Bad Technique

MountainPete

I've been mulling this over for quite a while now: people's perception of 'bad technique'.

Here's an example. You have SPDs, and rather than bunnyhopping over a fallen log (e.g. manualling over the front and scooping up the rear), you jump yourself, and pull the bike up into the air using your feet (mimicking your jump). Bunnyhopping is perhaps the 'proper' way, and the second is considered by some as bad technique. However, they both achieve the same result.

That's just the first thing that came into my head - I am sure that there are zillions of other examples.

So: if it works, why not? Discuss.

_Ferret_

can you do it on a mates bike?

I think having a good technique allows you to transfer your riding skills to different bikes or different conditions successfully.

People customise their bikes to take advantage of their specific riding technique. Flats or spds, tyre choice, HT or Fully...

Flexibility would be my definition of good riding technique...

scale20

Although there are text book techniques in the 'how to' sections in the mags, I think everyone adopts their own techniques when riding.

I can bunny hop but yeah, I use the spd's to get that little hop in if I need to.

Technique comes with riding, through getting out you soon learn and figure out what works for you.

richg1979

its all a load of crap, if it works for you then thats all that matters.

Anonymous

MountainPete wrote:

So: if it works, why not? Discuss.

i agree.

alot is made from peoples opinions of technique and skill. i dont see why it matters. as far as i know there isnt a bike riding test to make sure you achieve the correct level of finnesse and correct technique before riding on any given trail.

to that end, if someone uses spds to jump their bike because they always wear spds, why not? whats wrong with that technique? it allows that rider to tackle the terrain in front of them so in my opinion: its the right technique.

the same happens with the whole 'you should learn to ride on a ht' subject. i dont see why you should if you are going to end up on a fs at some point, why not learn the techniques required to get the best out of a fs straight away?

Anonymous

you shouldnt care and i dont se it as cheating, i see it as a dfferent technique which you prefer.

for example: when we are taught to drive, we are supposed to hold the steering wheel in a 10 to 2 position on the wheel and to pass the steering wheel hand to hand. it is rare to find someone who maintains this technique once they have passed their test. reason why? crossing your hands and holding the steering wheel in a different configuration is more comfortable, makes driving more enjoyable.

there arent any mtb police responsible for maintaining correct technique on britains trails, just do what you like.

skullthaw

well you would be f u c k e d if you didn't have spds on at the time or were on a hire bike for instance

good technique is a good thing to have albeit not essential

biff55

sheepsteeth wrote:

there arent any mtb police responsible for maintaining correct technique on britains trails, just do what you like.

the way this regulation obsessed country's going it wont be long.

dave_hill

richg1979 wrote:

its all a load of crap, if it works for you then thats all that matters.

Hear hear. Well said that man. Who give a flying f**k as long as your enjoying yourself. If anyone objects, poke them in the eye.

Northwind

You can hop higher and generally in more control if you do it "right", the SPD hop is very effective though. If you combine it with a "proper" bunnyhop I reckon you get the best of both worlds though. The SPD hop tends to be a fairly clumsy, high impact approach though, and you're throwing a lot of weight around so it's hard to do with precision- IMO it's harder to put any sort of turn into your hop this way, whereas with the "proper" hop your movements are more subtle and there's less muscle involved.

I reckon, personally, that if it gets the job done then it's all fine. Also, it's better to use the "wrong" technique well than the "right" technique badly, some of the tricks I use are pretty half-assed on paper and I wouldn't try and teach anyone else them but they work for me so why not?

But, sometimes it can bite you, frinstance for a long time I relied on a wee pump on the forks to help hop my front wheel but you can't always do that and when you can't, suddenly you're in bother. A lot of wrong techniques seem to work perfectly well right up til they don't.

Buckled_Rims

Good technique is far overrated. Don't get me wrong, if you can get the skill and have the time to practice, great. But when you work all week and have only the Sunday to go out and ride, then I'd rather enjoy myself then having to worry about this or that technique.

Northwind

Buckled_Rims wrote:

Good technique is far overrated. Don't get me wrong, if you can get the skill and have the time to practice, great. But when you work all week and have only the Sunday to go out and ride, then I'd rather enjoy myself then having to worry about this or that technique.

It's not so much worrying, often a bad technique gets you to the bottom but a good technique will let you do it faster, or in more control, or more safely.

I used this example in a full suss vs ht thread a while back but it works here too, there's a really nasty rooty descent near me, with lots of scooped out roots so it's very easy to hook up either wheel on a root and suddenly stop mid descent. On my Idrive, I can pretty much just get my weight back and smash over them- bad technique, but it works.

But, I rode it on my Soul and had to do a lot more weight work to get the rear wheel to climb out of the scoops. So, the technique that worked on the Idrive didn't work on the Soul.

But, the catch here is that if I then took the better technique which I used for the Soul, and used it on the Idrive, I got down in much more overall control, and had much more fun since I was less of a passenger, and was faster to boot (and less likely to ding a wheel or pinch)

So, the bad technique did work but that doesn't mean it's just as good as the good technique.

richg1979

who said it was correct anyway? wtf do they know? what if someone said the wrong technique was correct? :?

and bad techniques win races proper techniques just get you there in 1 peice more often.

doug@basqueMTB.com

I'm far from MTB police, just the opposite, I like to see people doing what they want, wearing what they want and on whatever bike they have :-)

Having said that I think that correct technique is invaluable. In the example that you give, a SPD hop will probably be great, but using a SPD hop you're in more danger of loosing your balance to either side because you're throwing your weight about more. Also it's very difficult to put a turn into the hop, if for example you want to hope the log and land nicely at a different angle to make a corner.

Not that I'm an expert or 'owt :-)

grumsta

None of it really matters unless you want it to.

Personally I am quite into trying to get as good as I can, and trying to learn to do some downhill/freeride type stuff - so trying to do it properly is probably a good plan to reduce the risks of hurting yourself.

I went from flats to SPDs then back to flats - I do find you can transfer your weight around a lot better with flats.

nferrar

'bad' ways of doing things usually don't scale or transfer well to other situations. I rely on my SPDs for bunny-hopping myself and don't have the motivation to learn it properly with flats but the downside is I can't bunny-hop nearly as higher as people that do it properly. Same with drop-offs I guess, if you just roll them and rely on luck rather than body positioning etc then once you go above a couple of foot you'll be in trouble.

RIP-MK3

i once tried a hop using the SPD technique, it was quite high and I really had to jump up. Unfortunately my feet disconnected from my pedals leaving me off the bike and in the air, I landed using my balls on the top tube followed by an endo (in my panic I grabbed the front brake!!! WTF lol) with my balls sliding down every cable holder cutting them to bits.

After that I decided to learn to bunny hop properly :oops:

richg1979

yep it can be dodgy after using and hoping with spd's then going back to flats, ive left my pedals while hoping and off jums forget that im not clipped in.

Graydawg

Sod technique, just batter your way down the trail and hope for the best! :P

freeride-mike

Graydawg wrote:

Sod technique, just batter your way down the trail and hope for the best! :P

just what i was thinking lol

_Ferret_

Graydawg wrote:

Sod technique, just batter your way down the trail and hope for the best! :P

+1
hell - that's what I do!