HOW TO CORNER with a Pro MTB Trainer! | Beginner MTB Sessions with Bryan

What's up guys, Jimmy from Mountain Bike Travel Review and we're back for another episode of Beginner Mountain Bike Sessions with Brian. That's me. If you guys haven't been following along, we are walking Brian through a bunch of beginner tutorials to make him a better, safer, and faster mountain biker. We've done everything from drops to manuals. Today we're going to talk about cornering. And I'm going to be honest with you, cornering isn't my strongest ability. So we decided to bring in a professional. Today we brought in Willem Cooper from Cycle Craft Fitness to walk us through some cornering techniques. Willem! What the hell are you doing, man? Just warming up, bro. All right, let's focus. All right, so now that we finally got Willem to pay attention, let's jump into this. I need to be out here with these bugs. I need my latte. Are you ready? Yeah. All right. All right, Willem, you're the coach this time, so it's all you. All right. So the most important thing on mountain biking in general, but especially in corners, is a good body position. We actually don't steer the bike with our hands. We steer the bike with our hips. So I'm going to go over a thing that I call the hands-off body check. And really what this is going to do is make sure that you're weighting your feet and you're not overweighting your hands. When you overweight your hands, you kind of give the handlebars too much input. So if you feel like you go into a corner and you push the front too much and you feel like you're sliding around, this is a really good thing for you to try to throw into your repertoire of things to warm up to ride. So first and foremost, what we're going to do is have you first do the static, and then we're going to do it literally while you're rolling. Stand up on your bike, neutral riding position. Your feet are going to be flat. So stand up like you're about to go down a hill. All right. So what I want you to try to do now is just let go of the handlebars for half a second. So see how you fell off the back? Right. What you want to do is bring your chest a little bit more forward. So bring your chest to about my hand. Your elbows are going to come up just a hair. And now try to let go. So you're a little bit more neutral. Right. Any sport, football, soccer, everyone's got an attack position where they're crouched down like this or like that or whatever they're trying to do for the sport. That's going to load up your feet. You're putting a ton of weight in your legs. Your legs are really where you want to put all your weight on your bike. Your legs are a bigger muscle. They're going to handle that load on a bike park run. Have you ever done a long downhill run and your hands just feel like they're stuck to the handlebars? A hundred percent. That's because you're hanging off the back of the bike. Yeah. Really what you want to do is bring your body forward and lower so that you're just resting on the handlebars and you're really weighting your feet. So real quick, we're going to try this again. So the next thing you want to do is see how you're pointing your toes? Yeah. You always want to have your heels down so that if you hit a rock, you can kind of soak it up and push into it. Try that again. Adjust real quick. Take your hands off. See how you're a little bit more balanced? Right. All right. Much better. Yeah. All right. So now what we're going to do is just pedal. Yeah. I want you to do that a couple times really quickly. You look so good. See how you keep falling back a little bit? Yeah. That would tell me you want to bring your hips lower and your chest down. There you go. See how you're more centered? Yeah. You do need to be centered forward. Generally, your chin is in line with the stem. Right. But with your feet being the primary balance point. You got the stance down. Willem, what's next? From here, we're going to work on the proper body position and how you put force into the bike around a flat corner. Have you ever skied before? Yeah. All right. So this is very similar to skiing. When you ski and you're doing a turn, you don't just turn the skis. You lean with your hips and you point your hip into the hillside. Really what you're doing is you're looking where you want to go and you're driving your hips into the hillside. If you look, I'm on the edges of my feet and I'm driving force into the ground. A flat corner is going to be very similar with dropping your feet. Sometimes you won't drop your feet. It depends on how quick you need to get through the other corner and the angle of it. But we're going to just go with dropping that foot and getting your body position proper through there. So we're going to take the first lesson we learned, which is getting that body position proper. And