Wobbly single track

Skills course won't do anything. Just practice.

There's a lot of technique, especially on loose, rooty or rocky stuff. You need to keep your weight forward enough to not go over backwards, but enough over the back to keep the wheel from spinning.
Unless you are just powering up a short slope, you also need to balance between stalling and spinning.
Smooth is good. And low gears.

JUst look ahead to where you want to be and don't concentrate on the front wheel.

May be your in to high a gear so each pedal stroke is a struggle which makes the bike weave each way.

As Cooldad says pick a lower gear and spin up with higher cadence. less struggle which each stock.

Just a thought

Nah don't do that, just learn to do it properly.

Make sure you're looking where you want to go not just in front of
Your wheel, you can't ride in a straight line looking down!

bennett_346 wrote:

Skills course won't do anything.

bennett_346 wrote:

just learn to do it properly.

Great bit of advice there...

I guess other issues might have an impact ... are you the right size for your bike for example? How high or low is your seatpost? (Ideally, for climbing, you want to be able to sit on the seat, with your legs almost, but not quite straight at the knee when the foot is at the bottom of the pedal stroke)

What is your bike? Is it a heavy, DH or heavy trails oriented bike with slack geometry? Such a bike would be great on the downs, but harder to climb with. It might be worth playing around with the spacers, rise / length of the stem (ie reduce number of spacers under the stem, use a lower angle and / or longer stem ... this will make it easier to shift your weight forward a bit to keep the front wheel planted, but will, of course, have an impact on your position on the bike for when you go down hill.

Do you have a decent fork that can absorb some of the bumps in the trail as you're climbing rather than get deflected by obstacles? What tyres are you running and at what pressure? if they're cheap tyres, or tyres that don't suit the conditions you ride, or pumped up too hard, then they'll slip and skip and not give you the necessary traction.

What pedals do you use? I prefer spd's anyway, but these can have a benefit if you're about to get stuck going up, as you can use a little bit of pulling power on the upstroke as well as pushing on the downstroke to get you through a particular obstacle.

It sounds like its more of a technique / fitness issue, but the above may be factors ...

I usually find that the things to concentrate on when climbing (which others have also advised) are:

- keep bum on saddle as much as possible, but also lean forward and use your upper body weight and arms to keep the handlebars planted. Sometimes you need to get out of the saddle to get some more power down, but the trade off may be lack of weight over the rear wheel, and therefore traction)

- try to power through the legs only, rather than using your arms / whole body to wrestle the bars about; this can unsettle the bike, and make it difficult to keep in the right direction;

- get in the right gear before the start of the climb ... too high, and needing to change down part way through can cause you too lose momentum. Too low and you might not carry enough speed to get your momentum going;

- look ahead, ie at where you want to go; try and anticipate the obstacles in your way ... some stuff you will have to steer round, other stuff you will learn to be able to ride over and still maintain a straight line.

if you focus on these, improve your fitness / strength, and keep practising, it will get easier!

(Most of the time, I have to ignore all my advice above, as I ride a SS hardtail, so the option of smooth and controlled grinding up in the granny ring is not an option! ... but on the occasions I do ride geared, then the suggestions above are what I concentrate on ...)

For very steep and uneven hills, lean more forward and slide your ass up to the front of the seat until the nose is almost ramming up in you, chest down, head up, weight back.

This will balance the weight between the front and the back, allowing for more friction, even pedaling and over all you will be able to tackle the hill at a slightly higher gear.