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prom candy posted:What's the best way to take advantage of my dropper post if I'm riding trails that aren't just straight descents? The system that's close to my house has a lot of ups and downs, should I just be dropping the seat for the descending bits and then rising it back up for climbs? Or should I be keeping it down pretty much the whole time? If you aren't seated and pedaling, the seat doesn't need to be there. So why keep it there? It doesn't have to be a steep downhill for the seat not being in the way to be relevant. Hope you like doing squats
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Jun 19, 2023 17:00
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Yeah a lower seat is useful for corners on flat ground, rougher sections of trail, going over some sort of an obstacle like a root or small log etc. Whenever the trail is rougher or you're moving at higher speed and not pedaling you should generally be standing on the pedals and not sitting on the seat. Anyhow had a nice weekend of mountain bikes      
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Jun 19, 2023 17:10
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Horizontal Tree posted:Hope you like doing squats Nope but I also play hockey so happy for any cross-sport synergy I can get! jamal posted:Yeah a lower seat is useful for corners on flat ground, rougher sections of trail, going over some sort of an obstacle like a root or small log etc. Whenever the trail is rougher or you're moving at higher speed and not pedaling you should generally be standing on the pedals and not sitting on the seat. drat! Where is this? Those are great shots
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Jun 19, 2023 17:42
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I really wish you'd gotten the Alma for pics like this.
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Jun 19, 2023 19:44
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prom candy posted:What's the best way to take advantage of my dropper post if I'm riding trails that aren't just straight descents? The system that's close to my house has a lot of ups and downs, should I just be dropping the seat for the descending bits and then rising it back up for climbs? Or should I be keeping it down pretty much the whole time? If you started riding without a dropper before you got one, even if you come from road or gravel riding, the first few times riding with the seat down are really weird. If you're like me it's because you've gotten used to having the seat pressed (or braced) against your thigh on one side or the other as you go downhill. It just takes time to get used to that feeling of having the seat out of the way. You'll get used to it and you'll be amazed what the bike can do when it's not trying to throw you over the handlebars on steep tech.
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Jun 21, 2023 01:01
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There is a discord where goons talk about bikes. https://discord.gg/7P3gzXR I hope that invite link works.
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Jun 22, 2023 06:13
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I was sick as hell last week when the weather was beautiful and now I feel great and it's super rainy. I got out for a short gravel ride yesterday at least and got to at least practice riding in the attack and neutral positions. My neighbourhood is hilly so even though it's just pavement I also practiced getting used to riding downhill with some speed with my seat dropped and in attack position. It's not always easy for me to find time to ride to an actual trail but it's really easy for me to get to some mixed use paths and fields in my neighbourhood where I can at least practice skills. I'm wondering what kind of stuff I should be focusing on. I was thinking learning how to manual would probably be super useful for getting my front wheel on to stuff. Is that a good place to start or is there other stuff that I should be working on when I'm not riding actual trails?
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Jun 26, 2023 15:53
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Manuals can be useful sometimes but usually you don't even need to know how to manual for more than a second or two to be able to do drops and things. I'd say the best skill to practice is cornering. Pick up some cheap cones or just sticks or whatever you have, and practice bike-body separation, leaning the bike, pointing the body where you want to go etc. look up some cornering technique videos on youtube to get started.
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Jun 26, 2023 16:02
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+1 corning. It's the most used skill to get better at and probably the hardest for me at least. Practice drops just going off curbs and landing both wheels at the same time. Go up curbs and practice pulling up the front wheel, then practice getting the rear wheel up without hitting. Combine and learn to bunny hop. Even small hops will help get over roots and junk on trail.
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Jun 26, 2023 16:22
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When I first got into mountain biking, everyone I met on the local trails always said that one day when I felt comfortable i'd have to check out jarrods place. it's about 90 minutes away, and is a set of pure downhill trails with a shuttle running to bring you and your bike back up. Yesterday, I went! And funnily enough, went with a dude who happened to be old buddies with Jarrod, so we spent the entire day riding with him and chatting about his plans and what it's like maintaining the park. Super fun day. It's sick as hell. Definitely tested my limits a bit - but I rode air supply and got both wheels off the ground by a couple inches. That was the only black run I did, it's super wide, smooth, and all the jumps can be rolled. I was the only person there on a hardtail, and almost everyone had an e-bike too. Definitely felt the lack of full suspension. Heard the extra weight of the e-bike really helps some of the sketchier downhill trails... might have to get one in a couple years.  The view from the top.  Mountain biking is fun as hell.