then I'm going to show you how to transfer through each direction. So let's start here. Let's do that hands-off body check. What I'd like you to do is bring your hip back just a little bit more and your chest closer. Okay, try that. You're probably a little bit too forward. No, pretty good. So we're going to turn to your left. What I want you to do is I won't drop you. You're going to drop that outside foot. Okay. And we're going to lean the bike. What I want you to work on is pretending like you're skiing. Okay. And you're putting that pressure into the ground. So as we drop, one of the things that you're doing really well is you're really pushing through your foot and your outside hand. That's going to be great for getting that traction into the ground. The one thing that you need to improve on is where are your hips pointing? They're pointing at me. The trail goes that way. So what you want to do is angle. Yes, perfect. So did you see how all of a sudden your center of gravity changed? Yeah, totally feels different. And you can really load the inside knobs. And if your bike were to slide out, you're able to push back. Right. Okay. So we're going to go back to center. Level your feet. Do the body check. So those elbows need to come up. Chest comes down. Feeling pretty good. Yeah. All right, off we go to the next direction. So drop that outside foot. Perfect. And again, yes, there you go. So you've got that outside weight there. You're pushing that hand and your eyes and hips are looking through the corner. Let's go back to center, right into the turn. Point your hips through. There it is. Good. All right, back to center. And we'll go right into the turn. Yeah. The only critique is you don't want to have this arm fully extended. You always want to have your joints soft. Good. That way you're able to respond to any terrain. Back to center. And just one more hands off body check. There you go. Perfect. All right. Now let's try this while you're riding. Oh, great. So first thing we're going to do is just focus on bike body separation. So do the body check. And then body check. There you go. Good. I'm going to have my excellent guy, Liam, show us how to get through the corner. Don't mess up, Liam. Yeah, I know, right? Do it. Do a body check before you drop in. Good. So he's got his body nice and neutral on the bike. See how you can hear his tires digging into the ground? Yep. And then every turn he's always looking for the next cone. So that's going to be really important is as you're going through the corner, your eyes and hips need to be looking for that next corner. When you get to that corner, look for the next corner. That's the hardest part is transitioning from one turn to the next. Right. If you watch him go through the corners, you'll see he gets to the corner, checks his body, gets to the corner, checks his body. You always want to go back to zero. Or centered. Okay. And he does a really good job with that. Don't be afraid to lean your bike over. Right. First and foremost, he's got pavement, so traction is not an issue. Secondly, leaning that bike over is going to actually help you stretch the bike out and snap it through a corner. I'm going to go through the corners and I'm going to go the steady speed, but I'm going to really exaggerate what I'm doing. Body check and keep your feet level until you're ready for the corner. Okay. Look through. Good. Look through. Whoa. Easy on the brakes. Eyes up. Elbows up. There you go. Oh. Keep looking through. Look for the next corner. Good. Oh. See how you went with your body, but not your bike. That's what we don't want to do. That's when it gets really difficult to keep traction. Don't be afraid of those side miles. And if you're doing that, getting lower, rechecking your body is going to give you that space to move the bike back and forth. Oh, man. There's so much to do. How are we doing? Old dog is learning some new tricks. He's a quick learner. He is. Look through. Eyes on this cone. Elbows up. Good. Look through. Now to the two cones. Look up. Good. All right. So now we're going to do a figure eight drill. What's really good about this is it forces you quickly to, because you're doing a figure eight, to transition between both corners. You can do this on your own. Just take a water bottle and a glove or whatever, and you can do these drills by yourself in the woods or in a parking lot. It's really easy. The thing that is going to be tricky for you, and it's going to force your eyes up, is one of the cones is always going to be moving. It's going to force you to get around that corner and be ready, and be ready to attack and adjust and look through. That's going to help you with your difficulties with turning to the right, because you don't have time to sit there, and you just got to get to the next