Mountain biking – training with a winning formula
Christian Bang from MTB Teknik explains how Mountain biking can be a great supplement in your daily training.
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To maintain your training in the off-season, you have the possibility of adding new and different routines to your scheme. Dragging your mountain bike off to the woods is a nice opportunity to get fine hours of training in the saddle. And as a bonus you will become a better and faster cyclist!
Sitting on your road bike in the winter weather can be an experience of mixed emotions. The weather is often more of a foe than a friend, and the moist and cold can make your training less than funny.
But in the woods the winter weather is not a bother and there are also a few extra bonuses when riding your bike where it doesn’t roll easy and almost by it self. Where it takes skills to get by obstacles on narrow winding tracks.
These skills will help you to even better and more efficient training, when it really gets hot and your efforts on the bike will improve, thus your bike split will be faster than ever before. This is due to especially 5 circumstances.
Swinging technique:
Short, narrow turns and high speed turns – especially when you are going downhill causes problems for many riders. On a mountain bike you are forced to sharpen your senses and ability to read turns correctly and time your speed and position to secure grip and momentum all the way trough the turn.
Braking technique:
To know how to dose your braking power correctly and the timing of it is essential for safe and efficient riding – whether it is on the road or in the woods. On your mountain bike you will use your bakes more often than on your road bike, and you will get an even better sense of how and when to brake. In the woods this awareness makes the difference between crash and success – on the road you can exchange improved braking skills in minutes on a route with many turns.
Balance:
You have to get a feeling as if your mountain bike is part of you, if you are to steer it safely around the woods and the challenges you’ll meet on the single tracks. On the road bike this will give you a secure and confident feeling that will make you dare to ride your bike as fast and safe as ever before.
Gear Shifting:
Underestimating the importance of riding the right gear for the right speed and terrain is unfortunately very common. Many tend to ride far too heavy gears and wear them self down even before they start running. Training on a mountain bike in rough terrain with steep sections you will not be able to keep momentum or even get up, if you choose the wrong gear. This will bring you the awareness of choosing light gears on the road and be a more efficient runner.
Awareness of your position on the bike:
On your TT bike a relaxed and efficient position is crucial. It often takes lots of testing to find the exact position, and many don’t bother to experiment with the fine nuances, that might do the difference for them. The constant changing of your position on the bike when mountain biking will increase and sharpen your awareness of when you are feeling right and strong in the saddle. This might be the tool that will make your testing easier and less complicated.
Apart from these 5 themes mountain biking will give you the pleasure of a fun different experience, and add nature as a part of your training. This will fuel your energy and appetite for your normal training scheme, when it really gets cracking.
Further more there is the strength and cardio bonus from training in rough terrain:
More and steeper ascents than you usually meet when riding your road bike, contributes strength wise to a good physical platform. Likewise, the mountain bike riding style – many explosions, interval- or fartlek-like riding will make your season start perfect.
And finally: mountain biking is fun! Your winter training will be a whole different story and much more durable!
Have fun!