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Jun 26, 2023 21:25
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That looks super awesome
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Jun 26, 2023 23:19
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+1 to cornering skills, a gentle grassy hill and a set of cones to provide some structure is all you need for some very effective practice. I think rather than learning to manual specifically, learning to lift the front and rear wheel separately and combining those into English hops and j hops is really valuable.
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Jun 26, 2023 23:40
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Just to ram it home. You should be working on cornering.
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Jun 27, 2023 11:23
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Echoing this. About 2 years into mtb I contacted a private coach and told them I wanted to work on jumping We ended up spending the first FOUR HOURS focused on cornering before we even touched the first jump and I'm so glad we did
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Jun 27, 2023 12:07
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So if I'm hearing the thread right I should be working on drops. Thanks all!
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Jun 27, 2023 17:43
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prom candy posted:So if I'm hearing the thread right I should be working on drops. Thanks all! Nah, backflips obviously.
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Jun 28, 2023 00:52
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I don't remember really working on cornering and I'm curious if people in the thread feel that it won't develop naturally with time on the bike? I'd sooner say practice whatever you really enjoy because that'll get you out on the bike the most and you'll pick up a decent level of skills in the other areas as you ride. It's all important!
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Jun 28, 2023 01:00
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Walked posted:Echoing this. About 2 years into mtb I contacted a private coach and told them I wanted to work on jumping My wife and I took a week long class and the first couple days were spent on cornering and positioning.
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Jun 28, 2023 14:31
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VelociBacon posted:I don't remember really working on cornering and I'm curious if people in the thread feel that it won't develop naturally with time on the bike? I found that to be true generally, although I’ll say that experience in car racing helped a lot with picking lines, knowing when to pedal hard and when to brake, et cetera and I do think a fair amount of that is unintuitive. Slow to go fast and all that.
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Jun 29, 2023 17:25
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Went to Spider Mountain with my buddy this weekend. It's atypical that I'm the most experienced rider in a group, but that was the case this time. I'm god-awful at berms. I spent all of my mental energy looking through berms and staying off the brakes. Still absolutely suck at them. I'm gonna take my SS hard tail and hit up the new pump track to work on these damned things.
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Jul 3, 2023 16:50
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Got out to Silver Star for my first park trip this year, exactly one year after I was last there. Super cool to see the difference a year makes, I took my first-ever jump lesson there last time out and stuff I was casing then I was overshooting the landing by like 15 ft this time. I’m going back in a couple weeks and I think I’m feeling ready to hit some of the black jump trails now that I can consistently clear or overshoot all the blues.
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Jul 4, 2023 03:20
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Any bikers in Texas in DFW area? New to MTBing and want to see what trails ya’ll would recommend.
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Jul 6, 2023 17:32
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PrivRyan posted:Any bikers in Texas in DFW area? New to MTBing and want to see what trails ya’ll would recommend. I've never ridden there but here's some basic info that may be helpful. There's a Facebook group 'Mountain Biking in DFW' and 'DORBA Group' (Dallas off-road bicycle association, they've also got a website). In case you don't do Facebook, I see this list of the 'best' posted a bunch when people ask: Cedar Hill State Park Northshore Horseshoe Boulder Knob Hills park Best may mean technical or challenging, but there's probably a good mix wherever you end up. Trailforks app can be helpful for determining trail difficulty and prevent getting lost.
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Jul 6, 2023 18:48
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Man “difficulty” can really vary. I was in Kelowna, BC a few weeks ago and a Blue was “start in a 30 degree descent in a rut filled with loose shale that leads directly to a 20 foot gap jump.” I ended up going down that mountain mostly on the road. All that Trailforks had on it was status updates like “yep pretty average condition for this time of year.” Went to Banff the next week and Blue was “there are roots and rocks in the trail and some steep dips and climbs, and there are flat single track sections next to an exposed cliff.”
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Jul 6, 2023 18:55
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Like skiing, trail ratings are relative to everything else in the area rather than absolute. There's not much riding in Banff, and their trail ratings are set by Parks Canada with your average tourist on a rental bike in mind so... yeah. Star Wars and Topp Notch are great fun, otherwise you're better off heading towards Canmore.
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Jul 6, 2023 19:29
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I rode my bike today it was great.
