Tips to speed check - Mountain Boarding

Every so often, a thread is started on the ATBsports forums that brings together some really good community knowledge.

In May, 'checkers' asked:

im not a bad rider and want to learn how to speed check so i can handle those faster runs with out having to power slide.
Im not exactly sure to speed check and cant seem to find any info on the web.
i can stand-up slide to a stop slow speeds, is speed checking along the same lines?

Any tips/guides on how to speed check would be much appreciated

Dunstan replied with:

Hey, I think there are 5 ways to control speed on a mountainboard, and if your board has brakes there are 6.

The simplest are letting the tyres down a bit, and powersliding like you said. You obviously want to progress from that, so other ways to speed check are using the terrain, ie riding through any long grass/softer ground that might be on the side of the run.

Scrubbing is a good way, which is usually kicking the back of the board out one way or another, or if you're good sliding it a bit while maintaining an upright stance. If you get really good you'll be able to do full on powerslides standing up, you'll be proper stoked when you get those. The way to scrub is to take you're weight off the part of the board you're going to kick out/slide and then try and drag it along the ground either toeside or heelside, while carrying on riding in the same direction, and bring the board back straight once you've done it. You can do it with the whole board as well, little jumps turning the board a bit and then jumping back straight. Try them starting slowly at first, once you get the hang of them buikd up the speed as you get more confident. For slides, try it on a surface like wet grass or gravel so you can start sliding easier.

If you find yourself faced with super gnarly super steep single track that you think you'll never be able to ride, you probably can, by using falling leaf. Basically the idea is that if you have your board at 90deg to the fall line of the hill, you won't go anywhere, and you'll go faster/slower based on what angle you point the board. So for a really steep run you're not confident to bomb, turning you're board down the hill a tiny bit, say 10-20 degrees, going across a bit and then doing it the other way can make steep stuff possible. The line you take looks like a falling leaf hence the name.

Hope that helps!

Vambo added:

..also at speed get low and try continual tight carving where you're wheels are on the edge sliding so as to keep speed to a maximum but controllable (grip the next bend)....Best used for fire tracks and tarmac lanes/roads.

Tip 8 - go freeriding long fast runs more.

Good point made there, practice makes perfect!

Belac added:

just to add to whats said above, when scrubbing you're best to carve into the slide. a massive mistakea to make is to be packing it along at a huge speed and go to scrub straight away, all the inertia is going forwards and so you genrally catch an edge. if your a regular rider and you wanna do a heelslide, carve out left a little bit, and then as you start coming back in start your scrub, means your weight is over the back of the board and on the effective edge ie your back wheels.
i think one of the best ways to learn is get a skateboard/longboard and find a smooth hill, go slide, then bring those skills back to mountainboarding.

..Which makes the great point of board cross over skills and how we really can learn from other disciplines. EvilC makes the following points:

yeah, caleb is spot on there - I do most of my scrubbing on a heelside carve for that reason. Just do a toeside carve to put you on one side of the track, then lean into the heelside carve quite hard and as you carve, jump your board around against the direction of travel - the faster you are going, the less you should jump, but you can control speed pretty effectively this way.

Good to learn, but if you are finding a run too fast for you and you constantly have to speed check, consider letting some air out of your tyres. On some runs, I will actually do the run faster with less pressure in my tyres, simply because the faster you are going the harder it is to scrub speed, and it can become a full time job controlling the speed. With less air in your tyres, you can just bomb the run and know that you are going to max out on speed earlier, so you don't have to worry about scrubbing speed before it gets out of control.

Hard to explain, but I hope you get what I mean.

Which makes a whole lot of sense. Start at a level you are happy with and work your way up.

Belac elaborates on his earlier post with the following:

re the original thred, the other thing is to not ride the gnarliest runs till your ready, i tried some of the big mountain mtb single track out here and nearly killed myself. if you can't scrub at speed then your not in control, that means not only a danger to yourself, but to others. i notice theres been studies on breaking times in skating/longboarding/freeboarding, would be interested what the break time and distance is at differant speeds on a mountainboard. not trying to be preechy tho, like clive said, just let the tires down.

Sometimes, the best answer is also the easiest. Much credit to all the above posters for taking the time to explain things in easy steps for the rest of us, Cheers!