Ride Skills - Technical Climbing
Queenstown MTB trails can have some pretty tight turns!
We’re going to take a look at an aspect of technical climbing in this article - uphill tight switchbacks.
It may not be the primary reason that we all go riding for, but getting better at climbing has loads of benefits. It’s frustrating when you have to stop & start after coming unstuck on a tricky section of a climb, especially with an elevated heart rate. With the advent of E-bikes, more riders are spending more time climbing - so why not get better at it?
Improving your success rate on tricky uphill sections will unlock more flow to your riding, improve your efficiency and brings about a refreshing new challenge. It’s amazing how many skills you can challenge and develop on an uphill tight corner, too - line choice and speed control are just some that we will look at.
Ultimately, you’ll get to the top of the hill quicker and with more energy for when gravity takes over.
Line Choice - Create Some Room.
Two climbing trails in Queenstown and Wanaka MTB locations, both with hard challenges to successfully make the turns.
Firstly, deliberately choosing where to place your tyres is critical for success.
Take the above pictures for a couple of hard examples (they are steep, I promise!) on grade 2 and grade 3 climbs (as of today’s date). The red zones are the realistic boundaries, the green lines are an ideal path for your front tyre, and the yellow arrows indicate the room that we have created for ourselves.
The main zone of opportunity is usually at the start of the turn. Entering wide early with your front wheel will:
Create time and space for you to co-ordinate your movements and search ahead.
Allow more space for your back wheel to ‘lag’ behind the front wheel on a safer line (at slow speeds they wont travel on the same path).
Spread out your turning movements, so you can do more of your turning earlier. In the first example, there’s a choke point late in the turn, so straightening up as you pass through here is key.
The outcome is that there is less chance of stalling out mid turn, because you’ve ‘manufactured’ a bigger turn radius. This also spreads out the gradient across the turn (avoiding late pinches) so you’ll be able to maintain smoother power through the pedals.
Older trail design parameters aren’t exactly friendly to those of us with big bikes with long wheel bases, so this becomes more important now than ever.
Speed Control
Adjust your speed to turn tighter
Just like a car, the slower you go the tighter you can turn.
Finding the ‘right’ speed is going to depend on how tight you need to turn. In the video above, my speed fluctuates through the turn - it gets slower when I need to turn more to avoid the bank, but then speeds up as I straighten up out of the turn.
Maintain, or increase your speed by pedaling - either full pedal strokes, or a ratcheting movement for really fine speed adjustments. Gear choices dictate how much speed is added, so its key to change gears before the turn. E bike power modes are important too - torque-sensitive modes (Bosch’s E-MTB mode, for example) tend to produce the best results for predictable power delivery.
If needed, reduce your speed by dragging the back brake. That will keep your front wheel free to track the ground and wont upset your stability. For E bikes, this is a good tactic to mitigate any unwanted surging through tight turns.
When adjusting or maintaining speed, try to do it smoothly - consistent momentum makes it easier to balance.
The bottom line? Speed control links in nicely with line choice - if you have created some room with your line, go a little slower to make the most out of it.
Body Position
Here’s an example of getting lower during the turn to engage more front wheel control and grip.
To remain stable and be able to balance better, there are a few things we can do with our body:
Keep the front wheel weighted - when it becomes too light, it will wander and be difficult to control. Drop your chest a little closer to the handlebars to mitigate this. With more weight on the front wheel, you’ll improve your stability through the turn.
If you have found more stability in your position, the next step is to relax! Stiffening up with your upper body reduces your muscles freedom to move. Stay mobile so you can balance when you need to - critical for success when things get really slow, and really tight. It can be a bit nerve-wracking slowly teetering along, but do you best to loosen up.
Look through the turn with your shoulders. Imagine your eyeballs are on your sternum, and you need to twist it to see ahead. This will encourage the bike to follow your lead through the turn.
The picture sequence above shows how I adjust my position throughout a slow tight turn. On entry (A) and exit (D), I am quite upright in my usual climbing position. I move lower when needed (B), to engage my tyres throughout the turn (C).
Purposeful Practice
This one is so easy to practice at home. This simple drill has incredible overlapping benefits in developing your balance, stability and co-ordination in your riding. It’s easy - set up some markers in a figure of 8. Practice riding around them, focusing on your line choice, speed and body position to achieve controlled, tight turns.
Further experiments to try:
Change direction of travel.
Create boundaries around the two markers. Adjust these boundaries to challenge your line choice - e.g experiment with wider/narrower boundaries on entry/exit.
Change gears - find which one suits different speeds.
Try ratcheting your cranks for really fine speed control.
Add gradient - do it uphill vs downhill to challenge speed control.
Slow race (without track stands) - Perfect if you have some competitive mates!
These MTB coaching articles are designed to unpack some of the riding theory behind improving your skill set on the bike. If you’re keen to get out there and give them a go, be mindful to choose appropriate terrain (something easy for you, often an open field is a good place to start) and be prepared to feel some funky new sensations as you ride. Feedback is key, so get some footage (or a coach) to guide your journey. These articles are in no way ‘absolute’. Our sport is dynamic and ever changing, so there will always be exceptions to some of these general concepts.
