (impossible at some point) to not drop the outside foot. The reason they teach pedals level in berms is because you're generally not leaning the bike under you. The bike is perpendicular to the surface of the berm and your pedals again end up level to the surface you're on.

Pedals level vs foot dropped should not really be an argument. The issue is when someone is dogmatic about it, where they say you do it this way every time. If you watch good coaches like Lawton and Cathro you'll start to realize footwork is a fluid tool not set positions. You should get to a point where you're not picking a position to set your feet in when cornering.

Also, the idea that dropping the outside foot puts the weight in the right place isn't really true. The weight is going to be wherever the contact patch is. Doesn't matter where your feet are. If the tire is leaned over onto the cornering knobs then that's where the weight is regardless of footwork.

 

[SouthSoundRider]

I hate threads with title like this, it's
just more clickbait. what controversy ? you like just making stuff up for a stupid thread ?

corner how you want w/o pedal strikes is the only rule.

Well...it is becoming controversial here in this thread

 

[wolfmw]

did you read what I wrote?

yeah man, I read what you wrote and agree with (almost) all of it. I'm simply providing MY opinion based on MY observations and experiences in response to the OP's question:

So why does so much advice say to corner with the pedals level?

You can disagree, I don't mind. But arguing about it is more fun!