Riding with dislocatable shoulders

/1 Comment/in , /by

Hi Lee, 

I recently dislocated my left shoulder for the 4th time (at age 30) mountain biking and am going through the process of looking into surgery or rehabilitation. 

I can across your blog post discussing handlebar width and could immediately sympathize with the issues you spoke about.

I was wondering if there was a follow up post relating to this research as I couldn’t track it down? I’m riding 800mm bars on both my bikes even though I’m only 5 foot 8.

Any advice would be much appreciated. I’m happy for you to post this on your blog and reply I just didn’t want to ask something which may have already been written about.

Cheers and keep up the good work, 

Andy

Read more

Pump track: sandy dirt for a wet climate

/1 Comment/in , , /by

Hi Lee,

I’m building a pump track in the PNW where the soil is essentially always wet. What do you think an ideal soil mix would be? Would 60% sand / 40% clay be a good balance? Could I go with even more sand?

Thanks!

Alex

Read more

Handlebar sweep and roll

/0 Comments/in , /by

Hi Lee,

I was wondering if you can comment on how handlebar roll affects hand and wrist position while riding. I had a coaching session with a local guy here and he rolled my bar upwards so that I effectively had more stack height. It immediately felt more comfortable, it seemed like the way the bar sweep worked with that angle put my wrists in a more comfortable position. I did not think about it too much until I stripped down my bike and forgot to mark the handle bar to put it back. Obviously the way you roll the bar will also change the reach and stack but do you have any rules of thumb for getting forearms and wrists are in a strong comfortable position. Or am I barking up the wrong tree here?

Jarred

Read more

Strength training on a RipRow?

/0 Comments/in , /by

Hi Lee

I am a female rider on the wrong side of 40 with total hip replacement and an arthritic left shoulder just rediscovering the trails again. I have discovered some massive imbalances and what let’s me down is not cardio ( easy to improve) but strength, mobility and skill- I’m looking at the RipRow as a functional tool to learn the movement patterns that I need to nail in safety and then build strength and speed into these movements with less overall impact than smashing trails ( and embedding poor form) and less dislocation risk than heavy deadlifts . My question is do you typically replace traditional strength training with this or would you use in addition to say deadlifts, KB swings etc and how would you incorporate workouts into a training block- ie have you experimented with different sessions targeting strength over speed and visa versa during day a training block and using these to achieve different outcomes?

Would love to know your thoughts.

By the way, i have your latest book and I keep rereading sections all the time. I am still a low intermediate but it’s certainly helped me progress a bit. Unfortunately, my brain steps still steps in and puts the brakes on far too often!

thanks
Anna

Read more

Formula for sweet drops

/0 Comments/in , /by

Hey Lee,

I enjoy reading through all of your articles on your site, I have a question though that I have yet to find an answer to.

Is there a formula or proper way to figure how many feet away “y” the landing should be from the end of a man made drop that is “x” feet tall? I know that it has many factors such as speed, form, huckability, etc but I was just looking for a general rule of thumb on if it’s best to be 1:2 ratio, or what.  (1’ height drop, landing 2’ from lip)

Thanks!

Jordon Mallett

Read more

Ellipses of Love

/0 Comments/in , /by

If you’ve been reading this site, you’ve heard me talking about rowing and anti-rowing and how, when you do a good job, your handlebars follow an elliptical path.

Basically, the taller the shape and the more leg action there is, the taller the ellipse. The flatter the shape and the less leg action there is, the flatter the ellipse.

Check this out:

Read more

Making tools to make rollers and berms sweet

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Our friend Liam made some cool tools to help him make his pump track parfect.

Check ’em out …

Read more

Pump tracks: simple is good

/3 Comments/in , , /by

Hi Lee

I thought I would get in touch and I hope you are doing ok in these difficult times.

I have been dreaming of a backyard pumptrack for a few years and with the coronavirus lockdown here in the UK I am trying to find the silver lining and so am planning a build!

I bought your great book Welcome to Pump Track Nation v2 and have taken to design package inkscape to try to plan out a track. I have a long but relatively narrow space which is on flat land and currently simple turf. I plan to bring in a mini digger but don’t have access to bring dirt in easily so will dig down to get the dirt and then put in drainage from the low points.

The design is attached and includes a simple oval with an s-bend berm in the middle and a mixture of simple rollers and a couple of bigger ones to try to give the chance for jumps – including in and out of the s-berm. The track will be used by myself (38 and a bmx/mtb rider since a teenager) and my two kids (11 and 5 yr olds).

It would be amazing to get any thoughts you have.

Thanks
Joel

Core training for mountain biking

/3 Comments/in , , , /by

Lee, I’ve been focused on legs strength and stamina. My legs are good now. My core feels like a bowl of jelly. What are some of the best exercises for building my core?

Read more

Dangerous jumping advice

/3 Comments/in , /by

Good video. Good teaching style. Great rider. Some dangerous advice.
Read more

7 common jumping mistakes according to Rich Drew

/6 Comments/in /by

Rich Drew is an MTB skills coach.

I think most of his tips are spot on.

Read more

Flying with a Trust fork

/0 Comments/in , /by

Hey Lee,

Have you ever flown with a trust fork?  Looking at it, it doesn’t look like it would fit into my bike bag so would complicate things for my trips to the mountains.  Any experience/ideas for plane travel with them?

Paul

Read more