Uphill Biking Tips for Obstacles

Video Transcript

"When we're faced with obstacles when we're climbing, there's a couple different ways of dealing with them. One way is just speed. There's a root here, so I'm speeding up before I get to it so I don't have to put down a ton of force and power right in front of it. So I'll show you again in an even more exaggerated way what the difference is between going fast and going slow into something. I'm going to go into this with the same body position I had before, but slower, and it's going to be a lot harder to deal with. I hit that and my back wheel wants to stop, picks up my front wheel, and I just sort of stop. That little bit of extra speed, that's the key when you're climbing or descending or riding on flat ground. If you have a little bit of extra speed, it always makes things easier. You should always be looking far ahead, whether you're climbing or descending, as far as you can see. Like right now, if I was climbing this whole thing from that corner there, I'd be looking up there instead of looking right at this root. So I'll come through it again, using the appropriate amount of speed, as much as you can handle for a short little climb like this, and it will make it a heck of a lot easier to deal with. So I simply just rode right over it using the exact same technique I used earlier. I went right through it. Where if I had gone slower, I could have avoided the obstacle; the trail is wide enough. But for this particular demonstration, speed's really your friend."