[BelaySlave]

One of my buddies for the life of him cannot keep his bike going straight when climbing. It doesn't matter the pitch of the trail. Gradual incline, he is still zig-zagging. Steep, he is still zig-zagging. Anything in between he is zig-zagging.

One of his problems is that he really doesn't look in front of him down the trail. His vision is focused on a foot or two in front of his tire.

He is on a Kona Dawg something so he sits pretty upright on his bike.

Any ideas of what else I can teach him?

Mahalo!

Nick

 

[pk3]

I just started mountain biking and I catch myself doing the same thing. When I look down I lose momentum and zig zag and have a hard time getting thru obstacles. Its night and day when I look further down the trail. I know its a confidence and skill thing with me. I'm interested to hear what others will tell you but Ill tell you what Ive been doing.

When I find a part of the trail that I have difficulties with I run it a few times. Each time I run thru it gets a little easier. I try to not move on until I do it successfully. I find that if I struggle thru a part of the trail and just "get by" it, I perform just as poorly the next time I run into something similar. But if I work on issues as they arise, I work thru them and have more confidence the next time I see them.

Hope that helps. Its not much but its working for me.

~pk3

 

[DesertDave]

Look ahead

I think that looking ahead a little bit of distance will help the most. I start wobbling when I look at my tire rotate.

 

[david101372]

When climbing long gradual climbs, I sometimes grab my handlebars close to the stem. This lessons the leverage you apply to them while your struggling to pedal.

 

[AlliKat]

learn to spin in circles too

 

[Eric Hoefer]

Yeah keeping a constant pedal stroke (spinnging) instead of just hammering down with each downstroke (mashing) makes the path of the bike much smoother I have found.