Romyan

Somehow, whenever I go MTBing I get scared of things such as loose ground, downhills, rocky terrain and such. Is there I can do to not get scared or less scared :|

Please don't roast me , just a roadie trying to MTB.


This sounds very embarrassing...

bikeme

Thanks for your honesty. I would recommend taking a skills class if any are offered in your area. Aside from that, ride on mellower stuff to start so you can relax. Don't ride trails too far beyond your current skills just because your more experience friends are. Equipment-wise, do you have good knobby mtb tires at the proper psi? Proper tires and psi provide help comfort and confidence. Back to skills, I would recommend learning the Attack Position (look it up on youtube or see LeeLovesBikes.com). It's like an athletic ready position in traditional sports but it's the mtb-version that gives you confidence and control.

ridelikeaturtle

Prepare and be confident in all your equipment, and then get out there and gain experience. It's only natural to be nervous or scared the first few times you do something - that's your body's way of warning you that you're unprepared. But once you've successfully done it a few times, on varied surfaces, you'll know how your bike will react, and how to navigate the terrain. Like any skill, it takes practice.

You could try purposefully falling over a few times in a soft, grassy field - because you probably will fall over a time or two on the trail. Practice "stoppies", braking hard on the front so that you lift the rear wheel and balance solely on the front. That's going to happen from time to time on slow, steep descents, and it's best to have an idea how far you can control it before going over the handlebars. And if you've practiced this in the soft, grassy field, you will get good enough to clip out quickly and literally jump over the handlebars!

The great thing about going from being a road cyclist to a mtb-er is you shouldn't be short of power and endurance. Technical skills may take a little time.

colombo357

You can try growing a pair!

Just kidding, maybe.

Wear "enduro" style knee and elbow pads and a well vented full face helmet, if necessary. If a certain section of a trail is giving you trouble, coach it. Ride it repeatedly until you can pin it. Learn to commit. Insufficient speed is a major reason why a lot of folks flip over the bars - lack of momentum and a fistful of front brake.

UtahRider

Go on easier trails and go often. Work your way up on the terrain. I'm in the same situation. My first 2 rides I laid my bike down quite a few times. The last 3-4 rides have been great, feeling more comfortable on the different trails now, but still taking it easy.

JonathanGennick 

I strongly second this advice. Ride mellower trails to keep things fun. Mountain bikers sometimes like to throw out comments about crashing being a good thing, but it's not. Find some mellow singletrack that you feel safe on. Progress from there. Maybe visit some BMX parks observe how BMXers ride. Watching BMX riders at the local skate park helped me a lot back in the day.

Also, what sort of bike are you on? Older bikes have terrible geometry. Gary Fisher started a good thing back in the day with his longer top-tube geometry, and things have progressed mightily in the last maybe 5-7 years. Don't let yourself ride some 1990s era disaster with a 150 mm stem on the front.

HerrKaLeun

I'm in the same boat as a beginner. I ordered tons of books from the library to learn the basics. The first one arrived yesterday is "Mastering Mountain bikes Skills". It takes you through the basics how to set up your bike, attack position, to look where you want to go etc.
My plan is to really learn all the basics,practice in my driveway and use the skills on the trails.

On the trails stay with the easy ones and don't progress to harder ones before you master all the easy ones. Start out doing things slower, but correctly.

A course may not be available in your area (especially now in winter?), costs money and you have to have time when that happens. I'd only do one after i went through all books and practiced myself... that also would make the class more efficient.

u235

I'll add... When the going gets a little tough, lean back more, get low, and lower heels. Take advantage that on an MTB you can do that and on a drop bar you really can't (and no need to really)

DaveQ24

Just do what you are comfortable with, and don’t feel like you have to prove anything to anyone. If any of you from “real” mountainous terraine saw what passes for mountain bike trails at the 3 or 4 parks in the region that have them, you would probably laugh your rears off. . If you put me on my bike atop some of your easiest trails in places like Utah or Washington State I’d probably wet my pants and beg for mercy.

It’s a skillset to be learned - like anything, time, practice, a good instructor or set of directions, being willing to analyze and learn from your mistakes will all contribute to increased confidence.

And if you decide it’s not for you, no shame in that either.

2cam16

I built up my confidence starting off with easy trails and moved up to more difficult ones. Just take your time and don't rush your confidence building. It will come sooner or later.

stykthyn

I've learned the bike wants to go forward. It's gyroscopic properties want it to stay upright. It's my lack of confidence/skill get in the way. Lean back like said and do what the bike needs to stay upright and it will do the rest.

walmartspecial

As a roadie who just converted, due to location, I would advise loosening up. Staying loose on the bike seems to help me a bunch and the already upright position along with leaning back helps ensure traction. I used to attempt local trails on my cx bike and have fallen a LOT. MTB feels like a tank, I love it.

Kapusta

Like others have said, don’t think that you HAVE to do anything.

If you need to get off your bike and walk a section for the time being, that’s fine, just do it. Just keep doing what is in your comfort level until you start to get a really good feel for how the bike feels and handles. I think most people find that as time goes on their comfortable doing more and more things.

Other than that, here are a few thoughts/ideas.

1- Try dropping your saddle for tech sections or downhills. It makes it a lot easier to move around and get your weight back. It also makes bailing a lot easier and safer. Even if it is on a section of trail that most people don’t drop their saddle, having the saddle dropped with give you some extra confidence and saftey margin to see what the bike does in these situations. I think what most people find is that an mtb bike is far more capable than they realize, and you learn to trust the bike more, thus building confidence.

If you are feeling commited to giving mtb a real try, consider getting a dropper post.

