Riding Tip: Track Standing On A Mountain Bike
Riding Tips | 198 | December 18, 2009 at 8:07 am
Track standing is one of the most important mountain bike skills you can have to become a better mountain biker. While it may look like a cool trick to test out in a parking lot in front of your friends, track standing is actually the crucial element of slow technical riding. The ability to stop your bike without having to get off will get you through some of the most technical terrain that you previously thought you would have never been able to ride.
Track standing is one of those skills that I frequently practice in my garage, at trailhead parking lots and during general social stops while riding. It vastly improves your balance and feel on the bike. Have you ever been in one of those situations where you were taking a tight switchback and dabbed? How about climbing a small section of rocks and your line got a little out of wack so you ended up un-clipping and throwing foot down? Riding in a group and someone slowed down ahead of you so you had to get off and walk? All of these situations can be ridable with the aid of the track standing skill.
The side effect to being able to track stand on your mountain bike is getting you just one step closer to you and your bike feeling like one unit that is working together instead of a tool you are working against. The more you can improve your balance on the mountain bike, the better riding you will have in all situations. Balance and the ability to shift your weight on the bike knowing the end result will make you a better rider in all aspects of riding.
So how do you track stand on your mountain bike?!
To help us out, the crew over at Bike Skills (bikeskills.com) hooked us up with a video that spells out proper track standing technique. Check it out.
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Tags: how to mountain bike, mountain biking, mountain biking tip, mountain biking tips, track stand
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Another benefit of being able to track stand well – snow riding.
Riding the trails while snow covered offers up a different kind of challenge, for riders of all skill levels.
If you live in an area of the country that snows during the winter, I encourage you to get out and ride! At first it will be difficult and you may get discouraged, even angry. But give it some time and if you're like me, you will relsih the challenge the powdery white snow has given you.
Coming full circle, having the ability to track stand will come in handy when you've come up on a simple climb but because there's snow on the trail, you may not be able to make it to the top unless you're able to track stand and search for the next best line.
who does this, on a trail ?
Great point Aaron. We don't have to worry too much about snow riding in Atlanta…at least not a lot of it. Thanks for adding that in!
Track stand is a wonderful skill to learn. I have honed it at red lights instead of beating traffic.
There are sections of climbs in my local trails that makes the rear slips easily during the wet season. Ability to track stand and hopping forward trial style has helped many a time which otherwise would have ended up with pushing the bike up. But basic tracking on flats is essential to do it well on rocky/ rooty slopes and my advice for upslopes is not to grab the front brakes
Wider rubbers with lower pressure makes the learning curve easier too.
As Robb pointed out in the article, the ability to track stand will help get through the slow, technical spots of your trail. You may not have to track stand if you can blow through whatever you are riding. However, there are countless types of trail obstacles that require this ability. Here in the midwest, it is mostly on man-made obstacles, like tall log piles, skinnys, etc, or rock formations. I can't tell you how many times having the ability to track stand helped me through the nasty stuff this year: Blue Mounds State Park in Mt. Horeb, WI, 24 Hours of 9 Mile in Wasau, WI, Landahl in Independence, MO…and that's not even considering last year's trip to Moab and Fruita!
+1!
Use it all the time!