corner. Right. So I'm going to use Liam real quick to show you the drill. I will be out of your way. Try to look through me if I'm in your way. So he always comes around, and you notice how his head is looking right for the corner. Do I have to do the wheelie in between, Sensei? You do not need to do the wheelie. This dude's got a couple less pounds than I got packing. Got this? We'll see. I'm going to try just with the cone. Don't get too insecure with his abilities. I've been coaching him once a week for over a year, so he's got a lot of time with me, plus he's a coach in training. So just to start, we're going to do the figure eights, just like Liam did. When you come into the corner, be looking for the next one. Get to center. Center. So we're taking all of these skills we did here, the body check skill, and we're just doing it in a figure eight quickly. Kind of throw a lot at you. You might get dizzy. If you get dizzy, obviously stop. That'd be a great cut when I drove right to the woods. Be like, Brian! If you start to really get good flow with it, I'll run in there and move the cone around. Oh, great. So don't worry about hitting me. Level up, level up. Exactly. So whenever you're ready, just start going through it. I'll give you some cues. Remember, body check. Don't let those habits come out. Get your body a little bit lower. Good. Your elbows are really extending. Your chest is high. Good. All right, now start looking for the next cone. See how you pull your head through a little bit earlier? Yep, there you go. And don't forget to steer with your hips. Point your hips where you want to go. All right, it's going to get a little trickier. Remember to look up. Eyes up. Look for the cone. You never know where it's going to be. Always be looking for this cone. All right, now look for that cone. Cone. Your eyes are way over here. Keep your eyes on the cone. Real tight, real tight. Whoa! That's too tight. Heavy feet, elbows up. Look through, look through. Look for the next cone. Even when you get a little frustrated, look at me. Point your hands. Now go to the cone. Now it's time to implement the real thing. We have Brian. We're going to see how Brian does in the real world. So in here, this is really tight corners. Very similar to the cone drills we were just doing in the parking lot. As you can see, it'll be slippery. It's flat. There's not a ton of support. So making sure your technique is on point is going to be extremely important through this. When I say eyes up, you're going to be looking for a specific area of a corner, which is usually the apex. And then when you're in the apex, you're looking for the next entrance. And then you're in that, and we'll work our way through it. One thing I want to make sure that you do is even if you mess up, ride all the way through that rock. The last thing you want to do is say you messed the first corner up and just stop and go, shoot, I messed it up. Right. You don't want to do that because you're teaching yourself, I made a mistake. That's it. I stopped. I don't care how many mistakes you make. Keep rolling right through the corner. That'll teach you a good habit of just moving forward, focusing forward on the trail or on the race course or whatever it is is always moving forward. Don't mess up, Liam. Mess up, bro. So for those of you that don't know, Brian got a new bike upgraded from his Niner to a Yeti SB150. So now he's on the real deal. He's got some serious suspension. This bike is a little more built for what he's doing. But so far, you're a fan? Oh, I love it. Great bike. I just got to be about it. You just got to be better? I got to be better. Yeah, I got to be better. You're pretty good. I got to be better. Yeah, you got to be better. Nice bike. He's got a good neutral position. Elbows are up. His eyes are looking through. So look where his eyes are. He's already at the exit of the corner. And see how he executes all the way through that rock. Don't stop here at the rock. Unless I'm laying on the ground. So as he was entering the corner, his eyes are up looking at the apex. As he got to the corner, he wasn't afraid to lean the bike and pointing his eyes and his hips through that corner. It's going to be really important to weight that outside foot and that outside arm. You have some varying terrain. You've got rocks and roots. That's why it's so important to have your pressure right on the bike. Get those tires to dig into the trail. Your bike is designed to get right over all this stuff. So as he's entering, if you watch his eyes, his eyes are here. Now his eyes are in the corner. And now they're moving on to the next corner. And it's where he's loading the bike as he's on top of it, tilting the bike as hard as he can and loading it into the ground. Brian's turn. Eyes here. Good. Look