Mountain Biking - Friday treat - - All-mountain instructional video from Fabien Barel

Downhill champion and all-'round wizard Fabien Barel made this nice little instructional video on all-mountain riding that includes sections not only (of course) on cornering, braking, etc. but jumps and drops too. Nice in-a-nutshell that really could benefit any rider, IMO.

When you have a half-hour free to watch something, give it a spin:


http://vimeo.com/25176773


Side note: The helmet Fabien is wearing is an Urge Enduro-O-Matic. I love mine.

Timely post, thanks! I will ride an MTB on a trail tomorrow for the first time in over 5 years. I'm picking an easy, wide, trail, of course. Cornering was always my weak spot.

That is a good watch. How would one do a step up with a hardtail the best? Front wheel up, and just use momentum and lifting the back up wheel up?

Assume the attack position - squeeze the sphincter to prevent embarrassment and pray to the Bender god.

sweet tutorial. thanks. i just might learn to ride a bike one of these days.

That is a good watch. How would one do a step up with a hardtail the best? Front wheel up, and just use momentum and lifting the back up wheel up?Pretty much. Once the front wheel is up, shift your weight forward, pulling too with your forearms to rotate the bars forward and the back end will follow. About the only thing different with the move on a hardtail is that when you loft the front end, you don't get the loading on the rear end to help get any pop from the suspension as you shift your weight forward. But, really, you can do it all with weight-shift, chest and arms.

Assume the attack position - squeeze the sphincter to prevent embarrassment and pray to the Bender god.

:lol: Bender doesn't know anything about hardtails...our AllMountain fort that matter.

:lol: Bender doesn't know anything about hardtails...our AllMountain fort that matter.

This is the god of puckering up the anus, always good to have their favour.

I vote this a stickie, and mandatory for all posters with less than 100 posts. That taught this old dog how to improve some stuff. I've been cornering wrong for about 18 years.

It appears to me that the rider in the video was on a 26er on platform pedals, am I missing something?

^^..Good one =P


Pretty much. Once the front wheel is up, shift your weight forward, pulling too with your forearms to rotate the bars forward and the back end will follow. About the only thing different with the move on a hardtail is that when you loft the front end, you don't get the loading on the rear end to help get any pop from the suspension as you shift your weight forward. But, really, you can do it all with weight-shift, chest and arms.

Thanks! Pretty much what I've been doing with small ones..would be interesting to try some bigger ones like in the video.

Is there a way to pull the video back up? or does someone have a link?

Rear wheel goes up when the toes point down and you do the bucking Bronco kick backwards....then push the bars forward and voila'...bunny hop!

Is there a way to pull the video back up? or does someone have a link?If I can find another posting of it, I'll link it. Being full-length like it was, it was apparently copyrighted material from a DVD distributed my MBUK. May take some searching to find it again.

Title was "All-Mountain Biking Basic Skills"

Yes, please re-post, or PM it to me

check it out: Found the Fabian Barel Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVEh9Tby54g

i'm with daspydyr....this should be a stickie

That would be an awesome stickie. Especially being a newbie, that was definitely educational. Seems like I need to try a different approach to turning. I have a feeling that elbow up thing is gonna be weird at least at first.

Schweeeeeet...I downloaded it this time. Locked away for good.

So are we going to relabel this video "Fabien Barel: Blowing the lid off ATB rules and mythes."

Really only two things. His cornering technique seems to contradict about 75% of BFnetters recommendations. Ie: OS Elbow high, body straight up'n'down, OS pedal down, OS heel down, driving the edge of the tire into the dirt. My cornering technique is pretty sad, so I'm going to give it a go.

Second: How many times have you read about someone being ultra-pissed about people skidding all over the trail? "Don't lock up your rear wheel ya ******." I see it all the time on here. Watching our instructor, Mr. Barel seems to love skidding that rear wheel all over God's creation. I really don't care either way...deeper ruts and erosion equate to a more enjoyable ride for myself. I just don't want to hear people praising this video and hypocritically come back and say "Don't lock up your rear brake!".

I remember getting micro-flamed by somebody when I said I generally let my rear wheel hit the ground first on drops. Here in Midwest'ville...we don't have nice drops to trannys so my drops to flat are done "trials style" with the rear wheel hitting first and using the entire body as a shock abosorber. Fabien seemed to reinforce this technique. However...drops to trannys are done with the bike landing squarely. Push the bars down and follow the slope of the tranny. When I put that tidbit in the "techniques for new riders" sticky...I should have been more thorough as Fabien was describing two different techniques for two different drop situations. Kudos.

Hey, use whatever techniques work for you on the trannys.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bESGLojNYSo

Neither one of is was wrong. The scant amount of trannyd drops that are around here...I land with both wheels simultaneously. I just didn't specify that when I typed it a long time ago.


I'd most likely put Fabiens advice above anyone on the forums.


Lady Gaga? Seriously? Was that on purpose, or did you slip and fall on your keyboard?

Interesting to know that his corning technique does differ. So I'm not the only one who didn't do it that way before...

As for skidding his rear tire all over, I did notice they seemed to use that same slide about 14,000 times in the video. I don't remember if he did in other spots or not, but if you're counting each slide, most of it was the same one, either just shown multiple times or some of them from a different angle. I was like "Why the hell do they keep showing that shot over and over???"

There was more than one. Listening to him talk cracks me up. I'm just waiting for him to say...

"I will let you go, Ricky. But first, I want you to say..."I... love... crepes."

Lady Gaga? Seriously? Was that on purpose, or did you slip and fall on your keyboard?

Gaga is a tranny.