Tighter Corners, Faster!

'Dave', the downhill competition earlier this year got me thinking hard about several aspects of my downhill riding style.  Riding longer tracks over a longer length of time gave me that opportunity to see where my strengths and weaknesses lay and what area needed to be worked on.

Lets look at the relative times.  An average time around the 4m30s mark verses the winning time of 3m24s over a 1.3 (ish) mile course relates in real terms to an average speed of ~17 mph verses ~22 mph.   But just belting down the straights before slamming on the brakes for the corners is not good tactically, particularly in the lower sections where there is simply not enough gradient after each corner to keep pace.  This is especially true over the long final straight where I'll guestimate the faster riders were passing the line twice as fast as some of us slower riders.  Again, a guestimation that the final stretch was covered by me in approximately 40 seconds means that 20 seconds could be shaved straight off through a good bottom section alone.

What I believe is important, and where I've been spending a lot of my time recently is working on carrying sufficient speed through the corners to maintain speed.  Furthermore, I've also been trying to establish how to carry more speed around tighter corners.

Seems reasonable that effective tight turning relies on using both trucks.  By applying similar weight over both knees and going through the motion of dropping to your knees should enable a tight, effective corner.  Easy to do whilst still, but I had an issue for a while trying to do it with a bit of speed.  1st issue was committing to some of my local corners.  Most of them are sufficiently wide, evenly turny (corners don't become suddenly sharper part way round is what I mean), and usually blind, i.e. to commit to them means hitting anyone hiding just round the bend.  This is far less of an issue at night.....

If I can just say a few words about night riding.  Many people who have not tried it imagine the lack of light makes riding harder.  I'd argue that riding at night actually makes things simpler for the following reasons:
1)  Gravel tracks appear lighter and grass appears darker at night.  With the human eye sensitivity, seeing the contrast between the two is easy enough.  You might not be able to  see the bushes off to the sides, but then you're not going to ride into the bushes are you?  You might not be able to see the beautiful scenery either but then hopefully you have ridden this track during the day??
2) Less walkers at night.  Or non even.  Even if there are deaf walkers shuffling around the park at night, they will see your torches a mile away, even through the bushes.  Even if you do crash into someone, will they be able to recognise you in the dark? 
3) More focus.  Less distraction. Win, win, win.  (Except that GoPros don't work very well.  Hey ho!)

2nd issue was getting the front knee to bend sufficiently.  I was having an issue persuading my knee to do exactly what I wanted it to do under these circumstances, but found that raising my leading arm naturally caused my front knee to bend and I could control my arm wonderfully well at speed. 

3rd bit of mental block that I have to keep repeating to myself is to "keep your chin up (mate)!" as the benefits of looking further down the trail seem to do wonders for my sense of balance and for providing that sense of flow, when I remember to do it.  Again, its all about riding in a way that both looks and feels natural; I want to be at one with the board, not to be fighting it all the way down.  My aim is to reach a stage where my board feels like a natural extension to my own body; a device that enables me to travel faster, higher and further through the woods rather than be a hindrance that needs to be overcome.

Stance?  Well, I guess that this depends on what feels comfortable but for me right now, I'm finding cornering tricky when using a typical downhill stance, say +25/+5, but feel far more comfortable in both the straights and cornering with a +10/+5 stance. 

So that's toe-side turns much improved and hopefully my general down-hill technique will have improved sufficiently to improve my Dave timings for next years event (fingers crossed).  However, I get the sneaking suspicion that everybody else will be improving too - downhill is very popular right now!  Now off to work on heel-side turns - anyone any advice?