Light hands: It works, it really works!

Here’s a note from a stoked rider/reader.

Lee,

I was out hitting my jumps today, trying to work on two things, light hands after I leave the face of the jump and spotting my landing. I have been hitting the same jump sequence over and over until I do these two things as second nature as walking, well for some of us walking is tough too!

Upon for the first time today I was really starting to feel it, total weightlessness on my bars and nailing my landings but I also notice something else, how smooth the landings were, even if I went way past the tranny.

I proceeded to test this out and hit the jump sequence really fast and land past most of the landings, sure enough no biggie, felt smooth as can be, where as before, if I would have landed past the tranny with heavy hands, total violent landing.

It makes sense that everything stems from all the weight, 90% of the time, being over your pedals.

I thought anybody could rail a berm but holy, was I mistaken, I am hitting berms so hard now with light hands that I am causing my tire to rub the frame sometimes and when exiting the berm I used to come out like a breached whale, now, freakin manualing out of some turns, sweeeeeeet!

Thanks for such a great book, I wish I would have known some of this stuff when I was racing!

Right on!

I’m stoked to know you’re having fun — and that the book and site are helping.

One cool thing about mountain biking: the better you get, the better it gets.

Braaap!

— Lee