Four Things That Can Assist You In Breaking Your Bad MTB Habits

Even the most skilled motorcyclists might fall into poor habits. Once you've reached a certain degree of riding proficiency, it's easy to become complacent. As a result, there is less emphasis on technique, which allows for the development of undesirable habits. Riders can be prone to undesirable MTB habits such as improper body position on the bike or poor line choices. It might be difficult to stop these behaviors once they have formed.

I developed a nasty habit after switching from hardtails to full suspension bikes, which I only recently noticed. I'm still working on it, but I've discovered four things that are assisting me in breaking my terrible habit.

Identify the bad habit you need to break

On my bike, I noticed I had a bad riding stance, especially on descents. I wasn't quite high enough out of the saddle, so my thighs grasped the seat post as I descended. Because my seat was smacking my back end and my legs were constraining the movement of the bike, the bumps were accentuated rather than reduced by my legs, technical descents were more difficult than they should have been.

I knew something wasn't right, but I didn't figure out what it was until my riding partner filmed me descending while riding behind me. After seeing the video, he immediately noticed my issue. I could start to stop the negative habit I had created now that I knew what I was doing wrong.

Allow a skilled rider or MTB skills coach to instruct you on proper technique.

I have the good fortune of riding alongside someone who has over 40 years of bike and motocross expertise and was taught excellent methods at a young age. He serves as my skills coach, and every time we bike together, he willingly offers me pointers and advise. He explained the proper body position to me and showed it for me once he identified out what I was doing incorrectly while descending. Now that I've learned how to position myself appropriately on my bike, I can put it into practice.

Practice, practice, practice

Regrettably, there are no quick fixes for undesirable habits. Once I had mastered the proper method for descending, I needed to keep practicing until it became second nature to me to utilize the correct approach every time. I didn't pick up the bad habit overnight, and I didn't expect to break it any faster. It's a tedious and time-consuming procedure, but perseverance will pay off in the end.

If you use a bike computer on a daily basis, do yourself a favor and stop using it while you work on correcting your technique and breaking a negative mountain biking habit. Because you're concentrating on technique rather than speed, your speed and ride times will naturally suffer during this time. Obsessing about ostensibly poor results is fruitless, and it may lead you to abandon the process before you've succeeded in breaking the old habit. You can resume using the bike computer once you've mastered the proper method. There's a good chance you'll see significant improvements in your time and speed.

Make use of reminders, no matter how foolish they may appear, to assist you in breaking the negative behavior.

Taping a message to yourself on the top tube of your bike or repeating a phrase while riding can help to maintain good behaviors and prevent negative habits from returning. I've even seen a video of a biker singing while riding as a reminder to keep things in perspective. These concepts may appear unusual or even strange, yet they work for the riders who employ them. While descending, I've started repeating the phrase "hang free" to myself so that I remember to keep the proper body stance. It works for me and improves my rides.

It may take some time, but bad MTB behaviors can be broken.

Breaking poor MTB behaviors is a time-consuming and effort-intensive process. Just take your time. Keep in mind that you established the negative behavior over time, therefore you won't be able to break it overnight. However, if you stick to the process and use these recommendations, you can finally break the bad habit and improve your riding skills.