How To Ride Hard Trails On A Hardtail

Do you struggle on trails like this? On a bike like this? Well, then, you're going to need to watch what's coming up. Let's go. I'm stoked, people. We're back in the woods and we're back on a hardtail. Now, we're going to be hitting Tekker's terrain today. When we got a full sus, you kind of got that get out of jail free card, if you like, of suspension out the back, which we don't have on a hardtail, of course. There's some real subtle and less subtle things that we can do to one, our riding style and technique and to our bike itself to make things more fun, more safe, more fast, and more smiles. First up, the bike. Kicking things off with tires. The only thing that should be touching the ground and on a hardtail, they're almost more important than ever. Now, I'm going to be talking mostly about an aggressive kind of hardtail here rather than an XC hardtail. When we're talking about something like this, I like to have essentially the largest tires that the frame is going to accommodate, certainly at the rear. On this bike, I think you can go up to a 2.8, but I'm running a 2.6-inch tire front and rear here. The reason for that is it's giving the largest contact patch to the ground. I'm also going to choose a tire with a pretty aggressive tread pattern, but also a really thick casing to it. These are Vittoria Mazza's in their Enduro casing, like I said, 2.6. What that thicker casing does is give you a little bit of reassurance that when you hit really rough terrain or really square edges that you're not going to get pinch punctures or you're not going to pinch the tire, potentially slicing or cutting it, or damage the rim. Now, I'll combo this with, yes, you guessed it, inserts as well, but actually, I only run an insert on the rear. Because the rear is taking the majority of the impact, because again, no suspension, having that extra security, that extra damping within the tire of an insert, a Vittoria Airliner in this instance, also, again, helps protect the wheel and tire combo. It's all well and good, obviously, having a thicker casing tire or running inserts, but your pressures make a really big difference as well. I actually drop my pressures slightly lower on a hardtail compared to, say, on my Enduro bike to about 21 on the back PSI, bars on screen now, and 19 PSI up front. The reason for this is I know that we're going down in pressure, so you think, oh, Rich, you're going to get pinch punctures or whatever, but actually, because the speeds in that are slightly slower, I always think, in my brain anyway, it makes sense that the forces of that impact are slightly lessened as well compared to the speeds and the forces that I'd be putting through the same wheel and tire combo on an Enduro bike. Plus, it does give you a slightly softer tire for better grip. Suspension-wise, it's actually a similar affair to the tire conundrum. I actually run my suspension a little bit softer on a hardtail, and it's because, again, I'm not putting the same really harsh forces and speeds that I would on an Enduro bike or any other kind of full sus for that matter, so I drop the pressure ever so slightly. For example, in this, I'm running 75 PSI and two tokens. On my Enduro bike, I might up that to four tokens and about 80 PSI, so definitely having it a little bit firmer and so that it ramps up more as well. However, having said that, if you're getting really wild on the hardtail and you'll find that you're blowing through that travel, this is obviously entirely subjective as to what and how you're riding, you may want to actually firm it up so that you're not just smashing through that travel all the time. Generally, I would aim at going a little bit softer and that'll make your ride a little bit more comfortable. Lastly, let's talk about pedal choice. Pedal choice is always a bit of a contentious one when it comes to hardtail. There's the four clips and there's the four flats. Flats are great, especially for learning certain techniques for beginners and for having a lot of fun on. However, we're talking about tech terrain, we're talking about speed, we're talking about roughness, we're talking about how things get really fast and wild. I just don't think you can beat clips when it comes to this. A clip pedal is going to give you really good control and ability to stick to the bike. It's going to eliminate the worry of your feet bouncing and jumping about the place and it's going to allow you to concentrate as much as you can on the trail ahead. Now, don't get me wrong, this is quite tricky, obviously, if you're a beginner transitioning over to clippy pedals and it is going to be a learning curve, a learning process taken to that, but I think once you stick with it, once you get the knack of it, you'll find that actually once things get steeper, faster, and rougher, the clip pedal will definitely be the winner. On that note then, I think it's probably time we headed on to the trail. Let's go. That's the bike checked out, then now what about a section? Well, normally in a how-to, we'd give you some do's and don'ts and things like that, but we're going to do things a bit differently today. We're going to actually check out a section and ride this Tekkers section on the hardtail and look at, so we say, the beginning, the middle, and the end, where to go, what to do, breaking points, and things like that, but first, we need to get to the top. Here we are then. I've chosen this section, well, because it's got a great mixture of riding essentially. It's pretty steep. You can see it's rutted, it's loose, it's wet today as well, which helps. It's rooty as heck in certain parts, and there's a good drop at the end that we've got to think about keeping speed for, so there's loads of different elements to this, which do make it pretty hard to ride normally, let alone in the wet, let alone on a hardtail. This is where our technical section is going to begin. Now, I should say leading into this is a couple of long, fairly mellow S-bends, which I think are fine regardless of how you hit them on either type of bike, full sus or hardtail. It's here where the magic happens, and actually, the beginning part of this segment leads already into a multiple line choice area. Now, if I come on down here a little bit and halt, we split into three lines here. Now, there