Drop-Off MTB Skills Progression at Devil's Toenail Wetherby

Описание: Some Drops sessioning / progression at the Devil's Toenail Bike Park, Wetherby. If you saw my last drops session at Dalby Forest, you might remember that I wasn't particularly happy with what I was doing... This was filmed about a month and a half after that session.

I've been trying to work on drops since August 2019, and I was just not having much success between trying to keep the front wheel up by using a 'manual', and being scared. There are not a lot of places within reasonable distance (Yorkshire) that have a really good Drops area - the best are ones where there is a clear progression, and a clear run-out.
As a result, I've always been stuck somewhere in-between, which I find a horrible, jarring experience.

What I'm working on here is a more body-position based approach, where the idea is that a stable, strong structure is balanced more naturally, and provides better control. This also allows the front wheel to gain traction as soon as it touches the ground, so you can steer again... (comes in handy when there are corners or similar straight after a drop).

Arguably, you could say that this appears to be better suited for rollable drops, but I've seen it in action a few times on 'proper', non-rollable drops, and it's just a question of slowing the movements down as required.

What this does depend on though is a bit of momentum - you can't slow down as much as you can using a 'manual', but for me - this is no bad thing.

As I'm nervous (having had a few OTB moments in the past), I have a tendency to go too far back for small drop features - I'm slowly working on getting my weight more central so that I'll have more room to manoeuvre when I'm ready to tackle bigger drops. (Going too far back is apparently a common thing for beginners and riders coming back to the sport).

You'll see that as soon as I try to have both wheels off the ground, I revert back to that defensive, weight-back position, which really doesn't feel all that good!

If you are a beginner MTBer, or just getting into mountain biking, hopefully you'll be able to see that it is possible to improve, even if you may be a little anxious like me.
It's very much a process - keep working on it, even if you feel frustrated!