through. Stop. Back up. When you're rolling into it, just take that split second to just check your body. Make sure you're in neutral. Yeah. You have a tendency to kind of be high in your chest and straighten your arms. Yeah. Just remember, hip back, chest down. Good. Chest down. Look through. Good. Look through. Wrong side. All right. So this corner is giving you the most trouble. Can you tell me what you think you're doing wrong? That time I had the wrong pedal down. Yeah. Number one. And I'm just not setting. What did that force you to do? Because you had the inside pedal down. What's that doing? Transferring my weight incorrectly. Yeah. Your hips go to the outside. And then you kind of do that lean. Yeah. The biggest thing I want you to not be afraid to do is lean that bike over. Okay. Just make sure when you lean that bike over, you stay on top of it. Yeah. So you separate your body from the bike. Yeah. And you dig that bike in. Hips are pointing through. Your body's forcing your bike downwards. Okay. When you do this kind of thing. Yeah. It's forcing the bike that way. Right. And it gets really hard to try to turn that. Right. Just dab, bro. I think it's it. Eyes up. Body check. Look through. Keep your feet level. Steer with your hips. My tire definitely front hand came out. Yeah. So did you feel the tire slide? Yeah. But what happened? I just corrected it and go. Nothing happened because you had your body in the right position. Yeah. So when it slid, if you're hanging off the back and it slides, there's nothing you can do. But because you're starting to load the bike right, it slid. You just kept going where you were looking. Right. So that is showing you that you're starting to do it right. It's just getting comfortable and confident with really tipping the bike over. You're amazing, Brian. Amazing. Body check. Are you ready? Good. So if you can find a trail like this or even cone drills using a water bottle or a glove or something like that, this is something that even the best riders in the world are going to be doing a lot of. I have clients that have hit these exact corners probably a thousand or more times. You can actually fake fitness by having better technique on a ride. So you might have some really good fit friends, but if you can get through corners faster than them, they're not going to pull you as bad on the straights because you never let them get that far away. Cornering a mountain bike is easily the most important skill to learn before anything when you're riding because it forces you to have proper body position and it gets you really aware of the space you have with your bike from side to side and then eventually forward and back. Eyes up, breathe, pedal with purpose. When I coach Liam, these are the things that he takes away from the lesson. It's just a sticker with some sharpie in there. It's not a permanent thing on your bike. While you're learning, that's an excellent little hack you can do to remind yourself. Eyes up, attack position, whatever, steer with your hips, whatever you need to do. That's a good way to constantly give yourself reminders so that you don't go to bad habits. Basically, do all of that for the rest of your cycling life and you'll be a better rider. Oh, is that it? That's it. That's all you got to do. It's just everything I said. Solutions by Will. All right, guys. So that pretty much wraps it up for our how to corner video. Brian has come a long way since the start just today, and he's going to keep practicing and progressing. Huge thanks to Willem Cooper, owner of Cyclecraft Fitness and professional cycling coach. He is the one that got me to the point. So most of the footage that you're seeing through my other tutorials, I learned from Willem. I'm glad we were able to get him out here for a cornering video to help us out. So these videos are a great start. But again, if you really want to drill in and get into racing and more specifics, make sure you reach out to a coach, a trainer, someone that really knows all of the minute details and can walk you through the process in person. As always, thank you for following along. Make sure you subscribe, like, and comment if you like the videos and keep riding, guys. Subscribe to CCS. Put the icon right in Brian's face. Yeah. What's your Instagram, Brian? Regular MTB dude. Regular MTB dude? Yeah, regular MTB dude. That's super original. Go follow Brian. My wife's like, you're not going to become famous with that name. All right, everybody's got to shut up now. Cornering isn't my strongest ability. So Willem ruined the whole thing because he's not supposed to be in the video yet. Are we all in the video? Can you see? Uh, yeah. High five. What's up? Should I be in the middle? Yeah, you're. Yeah, you're the cream. You're the cream filling in the man sandwich. Oh, yeah.