Ali C

with static moves, the body needs to be relaxed. I see a lot of riders riding natural and the instinctive thing to do is to tense up, thats one of the worst things you can do. Being loose and flexy allows the bike to move about underneith you without making you fall off. Now that your (hopfully) riding relaxed you can work on your static moves. its nearly ALL in the body movments, if you want to jump somwhere you have to preload and throw your body there....its like throwing a rock, its not going to go far if you dont move your arm! throw your body and the bike will follow. also another tip. if your riding natural and the tyres slip, dont put your foot down straight away, keep on the bike. more often than not the slip will stop within a few inches and you can recover from it....I see a lot of beginners put their feet down for very minor slips. have fun practasing

try and get the oversized xtr gear cable, its exactly the same as bmx linear cables that dont compress except you can get it in longer lengths. I just use bog standard shimano inner cables.

for riding natural, the best training is simply to ride as much natural as possible. If you want to practise while not being able to get to natural I would reccomed getting your balance dialled, this can be done by ridding thin things, riding as slow as possible etc, anything you can think of that gets balance up. Its also worth learning front pivots in both directions, trackstanding with either foot forward (VERY handy) and trackstanding brakless by looking at any dimples/ledges/roots and leaning/resting the front wheel in them. That gives your hands chance to recover mid section and promotes great chaintension control. when riding natural, think about when to use your brakes....I see kids at comps with brakes fully locked wasting energy when they could just use one brake if on a downslope, or no brakes if on an upslope. Also get rear wheel control dialled by picking marks on the floor and landing on them, the more the better. I think those points really help to improve with natural riding.

out soon guys and well worth the wait!

pretty cool, some nice moves in there saw some nice hooks and stuff in the background, somthing for your next vid?

get well soon Ben

not till I have them dialled

I heard he had somthing to do with them, but I thought it was just a rumur.

Yeah, I am a bit worried about putting on un needed weight, but its basicly somthing for me to do if I dont get to ride, doing some weights will be better than doing nothing. Anyway, look at vince, I am sure he has used steroids, he's huge!

good lots of pasta, lots of veg, some meat. My breath is fishy from my daily cod liver iol tablet though Had 12 differnt types of veg for tea the other day!

I presume your getting pinches on gaps? If so then take a look at your technique. theres two ways to gap in my eyes. the 1st is the most common style that you see most riders doing....gapping from the edge (or a few inches back if you havnt quite dialled it yet) and getting lots of hight and landing at an angle. Thats a fine way to gap, pretty effective but not the kindest to rims and innertubes. the 2nd way is how some of the top riders do it (vince, kenny, stan etc) where instead of taking off at an angle, getting hight and landing at an angle, they take off, gap and land perfectly straight. Also instead of getting lots of hight, you let the bike stay flat (sometimes even go down!) and at the last moment bring it back up under you. that technique is awesome! The advantages are that its smoother as landing straight doesnt rim out. Also, when landing like that, its a lot easier to keep the move without wobbling all over the place. You land straight and precise. Stan can gap pretty huge and he hardly makes a noise, vince uses the same technique and he can go as big as anyone I have seen. Of course if you want to carry on being a basher, then a maxxis dual ply tyre and/or a dh tube (with talcum power between) will stop most flats (and weigh your bike down!)

I agree. Its funny seeing a convayor belt of riders doing a gap or tap, bit sad at the same time though.

cheers guys, very helpful. Mr Universe competition here I come (in my mind).

ok cool, thanks again. I think I might just get some quality weights and take it from there. I did talk to TRA a bit ago about the whole weights thing, but he takes it very seriously and had some good advice, but it was a bit too advanced/serious for me. I remember him doing the jumping with weights, thats where I got the impression plyometrics was with weights, but its useful to hear it can be done without.

seen some of these that seems like it would do that legs (like I was shown at the gym) but is it that sort of bench you were talking about where you wouldnt get the benefit of keebing balance and getting the core strength up?

very useful info, cheers. Thats kinda the impression I had with the balance thing but thats clarified it for me. I hadnt settled on a particular home gym yet, if they were worth getting I would ask for some opinions on models, but I was willing to spend roughly £200 (there seem to be lots in that price range). I am really not into the whole going to a gym, I got a membership to a local gym for my birthday in feb, it was ok, but I didnt like the whole having to spend ages getting ready with food and washing up stuff, driving there and then having the feeling of people watching you. I would much rather have somthing at home that I can do whenever I feel like it in private. I may get some standard freeweights (anything to look out for?) as I could do with getting my balance up too. Is there anything I can use in conjunction with weights to help with some exersises (leg moves?) ? Like I said I have a bit of space in my room to have somthing. Can plyometrics be done at home? I presume they involve jumping/rigerous movments? My floor might not like that

they would be good, but dont do the leg strength I am after. I am wanting to do plyometrics, but I have heard that first you need muscle, otherwise plyometrics is a bit wasted. at the moment I am on the endurence side of strength/power I think I got it off my parents as they were marathon runners (dads best was 2h.24 back int day). I weigh about a little over 10 stone last time I checked and am 5 11, so a bit more muscle would be handy before I go all plyometric on my ass.

its winter (booo!) and as such I am not riding quite as much, especially since doing my ankle in. I am wanting to keep fit over the winter to get me ready for the UCI comps next year, I feel I am already lagging behind. I was tempted to join a gym, but work will use up most of my time and I dont fancy late nights and high costs of gym membership. I have seen on ebay some home gym machines that have multible training positions on them. I think that would be perfect for me, I have a fairly large bedroom that could fit one in and I can listen to music/watch tv as I do it (I tend to get a little bored otherwise). Now! My question is this....are those machines actually any good in the real world? I am wanting better overall strength (especially in the legs for more powerful runups) and power. I think I saw somwhere that these machines do a better job of making your muscles look bigger, but free weights actually give better strength. I am not fond of free weights as I find them difficult to use/loose balence or generally use them wrong. Plus I wont be sitting down like on a home gym and wont be able to watch tv/dvds etc. What do you fitness buffs recken? a home gym would be better than me doing nothing right? a quick answer would be cool as I am wanting to buy one soon (tonight maybe, but I could wait a day)

I have had brakes freeze during a ride before. That was untill I got vee brakes

definatly an inspired!

can happen when a bolt isnt quite done up enough or a frame flexes. The problems start when the crack spreads thurther down and onto the bearing race, thats bad. You can either ride it and keep checking it, replace the axle or get an engineer to make a new end up (seen it done before)

windy up here today!

I dont give a dam what make my clothes are or what hairstyle I have, I am a lazy b*****d who cant be bothered to put any effort into how I look.

it will!!

back cowm quarry is on tong lane. Lee Mill quarry is north of back cowm actually in bacup itself, so pretty close to you!