are essentially a high, middle, and low, and I would say a hard, medium, and easy line. Each one's going to require different points of breaking, and they're going to give you different line choices out. Actually, the speed you carry in, the speed you carry through, and the speed you carry out into the next part of our segment is going to change. I'm going to show you exactly what I would do and where I would do it on a hardtail compared to a full sus. As I said, our three lines consist of a really high line, so this is really high up on the rider's left here, a middle line, which runs straight the way through it as if you were going to that high line, but then essentially hopping over a few routes here onto a smoother patch down below, or this lower line down to rider's right, but that's essentially going to require making more turns, so you're going to have to slow down. If I was on a full sus, and it was dry especially, it'd be hammer that big high line that's going to open up the turn into the next segment of ours. Personally, I think on a hardtail, the best line through here is this middle line. It's coming out on the turn, straight lining all the way through it, hopping over a few of these routes. It does make the turn after slightly tighter, but marginally so, and so marginally that the speed you'll lose I don't think is really going to matter. On a hardtail, this high line up here, as you can see, I'm trying to teeter through it myself. It's so slippery and such a high consequence and chattery, and I think that's actually the main point here, is that on a hardtail, the back end sinking into all of these holes is going to make life so chattery and uncomfortable, I think that's actually going to slow you down more than carrying speed through the middle. Talking about speed then, well, if you were to take that low line, that one that adds turns if you like, you're going to need to scrub speed. Your braking point's going to get a little bit further back than where it needs to be. With this middle line, you can carry your speed all the way through, and because you're hopping over these routes, you can carry good pace into the next segment. You can actually then look at a braking point into the next segment because I think you'll be carrying so much pace. If you were coming into this really high line, your braking point would have to be slightly further back to really slow down and compose and set yourself up to go over these chunky routes. Talking about body position, well, it's going to be that attack position. Pedals levels, heels slightly dropped so you can push them into the bike and that there's force going back through them. Head up, eyes forward, looking at least two to three bike lengths ahead so you can anticipate what's coming up. Like I said, arms and knees also bent to absorb the impacts as well as your ass slightly over the saddle to stop you getting pitched forward. You're into the section now. There's no going back, but fear not just because you're on a hardtail, it doesn't mean that all is lost. Oh, no, it just means you're going to have to stay vigilant. That is where I'm going to go back to that body position comes in. Being in the attack, that ready position means that you're able to alter your riding style, alter your line, and move and shift your body weight around as and when needed at the moment's notice. If you were to ride really rigid, really tight, it makes it much more difficult to do that. Coming into this middle part of the trail, this is a prime example of where you really need to think that and dropping those heels. I'm going to hop back to that because dropping those heels really does help to keep that aggressive body position. As you come through that multiple line choice part that we just looked at, you then have this long, mellowish right-hander. Now, you need to think about breaking that. Ideally, it's a bit trickier because you don't want to break in the turn and lose momentum that way, but obviously, your breaking is very limited beforehand. You've got a very small breaking window that you need to think about before entering the corner. Then, like I said, we're faced with this root garden again. As we travel down here, essentially, you want to be really looking up, looking ahead, and picking the best line. There is two lines, and you're going to have to ride really diligently because you've got all these horrible polished roots. Look at this. If you catch something like that at the wrong angle, that's going to throw you all over the place. You're going to be looking ahead on that hardtail, making sure them heels are dropped, and also, you're going to be making sure that your core is really tight, but you're actually really nice and mobile on the bike so that your arms and legs can absorb all of those hits. It's really important to be able to do that to carry speed for this because the final part of our section is then coming out of this. You're going to let go of the brakes. As you come out of it, you come over these final roots, you'll let go of the brakes here and into our final section. The final section is actually what can be the scariest, but the simplest part of this. You let go of the brakes. This is where looking ahead is crucial because, look, we've got a jump or a drop, it's a gap at the end of it. You're going to come in, let go of the brakes. You're going to still be assuming that attack position, looking ahead, spotting your takeoff to begin with. Once you spot that, your gaze will then move further forwards to your landing where you'll sail off into the sunset, having ridden a real technical section on your hardtail to the applause of your friends. All right, that was pretty good. We made it all the way through that Tekker section on the trusty hardtail. How fun was that? Look, hopefully, you took some tips and tricks away from how I'd hit that section on a hardtail, maybe what you could apply to your own riding and get through them a little bit safer, but definitely smiling on the other side. We're done though. Let me know in the comments down below, would you like to see any more hardtail videos? What kind would you like to see? Maybe a bit of racing, maybe some challenges, bikepacking, you name it. This thing's primed and ready to do it. From me, from now, from the forest of Dean, I'll see you later, everybody.