The Secret Trick For Tight MTB Turns

Everyone wants to learn how to make super tight turns on their mountain bike, but this movement over the front wheel usually scares people away from trying it out. Today we're going to get past that fear by breaking this technique down into small, easy to learn elements that will make this skill much easier to pick up. And not only are we going to learn one skill to make tight turns, I'm going to teach you another trick at the end of this video for tight turns that doesn't involve the front wheel at all, which comes in handy for other scenarios on the trail, and it's a lot less intimidating to learn. My name is Aaron. Welcome to Super Rider. On this channel, we break down complex bike skills into easy to learn techniques that you can quickly apply to your riding. The name of the skill you're going to learn today is called the front wheel pivot. To quickly turn the bike around, we pivot over the front wheel with our back wheel doing the bulk of the movement. You can use this in a variety of different scenarios from tight turns to complete turnarounds, but the good news, it's actually a lot easier than it looks. Most riders struggle with this skill because they don't understand the order in which they need to perform the technique, so they never actually begin practicing it. For the riders who do understand the basics, the other common mistake they make is that they're trying to push the wheel in the wrong direction, and that makes it super hard to learn. I'm going to help you get untangled here, and once you understand the elements, this trick is going to come together relatively easy for you. I mean, it'll be hopefully a lot clearer in your head, which is half the After that, you just need to put in some time to build it up. Another reason why you don't see this skill being used by many riders is that unlike some skills where you can instantly master it by fixing one thing or putting your body position in the right place, the front wheel pivot is a progressive skill. What I mean by that is expanding your range of movement only comes with practice. We're going to begin with small movements and slowly expand our comfort zone, which unlocks more and more movement. You might have seen me do giant pivots like this, but I didn't get here right away. While the basic technique is the exact same, whether I move one inch or one foot in either direction, my expanded comfort zone on the bike is the element that makes the real difference for how far I can rotate. This is probably a good thing, right? We want it to be easy to start, and then you can slowly push it from there. If I made you pop way up on your front wheel right out of the gate, I suspect that would make you extremely uncomfortable. So we're going to approach this technique from the smallest and easiest movements, then build from there. Let's talk about a few quick bike setup things, and then we'll move on to the technique. First, slam your seat down as low as it will go. Getting this out of the way will make it a lot easier to learn this skill. I also recommend learning this technique with flat pedals if at all possible. It's totally fine if you have clipless pedals, and the technique is the same no matter what pedals you have, but since we're going to be rocking up onto our front wheel and rotating the bike side to side, I think it's safest and best to run flat pedals when you're learning this skill, so you can quickly step off the bike if necessary. There's no requirement for a specific gear for this skill, but anytime I'm working on my flat ground skills, I'm usually in fourth or fifth gear. Also, make sure that your hands are as wide as possible on the handlebars, just using one finger for braking. This is going to give you the best control over the bike and the brakes, both of which are extremely necessary for this skill. Last thing before we get started, I'm going to teach two different variations of this skill. The rolling version, which I think is the easiest way to learn, and then the static version, which you can do from a standstill. We're also going to start learning to pivot toward our front foot, since it's the easiest to learn it that way, before we learn the opposite direction. And then after all that, I'll teach you the back wheel pivot, which also helps us with tight turns and doesn't require going up onto our front wheel. Let's get started with the first element of the front wheel pivot, the endo. This is a simple move to start practicing. The hard part is pushing your comfort zone with it. Start by rolling along slowly, then grabbing the front brake to stop your motion, which brings your back wheel off the ground. Let the wheel come off the ground naturally with the momentum, and bend your knees slightly to help guide the wheel up with control. Your chest should be over the handlebars or near the front of the bike if you're doing this right. We want our body weight to be forward so that the back wheel is unweighted and free to lift off the ground. Start small with the endo and back wheel lift, and then work your way up to get the wheel about one foot off the ground. The reason why we want to practice bringing the back wheel up higher is that when we eventually start pivoting, the higher we can lift our back wheel up, the further we can rotate while our back wheel is in the air. Spend the most time practicing this movement and getting comfortable up on the front wheel. Most people's biggest fear with this part is that they're going