2- Consider running flat pedals if you are not already doing so. That gives some people more confidence knowing they can quickly put a foot down. You can always go back to clipless later.

3- Session hard sections. Find obsacles in low-risk scenarios (i.e., you won’t fall off the side of a hill if you fail) drop the saddle all the way, and just keep re-doing the obstacle over and over. This will probably help you learn to trust your bike and yourself.

4- Tires: make sure you are running decent size (at least 2.2”) tires with real tread at pressures that would seem absurdly low to someone used to road riding. I am 170 lbs and run my 2.3” tires 23/27 psi front/rear. Don’t het hung up on how “fast” a tire is, particularly on the front. Go for something with lots of volume and tread on the front.

5- bike cockpit setup: Forget everything you learned from road biking, and be willing to start from scratch. Do not hesitate to run your bars a lot higher, farther back, and very wide compared to what you are used to on the road. You don’t need to be long, low, and narrow to climb well, so don’t hobble yourself with that settup.

IMO the biggest and best change in MTB over the past 20 years has been that we stopped trying to set them up and ride them like road bikes. You see this reflected in both cockpit set up, as well as frame geometry.

What bike are you riding? How long a stem and how wide are the bars?

rumrunn6

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear" Franklin D. Roosevelt

FBinNY 

Wear a blindfold.

ATPAH

This is good advice. Definitely get flats. It's way less scary if you have the option of instantly letting your bike crash without you attached or putting out a foot if your tires break loose in a corner. As a roadie, you already know how best to maintain traction in a corner. Mountain bikes do it better, but you have to learn where the tires break loose. Find that point motocross style with your foot out in a variety of corners. You'll be happy to find that knobby tires will hook-up again in a way that road slicks do not once they've lost traction.

If you have a reasonably modern bike, I'd add: trust your bike. It's made to do this. If the guys you ride with can do something and their bikes are similar to yours in setup and they aren't doing anything fancy like catching air or riding up and over an obstacle, your bike will get you through. I learned to trust my bike in the late 1990s, after many years as a roadie, and even my upright hardtail with a 65mm fork was able to do things that still make most folks on modern FS bikes scared. It's not that I was especially brave. I was scared on some of those nasty steep rollers, but I just trusted my bike to roll over and through if I just stayed off the brake, because I followed someone who was on essentially the same bike. I'm less brave than I was then, especially after 10 years off from technical mtbing, but I got a new bike that is much more capable, and the extra margin for error makes it easy to trust it, even when I am scared.

Oh, yeah: Don't panic. It's ok to walk your bike past an obstacle that scares you, but once you commit to riding it, use the strength you built-up on the road to pedal through the tough spots and trust the bike to keep rolling. He who hesitates eats ****.

PaddleFoot

Hello,

When descending on a rough trail while standing up, with four points of contact, the bike can wiggle around more than you would like. If you keep 5-6 points of contact by keeping your inner leg lightly against the seat, the bike can be much easier to control. It helps lower your center of gravity back into the bike as opposed to over it.

If going over small stutter bumps, go up a gear or two and pedal through it with good sitting form. The taller gear will load your legs and make it easier for the butt on the seat. 5 to 6 points of contact will help control the bike as opposed to four (hands and feet only).

Good luck to you. I used to love MTN bikes.

prj71

The more you go...the less scary it becomes.

hyhuu

Actually a better technique would be to let the bike move under the rider. Clamping the seat would limit the rider's ability to move around. Changing weight distribution and timing are essential elements for good bike control.

tyrion

Most of this is recommending "get a trail bike instead of an XC bike", but there are other good tips in there as well.

Romyan

I'm currently riding a 2012ish Specialized Crosstrail with Imrider Pedals, Sun Ringle Rhyno Lite / Shimano Deore 525 29" Mountain Wheelset, and Vitorria Evolution 29er Tires for some reference.

Romyan

Haha, the worst part is that I live in southern California, which is somewhat desert. So, there is alot of rocks here and such which sucks, also some good ol' loose ground. No joke, I only have less than like 2 trails near me that are good for beginners. Hopefully, I can get more used to riding, lots of this advice has been great.

Kapusta

Well, right there is probably your biggest problem. Wrong tool for the job. That is not a mountain bike. It is a hybrid designed for a mix of urban pavements, dirt roads, and some mild bike paths. A really good all-purpose bike, from what I understand, but NOT intended for actual mountain biking. Totally inappropriate tires (the ones you have are better than the stock ones, but still not appropriate), steep geometry, a suspension fork not up to the job, narrow bars.....

I'd be nervous riding rough/loose single track on that bike, too.

Get an actual mountain bike if you want to give mountain biking a try. Does not need to be an expensive one, just something designed specifically for mountain biking. In the specialized lineup, that would be something like the Rockhopper if you are on a budget.

A real mountain bike will feel much more under control, stable and easy to ride on rough trail sections.

Good luck.

u235

At lower speeds that bike is fine, he's not going airborne, racing, or doing downhill videos for youtube or competition. I rode a crappy hybrid on MTB and singletrack for years and with touring tires. People ride CX bikes on MTB and single track and they have no suspension, skinnier tires and the total different riding position which you can't lean back if you want to still reach the brakes plus drop bars that move with every ditch and rock. No doubt a better bike is better but that bike is not out of place on MTB trails. There's a difference in I don't feel comfortable flying down the hill and keeping up with everyone compared to I don't feel comfortable even going down the hill.

Rollfast

Stop watching videos of guys skittering down goat trails on cliffs would be one thing, that's crazy stuff for Joe Biker.