Hey all, I'm looking for help with berms. I usually stick to XC-ish trails with the occasional drop, but I've wandered into more aggressive trails with more technical features. Usually, one of two things happen:

1. I'm too upright and lose grip, sliding down the berm

2. I lean, but I'm forced to put a foot down when it feels like I'm going to fall. Nonetheless, I find it difficult to be comfortable leaning too much.

One thing that I've found myself doing when my speed isn't quite high enough is to lean the bike while keeping my body relatively upright. But this feels strange, and I'm not sure it's the right thing to do.

Anyone have useful tips?

you could try:

1) elbows up

2) weight outside pedal

3) lean the bike more than your actual body

hope this helps, because it is more for motocross!

mx

Hit it FAST. Faster than you think you can. The berm will help you out A LOT. I'm also assuming you're riding flats (because you mentioned putting a foot down when you felt like you were going to fall). If you have that safety net just get a good run up and hit it. You'll feel it when you stick it.

Practice is probably the best thing. If you practice on a pump track or somewhere like that though be careful when you actually get out on the trail. Pay attention to where your front tire is going if the berm is going downhill. You don't want to fly off the top because the berm drops out from underneath you.

The only problem with trying to keep your body upright like you mentioned is that it sounds like that would lead to more problems feeling like you're leaning too far. If you're upright you'll be pushing down on the bike from the side almost trying to push it over, you want to be in line with the berm and pushing INTO the berm. Keep your head upright to watch where you're going but make sure that at least most of your force is going straight into the surface of the berm, not down on the handlebars from the side. Hope that helps... good luck.

Ben,

I'm going to ammend MX's advice slightly: Lean with the bike. Sometime you can even lean yourself more than the bike, like on flat, loose corners; but you and the bike should be in line with each other. This centers your weight force through the frame. If you lean the bike and sit upright atop it, it will have a tendency to want to spit the tires out from under you.

Check this photo sequence. Elbows out, weighting the bars, body centered in the cockpit, and you can draw a line through bike and torso:

Dminor just wanted to show off and look fast. Which he is, but pay no notice to him and smugfaggery.

dminor

looks like you're doing nearly what i said, naturally

look at your waist up in the second pic. your upper body is not leaned as much. if it were in line your head would be over about another inch in the pic (closer to tree in back ground)...which would be much more than an inch in real life.

what do you think? do you know what i am talking about? i have seen it in pro motocross many times and done myself a lot as well. is it much different for bikes?

but doesn't it look like your bike is leaned more than your upper body in the pic? do you have another pic? hehehe

mx

ps nice elbows

Mx and Doug, thanks for your tips. I found a section of trail that has around 4 consecutive berms, so I'll go practice a bit...

i don't want to give you bad advice...much of mine is from motorcycles. i am assuming it is relatively the same. dminor can confirm.

one thing the pros have over you and i is the ability to make split second minor, or large, corrections as they go. this comes form experience. a pro could take a corner all sloppy, bad form, etc....and come out just fine because they will correct for any sliding out or whatever goes wrong where we might crash.

this is my opinion. focus on good elbow/arm form and often times weight the outside pedal (even if you are still sitting, that is fine). you don't want to practice bad form, but with experience, your body should fall into place.

i wouldn't over analyze it either. you'll learn to correct mid turn...

mx

I think Doug nailed it albeit with "smugfaggery". J-play....


Anyhow, I'll second the notion that you should just practice a bunch. Be wary of poorly built berms though. They'll

A) Not work well
or
B) Collapse when you ride them (Happened to me)

If I'm not totally in line, that might be bad form on my part It was a hard day to totally trust tires in that silty powder.

It should translate across from motorcycles too. Look at how heeled over we all were here (777 is me, Seattle Coliseum, ca. 1970). It's a matter of trusting your tires (and no berms here):



Once again, you can draw an imaginary line through our torsos and the centerline of the frame.


Or check out this old-school pro-MX berm form:



Or some new-skool form:



Also, go back and check Robert's (highrevs) shots of gastro and other guys killin' berms.

Back to the OP's problems. The issues you are describing are caused by not enough speed. Berms allow you go much faster around a corner, but you have to commit to it and do it. If you're going so slow that those 3 problems are occurring you shouldn't even be on the berm, but inside of it on flat ground. Just keep practicing with a little more speed. Good luck.

[QUOTE=dminor;7164904]If I'm not totally in line, that might be bad form on my part It was a hard day to totally trust tires in that silty powder.

It should translate across from motorcycles too. Look at how heeled over we all were here (777 is me, Seattle Coliseum, ca. 1970). It's a matter of trusting your tires (and no berms here):



Now thats a cool old school pic.

maybe i made it sound like more, but you can see what i meant in a lot of these pics. it can be more or less. kind of depends on how much the edge of the seat they are resting on.

the bigger question, how did i miss this zombie movie? i seen them all....hmmm two passions in one, motocross and zombies.

also, is stewart really having a perfect season?? crap, i was sure carmichaels record was going to last much longer. dang it

mx

dminor

is that a potato sack strapped to your boot??

mx

^^ - - Carpet. We all ran 'carpet shoes' instead of our normal steel shoes ("hot-shoes"), because it was waxed concrete. Though you see the one guy just ran duct tape on the toe and sole of his boot to help it slide.

Hot ticket that night for tires was to apply a liberal dose of wood rasp and a spray bottle of bleach too.

BTW, MX, I was looking at newer MX shots and you are right: there are alot of guys sitting a bit more upright on the corner edge of their seats. Wonder why the change?

i don't know, you have far more motorcycle experience across the ages of time than i do. i think it is being over analyzed in here, honestly. probably whatever balance point feels good at the moment.

i think the fundamentally important part to try and keep in the back of your mind is to generally weight the outside and the arm position...but even the arm positions can waiver a bit.

in your second pic of the series of three, i think your body is angled even more than one would first think. kind of an optical illusion. i can look at it and see why you say everything is in line. then i can look at it longer and clearly see there is some torsion going on and the angle from your thighs to torso is clearly bent. the shirt is puffed out a little on your left making it look straighter i think. i was trying to imagine the shot with your shirt off. i think a lean would be more obvious.

oops, now i am over analyzing!

i hope the OP is confused now

did anyone catch the zombie movie? i doubt my blockbuster has it

mx

i think we should join a motocross forum, i'd have to think of a good handle though.

MX599 I think the reason for being able to sit up a bit more confidently when belting out motorcross laps is because you have a bit more grunt than your own two feet to propel you out of the berm.

I think mtnbiker66 can breathe a sigh of relief as someone has stepped forward to take his place on the bromance rumour mill.

On a related topic, I got to ride an in-the-city trail (not my city, a town just east of me) built in a park as a short loop. There were a handful of berms including a huge one right at the bottom of a downhill portion and I intend to go back and hit them with a lot of what was mentioned here.

...

Seems to me like you're a little upright... but that guy behind you... number (?) 4L... he's about in line with it.

I love the spectator sitting directly above 4L's head.

lol.

wow.... thats old school...

38 years ago..
wow.

hey, i am not shy of my manhood. my bros are a stimulating part of my life. too bad you missed the threads on tight lycra, moose knuckle, applying chamois cream with your bro, how to videos, etc over at mtbr and rbr. good stuff.


let us know if you can tell a difference in any of the different positions. but don't try too hard or you might crash thinking about all the nonsense we just posted above!

mx

Im not confused, so he shouldn't be, LOL!

yeah, i don't know how much they're a like. i did just notice that honda crf's are coming with a steering damper and katoom's suck!

mx