Essential Skills For Hard Mountain Bike Trails | How To Ride Gnarly Terrain

Once you have mastered the bike park blues and reds it's time to move on to the more difficult black graded trails and gnarly natural terrain. With this comes a new set of challenges when riding your mountain bike - line choice, preserving your equipment, and committing to scary sections. Neil shows you how 🤘

Did you find these tips helpful?

🎵 Music - licensed by Epidemic Sound
No Talk - Gerhard Feng
The Runner - Gerhard Feng
The Setup - Gerhard Feng
The Real Deal - Gerhard Feng
Money Job - Gerhard Feng
Tomahawk - Tigerblood Jewel

#GMBN #MountainBiking #MountainBike #MTB #BikeLife #Cycling

The Global Mountain Bike Network (GMBN) is the world’s largest and fastest-growing online mountain bike channel and community – and your destination for the best mountain bike content in the world.

GMBN is dedicated to inspiring and unlocking your riding potential. Our videos cater to fans of every mountain bike discipline: from mile-munching cross-country (XC) riders, through adrenaline-fuelled dirt jumpers, gravity-hungry downhillers or aspiring enduro racers, and beyond.

Every day of every month, our ex-pro presenting team are on hand to entertain and inspire you while also providing a uniquely qualified insight into the world of mountain biking. Every week we deliver original daily video that include:

Adventurous and entertaining features
Mountain bike skills coaching
Technical advice and guidance
Mechanical know-how to keep you rolling
A place for the riding community with our weekly Dirt Shed Show

Thanks to our sponsors:

Leave us a comment below!

[BikingwithJP]

Fast, smooth, and flowy is fun - but trails like these are why I got a full suspension bike!

[Larpy]

Super useful. When Neil speaks, tens of thousands of us drop what we’re doing and pay full attention. Thanks. Very well done, including the sound & video work.

[JFTM_]

Definitely my favourite kind of riding and trails ... I can never really relate to channels that mostly showcase flow trails

[mick]

GMBN one of the best channels for MTB. And Neil is a great teacher.
Calm, factual, competent. Great stuff as allways.
In Germany we have nothing that is comparable.

[mjvf]

I wish this video came out before I snapped my collarbone

[juliandlamb]

Thanks Neil, I’m pretty sure you’ve given all those tips before but they came together in this video really well.

[SickfoosMTB]

I literally just came back from riding trails like this in Fontana CA 👍👍 Perfect video

[bryndon]

So good! Thanks... really useful tips and ways of looking at riding the hard stuff. I hadn't heard the specific term de-weight the bike, but that really stuck with me and ill definitely be using it in my riding.

[paulroberts]

A very important tip is to look where you want to go, not at the hazard.

[menno]

That rock on the left at 07:40 looks like a smiling shark :)

[VonSC]

Great segment, one of the most useful!

[LuluBejot]

Epic 😃This is a great mtb video! You will get better, you just earned a new sub !

[brianheggie]

Most of the stuff I ride is gnarly rocky and shale and yes, that kind of terrain will eat your bike if not careful. A couple of chains, one derailleur hanger and derailleur over a few years you learn how to ride better. And I do it all on a hardtail. Great video and ride on!

[cf]

This is what my local trail looks like. Good stuff!

[A.D.D.O.C.D.T]

That was a very good video, thanks guys.
On the money there.

[HeretiCflow]

What Neil doesn't address explicitly but still does intuitively in switchbacks is pre-turning. He approaches the corner on the inside and then places his front wheel on the outside right before the corner. That offsets your wheelpath and allows you to go around tight corners more efficiently. I recently learned about this technique on Fluidride. Great channel for riding technique.

[ddsgardening]

Really enjoyed that 🙏 thanks mate, your a top teacher

[alunmills]

Awesome video. Thanks Neil and all at GMBN. Where did you say you were riding tho? I couldn’t catch it?

[cgriggsiv]

Awesome looking skills you got there going down those hills

Unfortunately for me since I hurt both elbows on July 5th crash I can barely go back and forth to work with my left elbow not hurting in this winter I found out the hard way twice but it's still pretty well badly messed up any slight movements wrong and I'm in a shit-ton of pain

[evanbarnes]

Hey GMBN! What if we have a Hardcore Hardtail Week soon? I've been smashing some hard trails on my Chromag Rootdown, but would also love some riding tips for conquering the terrain in this video on an aggressive hardtail. I've always loved hardtail week, but it's always felt a bit more beginner-oriented, as though hardtail are what you get before you get a "real" (full sus) bike. It would be cool to see a series on the hardcore hardtails! I'm sure there are other people like me who would be stoked for that. It's a really fun type of bike!