BEGINNER MISTAKES - STAND & DELIVER

Sitting down may feel safer but the opposite is true, and its faster too

- PAUL BURWELL

I talked previously about how we get the kids in our Trail Academy school clubs to ride with their feet level. Once they’ve mastered that, which can take longer than you think, we then get them to stand up. If you are sat down in the saddle you can’t absorb bumps with your legs and arms, shift your weight forward onto the front wheel to enhance grip, or even use your hips to pivot in a turn.

To be fair, sitting down does lower your centre of gravity, but to actually make the bike go where you want, you have to be dynamic, and the only way to do that is to vary your body position. It’s not a surprise that one of the heaviest bits of our bodies is the bum, so if we can unglue this from the saddle then we have a good chance of deciding where the bike is going to go, not the other way round.