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Jul 6, 2023 20:45
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yoohoo posted:I rode my bike today it was great. Nice.  I fell over and bruised my knee and butt Tuesday but I think I'm good to ride tonight. As a new rider I'm equally grateful and frustrated to hear that trail ratings are spot-specific and subjective. It gives me hope that not everything is like what's in my backyard: green trails are billiard table flat single track and blues are not too bad except for the rocky ravines of doom you have to traverse every half mile.
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Jul 6, 2023 21:59
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Boys who love boys
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Some places might reevaluate their trails occasionally too. I picked up riding again a couple years ago and rode a trail that was listed as blue and thought I'd never be able to ride anything harder than that cos I was having an insanely difficult time. Last year it got reevaluated to red, and this year they bumped it up again to black 
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Jul 6, 2023 22:25
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It's also fun when we name the trails a color that doesn't match the difficulty. In Houston, we don't have super hard trails, but "Green trail" at memorial park is one of the more difficult trails for the region..
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Jul 6, 2023 22:34
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Anyone have any recommendations for a free standing vertical bike rack that'll fit fat MTB tires?
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Jul 8, 2023 14:40
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How many bikes? I've been happy with my Steadyracks, but you would have to sink a post somewhere if you don't have a wall already.
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Jul 8, 2023 15:25
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I'm on vacation in Moab with some family including my sister and her two kids. Her 13 yo son is kind of into mountain biking so somehow it was decided that the four of us should rent bikes and go mountain biking but really my nephew, despite apparently thinking that he's really good at mountain biking, normally only wants to bike downhill at places where there's a lift (and he's used to New England so it's totally different from slickrock) so it kind of turned into a complete clusterfuck where the other kid gave up 2 minutes in and went back to the trailhead and drove off with my sister and I was stuck going on with my nephew who has like zero endurance and hates to actually have to pedal on flat surfaces got tired almost immediately and I had to constantly be like "it's only x more miles" to get him to keep going and walk as necessary (eventually turning into me walking holding both bikes so he would keep walking) until we could get to a place where we could cut back to the road so we could finish the ride intact before it started to be like 100 loving degrees out. Dunno if he had a good time (probably not) but I had fun modulo some possible minor child endangerment that was in no way my fault andd I've finally decided to buy a (crappy hardtail) mountain bike
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Jul 8, 2023 19:50
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On vacation to Moab in the middle of summer 
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Jul 8, 2023 20:01
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I had no involvement in planning any of that lol
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Jul 8, 2023 20:08
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Riven posted:Man “difficulty” can really vary. I was in Kelowna, BC a few weeks ago and a Blue was “start in a 30 degree descent in a rut filled with loose shale that leads directly to a 20 foot gap jump.” I ended up going down that mountain mostly on the road. Yeah I find this a little frustrating - some black runs are wide, smooth, with no gaps - if you check your speed and dont get the wheels off the ground, they're basically a green. Then some blues are a loving nightmare. I posted above about going to jarrods place - air supply, a black run, was the most pleasant and least challenging run, including the greens and blues.
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Jul 8, 2023 21:22
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Air supply on the shore also a casual and relaxing black.
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Jul 8, 2023 22:45
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Nocheez posted:How many bikes? I've been happy with my Steadyracks, but you would have to sink a post somewhere if you don't have a wall already. Two bikes. Was hoping for something freestanding
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Jul 9, 2023 01:46
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I went to a downhill park this weekend for the first time, it was amazing fun!   Don't have many pics, mainly gopro footage. But its all upside down and needs fixing so thats gonna take a few days. Definitely showed me which of my skills need work. I stacked on the berms a few times, but I mainly do trail riding through the forest so there's not many of them around locally to practice on. And the jump track was tremendous fun, fully addicted to that one even if I wasn't getting that much air. Gonna try head back in a few weeks and get a coaching session while I'm there, it's got its hooks in me
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Jul 9, 2023 21:56
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Do mountain bike helmets come with removable visors these days? My one helmet needs replacing and I'd like to use it for street riding and mountain too, but its realllllly nice to have an old school cyclist's cap on while on the street. The tight fit lets it block rain and sun (or both) depending on the season. My ideal helmet would let me swap between the visor for offroad, and cap for on road. I did some cursory research but it doesn't seem like any helmets have that feature.
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Jul 22, 2023 21:55
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oXDemosthenesXo posted:Do mountain bike helmets come with removable visors these days? The Specialized MIPS one recommended by the VT Beam site does.
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Jul 23, 2023 00:36
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