Step-by-Step Guide on How To Control Your Front Wheel
Learning to place the front wheel can be massively handy in lots of trail situations In this video, we’re gonna look at how to and where to use the technique.
The first step, what’s the technique involved when it comes to front-wheel control and placement Well, there’s two different approaches to it You can either go for the bouncing approach where you simply going the front wheel like that using the fork and both brakes locked out That’s probably quite a good starting point Now, the second approach is a far more considered and accurate technique when it comes to front wheel control, but it requires you mastering the track stand before you begin.
So, the technique involves using your hips, your brakes, and the fork to move direction Now, for example, If I want to move left from this situation, I’m bouncing the fork using the back brake and shifting my body to the left, and it means you can get far more leverage and distance on the front wheel Now, when you’re practicing front-wheel control, I suggest you do it on quite a hard surface to begin with, not deep soil or heavy loam because that’s really gonna hinder the movement of your back wheel So when you do it, you should get to a point where you get to enough confidence where you could do like 360 degrees in four, five or six movements Now if you’ve not quite mastered the front-wheel movement technique on your driveway, then a fire road is a great place to learn it.
And that’s because you can use the slopes on the sides of the trail, and when your bike is at an angle, it’s far easier to move that wheel off the bank than it is if you’re on the flat So where do you go, how do you progress, once you’ve mastered your front-wheel control? Well, you can actually use in conjunction with an endo or a rollback to get out of some ridiculously tight situations Now, I’m on the same bit of track I was on earlier, and you just simply do an endo first and then you combine it with your front-wheel hop Hopefully, I can do it And you kinda round in 180.
Now, front-wheel control is a really important skill to have on an E-bike particularly when you’re out on the trail because there’s a tendency on E-bikes for the motor to override and push you to the outside of the corner when you don’t need it So in that situation, you need to be able to move direction with the front wheel in an instant and change your direction onto the right course So, here’s your own man-made switchback and this is kind of what happens if you go too far. In front of me is a very simple situation where you use front-wheel control to change direction in quite a close environment Now I’m using the brakes, forks and hip movement to move my body and the bike in the direction of where I want to travel.
Now certain changes in gradient are a great place to use front-wheel placement to square a corner off so you’ve got the best approach to the steepest part of the bank So you need to kind of read the terrain as you get into it Stand there, have a look around, scope the terrain, and then go Now, here in this example, we’ve got a bit of a steep rock step mid-climb; however, on the inside, there’s a smoother line so you can come in, bounce the front wheel around and get up the smoother gradient So there you have it, front-wheel control, it’s a great technique to have on any part of the trail.
Make sure you practice both the bounce and the hip technique, and soon you will get up any climb in the world.