to flip over the bars, but the truth is your front wheel balance point is quite a bit further than you're going to need to go for this technique. You should be well within your range of movement without risking anything like that. Actually, the more you practice this, the more difficult it will be to go over the bars because you'll be expanding your comfort zone, so you get that as an added bonus. Here's a trick that I've found useful for building comfort over the front wheel. It's called the ET, and all you have to do is sneak in a quick pedal when you're up on the front wheel. Redirecting your brain to the motion of the pedals instead of the front wheel can redirect your mental energy so you're thinking about the pedals instead of being scared about flipping over the bars. As a bonus, the higher up you get on the front wheel, the easier this whole trick gets, so you can basically trick yourself into getting comfortable on the front wheel, or at the very least, it's less boring practicing this part over and over. Another thing that helps a lot of people learn this skill is filming themselves with their phone. Set your phone up to capture your movement and watch what your body and bike are doing between each attempt. You'll be able to spot what you're doing right and wrong and then adjust accordingly. The common mistake riders make is that they think they're moving more than they actually are on the bike. Most people, including me, have a hard time understanding what we're actually doing on the bike, but when you see it, you'll instantly know. This is a great way to speed up your progression with just about any skill. I can't recommend it enough. Okay, next up, we're going to add in a twist to what we've been practicing so far. As we initiate the endo movement, we're going to quickly twist the front wheel about 45 degrees away from our forward foot. I need to repeat that last part because a lot of people mess this part up and it's the most important element. Turn your handlebars away from your front foot. So basically, as you grab your front brake, twist the handlebars at the same time. This sets off the motion with your body and bike to create movement in your back wheel. Remember to keep your weight forward like you did with the endo. Think about pushing your momentum on the front wheel with your hips and shoulders and use your back foot to help guide the back wheel around. That's a lot happening at once. Your first attempt at this might be scary because we're mentally conditioned not to make sharp turns on our bike while we're rolling. You don't really need much speed at all to make this happen, but also realize that your first attempt is not going to move too much. It might still just feel like an endo at first with no real pivot happening. Focus on getting the first four or five attempts out of the way and before you know it, you'll get a little bit more comfortable with this twisting movement. The further and faster you twist that front wheel, the easier your pivot movement is going to get. Add in a little higher back wheel lift and the pivot gets even bigger. Aim to get just a one inch pivot to start and then your task is to increase the size of the movement one inch at a time. The same technique will work from the smallest pivot to the largest one. The only real difference is how much you exaggerate the movement, which only comes with practice. If you ever feel like you're getting stuck with this skill, go back to that basic endo we started with and push your comfort zone a little bit more. The height of your back wheel lift will give your back wheel more time in the air to pivot. You'll notice that we've just been focusing on pivoting in one direction so far. That's on purpose. Pushing the back wheel into place during the pivot with our back foot is helpful, and when we pivot in the opposite direction, we don't have that ability. So one way is always going to be easier than the other, but once you have the basic style, it's a lot easier to learn the opposite direction. When you start feeling confident with your main pivot direction, feel free to experiment with the other direction. Everything else should be the same. Twist your front wheel in the opposite direction you want the back wheel to go, and then lead with your hips and shoulders to pivot the back wheel into place. One last tiny tweak that you can make to this technique will be the release of your brakes as the back wheel lands. One thing that can be kind of tricky with rotating the bike around like this is your side-to-side balance once both wheels are back on the ground. I find that when my back wheel lands without the brakes on, that little roll that I get seems to help me rebalance the bike. If I land the back wheel and my brakes are still on, sometimes I feel like I might need another small pivot to adjust to keep my balance, depending on how far I just pivoted. You might wait until you get the basic feel for pivots before you add in this braking element, but it's something to think about as you get more comfortable with the skill. Okay, so that's the easy version. We're rolling along on flat ground and got the basic pivot done, but what if you're on a trail rolling super slow or even stopped in place? This is exactly why I always teach track stands with your front wheel facing away from your front foot. If you learned it that way from me or anyone else, you're stoked right now. And if you didn't, that's okay too. You can still get the job done. Also, if you're watching