Mountain biking and just biking in general can be a lot of fun to do. If you learn a few more interesting and slightly more challenging techniques to compliment your riding, you can not only increase your performance quite a bit, but also, you can add a lot more fun to your riding. There are a lot of fun useful tricks that you can learn. One simple trick that can often come in handy while you are out riding is called a manual. Doing a manual can actually prove to be very useful for a variety of things. Whenever you encounter a small obstacle that you think might be too long to jump over like a large puddle or even a small patch of rocky ground, you can do this simple trick to cross the area without being thrown off balance or getting splashed with muddy water. Once you learn how to do it well, you can continue a manual for a pretty long amount of time. heli skiing bc

1 Approach

When it comes to doing a manual (or any biking trick) the trick itself begins before you do it. You should start off by approaching with an adequate amount of speed and have your good foot in the forward position. Have your pedals level and remember to keep your fingers ready by resting them on your rear brake.

2 Prepare

When you feel you are at a comfortable speed focus ahead and give the front suspension a little bounce as you shift your weight back, while pulling up and back hard on the handlebars. Aim to nearly sit on the rear tyre. The rear axle is your pivot point, so get behind that. Remember the back brake is your best friend in this manoeuvre.

3 Weight movement/brake

The most important part of the manual is weight position and brake modulation – it’s a very fine balance. When I manual I tend to have my hands in line with my shoulders and my feet always pushing forwards while balancing it out with the pull of my arms. pointing my feet up at 45 degrees.

4 Brake

The rear brake will always save you from looping out and lying on your back. Don’t grab at your brake – learn to feather it and only use it if you feel like you are going to loop out. Sit on your bike stationary and put it on the rear wheel, raise the front end until you feel the back wheel wanting to roll out from underneath you – this is the sweet spot that your bike needs to be in to do the manual.

5 Pump, riding out of the manual

Once you have the bike sat in the manual get used to pumping it along with your arms and legs, pushing the bike forwards and learning when to lay off the brake to increase your speed, and when to add some brake if it all starts getting out of shape. heli skiing bc canada