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Advanced weight shifting..
As you start tearing through sections of radical terrain at high speed, you begin to realise that most of the slow speed weight shifting techniques work well when your riding flat out. The knack of the weight shift is to stay loose, were not talking stoned here, just loose enough to let your legs and arms absorb the trail bumps. Move about on the bike, back and forth, hovering over the saddle, to absorb the lifts and drops in the trail. Side to side moment can be used to twitch the bike through technical tight rocky sections.
Another DH and BMX technique is the ability to pump the trail, this technique can however, be applied to any riding style, in order to squeeze all the speed out of a section of trail. If your on a trail rolling over lots of dips and humps, you want to be going as fast as if the trail was flat. As you ride the dips, let the bike drop but keep your back as flat as you can, extending your arms and legs type of thing. As you go over the humps you want to lift the bike under you. Stand up over the dips and bumps, arms and legs bent to absorb the terrain. Pedal hard when you can and push the bars down and forward off the lips of bumps and through the dips. Stay as fluid as you can and you'll be surprised the turn of speed you can pump out. What your aiming to do is keep the bike on the ground as you ride over bumps that are trying their best to launch you skywards. You don't get 'good air' this way but you'll get where your going hell of a lot quicker than the guys in the sky.
This is a how to ride fast technique. As you approach a potential launch site, un-weight the bike, stand high and let it rise up under you as you climb to the lip. Instead of heading to the clouds, push the bike back down as you go over the lip-drop so that you stay on the ground. (Top-Tip: Pedalling in the air doesn't make you go faster!). However, if you can jump, then pre-jump the bike before you reach the lip so that you land on the down side of the lip. This is good.
Article written by April 1999
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