If I had to give just one piece of advice on how to ride a bike better it would be to look where you want to go.
The funky chicken is of course very important, and we must never forget to stay loose, but all these things don’t matter if we don’t remember to look where we want to go.
So ten years on we still ride our hardtails, but full suspension is bit comfier.
I’d like to think I’m a better rider – or maybe that’s just the suspension, but ten years of always looking ahead has made me pretty good at reading the trail and if I’ve learned anything its to expect the unexpected because that happens quite a lot when you ride a mountain bike.
A rock moves when you don’t expect it, a puddle might be a bit deeper, and the chain slips just when you don’t need it to – but keep looking where you want to go, and there’s a good chance you might just get there.
Read the path ahead, stay relaxed, smooth out your riding line, focus on the obstacles coming, not the obstacles that you are on, to give yourself more time to make smart decisions for the next thing on the path. Constantly having to react on a last second is something we try to avoid.
So look ahead.
