The sweetest trails and riding spots
A perfect day
Today I shared DH shuttle rides with a bunch of dudes in the hills above Florence, Italy. Them: No English. Me: No Italian. But we did reach a consensus.
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Sweet left turn at Valmont Bike Park
The Valmont Bike Park trail crew has been doing great work maintaining and refining the park.
The last left turn on the dual slalom course was tight, inconsistent and flat. Now it’s wider, smoother and steeper.
Check out this video of an early test run. Easy flow!
Big is so very relative
The week I finally conquered Valmont Bike Park’s Whale Tail — so STOKED! — the Colorado Freeride Festival went down, and, well, so much for thinking I’m rad.
Doing long intervals on the pump track
Chris in Australia is doing the Pump Up the Base training program, and he’s working in some pump track action, but he wants to know how he can maintain pump for the long intervals.
A gentlemanly pump track riding critique
When I moved to the East San Francisco Bay area in 1993, Gregory was the first person to befriend me and take me riding. Let’s see if I can return the favor.
These tips will apply for most pump track riders.
BMX skills session at Valmont Bike Park
I’m excited to announce a special skills session focused on skills for BMX and gated racing. April 20. $100. Be there!
Alex Willie interview on VitalMTB
Our friend, training partner and pupil Alex Willie is on his way to MTB stardom.
The junior national downhill champion and I have been training hard this winter, and he’s ready for an awesome season in the U.S. and at select World Cups.
Go Alex!
Check out the VitalMTB photos and interview: Exclusive Interview: Alex Willie, U.S. Junior National Downhill Champion
Some of our adventures:
Off season training begins
Alex Willie wins national DH championship
Pinning the DH with Alex Willie
7:1 and stoked
Rocking with the SMBA monkeys – The first time we rode together. August, 2008.
 Alex and I have been working with Erin Carson at RallySport Health and Fitness in Boulder, and she’s making us strong like bull. |
Know more. Have more fun!
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Hopping frontsides
Hey Lee — just read the post Are you pumping too hard?. Great post. It brought up a question for me too.
I just got BMX Skills and read the pump chapter and it got me thinking about trying to hop frontsides altogether since I hadn’t really thought about doing that before. Instead I’ve been trying to absorb them in most/all situations and stay in as much control as possible, which is tough at high speeds.
So I’ve given it a little practice on a couple different pump tracks and haven’t been very successful. On both of these tracks the rollers are fairly close together and it feels like there’s not enough space/time to hop the frontside and like my fork is already compressing into the next roller when I’m trying to hop. Am I just not going fast enough? Is it something where pulling the bike towards me on frontsides will eventually turn into hopping them naturally? Or is this technique better suited for tracks that are a little more wideopen or on the trail when there’s space to set up? Or do I just need to practice more, haha.
One last question: is it always faster to hop the frontside if you can (excluding the suspension issue)?
Sorry for all the questions. Any more detail on this technique in general would be awesome!!
Ps. Got the MTB book for my cousin for Xmas. He has recently got into riding and I know this will get him Riding and hooked…now i’ll have a partner in crime on holidays 🙂
Allen
Pump Up the Base for a BMXer?
Lee,
I was browsing your site and saw the book and training program Pump Up the Base. It looks like it is predominantly geared towards MTB but I was wondering if it might be something that I could use for my winter BMX training? From the outline that I’ve read and some of the example pages and the comments it may be useful for some basic skills work on just about any type of riding. I do not ride MTB and I’m a novice in BMX so I also wanted to make sure that it would be something that I could apply to my sport as well.
Thank you,
John V
Jumping straight
Lee,
When I am jumping my bmx bike I have a tendency to get off balance in the air if I try and push the face of the jump. If I do not push the face of the jump and just let my momentum carry me off the lip I fly straight as an arrow, but I would like to continue to build speed off the lip and also go a little further to clear some of the larger jumps. I am not not sure if I am to tight on take off, or if I am pushing to late on the jump face, etc. Any suggestions on what I might be doing wrong?
If I can get this together I may see you at Colorado Indoor BMX this year. Thanks.
Greg
Big bikes are rad, and here’s why
Lately Mike Levy at Pinkbike and I (Big suspension and big sine waves) have told you that downhill bikes are too unwieldy and gnarly for average riders. That most of us are best served by mid-travel bikes. Well, that might be true, but let’s look at the opposite side of the travel chip: