SINGLE TRACK

Most riders love to ride single track, the problem is that to many riders take it to lightly, not paying enough attention to what approaches trying to go to fast were backing speed is not appropriate and scrubbing of speed where you should be gliding through the corner. The three main principles of single track are

• Look at what's coming up not just what's directly in front of your front wheel, if something approaches that requires you to look at it as you go over it, it is better to know 50 yards before you get to it rather than 2.

• An extension of the about but don't go into things to quick, judge the speed that you need before you get there, brake before you get there so that you can glide through the corner, scrubbing of speed in a corner losses your momentum and makes the bike harder to control.

• Stay relaxed, it is hard to react quickly if your arms and legs are rigid.

CORNERS

Cornering is a big subject in itself and I am not going to go into all aspects of cornering in this article. Judge the speed that you can manage the corner BEFORE you get there and coast through it, lean you bike into the corner and raise your inside leg so that the pedal in the inside of the corner is at the 12 o'clock position placing your weight on the outside pedal, this will help you clear any obstacles on the inside of the corner (it is to easy to get thrown by small branches or just the pedal catching the ground) and help your weight distribution, don't lift your butt from the saddle as you will make it to easy for the bike to wash out from under you. As you near the exit of the corner and the bike begins to straighten up start accelerating, this is the point were planing and being controlled gives you all that extra speed.

OBSTACLES

Pick if you are going to go round or over the object before you get there, hesitance is evil and causes you to crash into something totally different, as I've said before look ahead and plan what you are going to do before you get there (On single track remember that if you round something just because the front made it round does not mean that the back will). Remember that most obstacles look a lot worse that they actually are and can be simply rolled over, if in doubt stop roll you bike over the obstacle and see what happen.

If the obstacle is large help the front wheel over by giving a extra burst of power a few centimetres from the object and giving the handlebars a QUICK tug up and back, stay of the saddle until the rear wheel has cleared.