this and you can't track stand, I'm going to put a link in the video to that tutorial. We'll get you balancing like this in no time. The reason I teach track stands with your front wheel facing away from your front foot is to perfectly set you up for front wheel pivots. If you can stand here and balance the bike with your front wheel facing away, all you really need to do is grab the front brake and lean forward to start the pivot. You basically already learned the first half of the trick without realizing it, but for those of you who learned to track stand with your front wheel facing into your front foot, no worries at all. In fact, this might actually help you create an even more powerful pivot. Remember when we first learned the skill, that front wheel twist away from the front foot created the momentum to move the back of the bike. You're going to be swapping the direction of the front wheel almost an entire 180 degrees. And since you're already balanced, you could create some serious momentum here with that twist. Whichever way you track stand, there are a few modifications to really get the pivot moving for you. Here's how to get it done. First, over-exaggerate your movement on the bike, especially the movement of your body from the back of the bike to the front of the bike. Since we're not carrying momentum, we need to create it with our body movement. When I'm switching from a track stand to a pivot, I grab the front brake as I'm making the shift to the bike. That way, all the momentum goes into the front wheel, which should help bring the back wheel up. I sort of think of this phase like a slingshot. I quickly lean back, then push all my weight forward, leading with my hips and shoulders forward and slightly into the direction that I want to pivot. With the front wheel turned already, all my momentum and energy is going into the pivot. If you can pedal scoop, which is pushing backwards and up on the pedals, add that into the mix as well. That will help unweight the back wheel, and then you have even better control guiding the pivot. The same thing applies here as the rolling version. You're going to have to start off small and work your way up to bigger pivots over time. If you can already track stand with a fair bit of confidence, this version of the front wheel pivot might actually be the easier way to learn it, since you can start with that front wheel twisted. But I'll leave that one up to you. If you want to try out a drill that will completely lock in front wheel pivots for you, try the clock's drill. Lock in your front brake, put your body weight forward, and try to pivot that back wheel around in a full 360. Challenge yourself and see how many pivots it takes you to get the back wheel around the entire clock. This is one of my favorite ways to get a ton of repetition in with the skill. Okay, as promised, let's talk about the other way to make super tight turns on the bike. This other variation is the back wheel pivot, and it comes in handy in different scenarios on the From watching this video, you already understand how your position on the bike can unweight the wheel and allow it to move, and the back wheel pivot is no different. The first thing we need to quickly learn is how to unweight the front wheel. This means that we'll need to get our body weight, and more specifically our hips, behind the bottom bracket of the bike. This makes the front wheel super light and helps it lift off the ground. You can practice this just rolling along, shifting to the back of the bike to bring the front wheel slightly off the ground. When you have command of this movement, we can apply it to the pivot motion. To try the back wheel pivot, slow to a stop with both brakes. As you unweight the front wheel by pulling your weight to the back of the bike, twist your front wheel in the direction you want to go and pull your knee away from the top tube of the bike to help move the bike in that direction. You'll create a pivot on the back wheel and the front wheel should move. I find it easiest to pivot in the direction of my back foot because I feel like I can really lean my hips into my back foot in this movement, but you're welcome to try both ways to see which one is more comfortable to start with. One thing I suggest if you're having trouble is creating a little extra twist in the front wheel. While you're stopped, first twist your front wheel in the opposite direction, then twist it back the way you want to go. That extra rotation you've created will help unlock the momentum you need to pivot the bike. If you're still feeling stuck, go back to filming yourself and see if you're far enough back on the bike. That's usually the culprit for most people that can't lift and move the front wheel. Just like we practiced with the front wheel pivot, a great drill for the back wheel pivot is the clock's drill. Roll to a stop and pivot your front wheel around in a circle. You might also realize that pivoting your wheels around like this is a great way to develop balance without having to track stand, especially when you hop it back and forth in one spot. That's another bonus from learning pivots with both your front and back wheel. With both the front and back wheel pivots locked in, you're basically unstoppable at tight turns, and you're likely going to find all sorts of other ways to incorporate this technique into your riding. These skills only get easier and more useful the more you work on them, and like I always say, practice makes progress.