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Skills & riding tips

Rider offering advice on how to ride a balance beam

Improve your skills

There are skills areas at Mabie, Dalbeattie, Glentress, Kirroughtree and Newcastleton.  Each area has a different feel to it, so you can practise different techniques before taking to the trails. Mabie has a 'mini slab', you’ll find wicked Northshore at Newcastleton, everything from green to black grade skills at Dalbeattie, climbing challenges at Glentress and rocks galore at Kirroughtree.

Had any lessons? 

Would you go skiing without getting lessons?  Mountain biking is the same – the more you put into it to learn the correct techniques, the more you’ll get out of it.  If you really want to progress and improve, we recommend getting some skills training.

Practice your skills and techniques

The downloads below show you how to practice some of the main mountain biking techniques.  Seven of these are core techniques, and once you’ve mastered those, you can go on to perfect the rest.

The core techniques:

  1. The attack position (PDF 213k)
  2. Weighting and unweighting (PDF 485k)
  3. Trackstands (PDF 244kb)
  4. Manual front wheel lift (PDF 335k)
  5. Power assisted front wheel lift (PDF 234kb)
  6. Rear wheel lift (PDF 254k)
  7. Berms (PDF 297k)

Other useful skills to practice

Wallriding

Watch our video on how to ride the wallride at Glentress:

Safety in Groups

More accidents happen when you crash into your riding buddies than when you’re mastering the technical stuff.  Always leave a gap of at least five bike lengths between yourself and the rider in front before you shoot down the singletrack, and take care when riding in groups on the forest roads. 

More on safety

The video below, 'Mind yer heid' gives a good summary of tips for riding safely