How To Improve Your Bike Handling - 5 Key Cycling Skills

Get out there and work on your bike handling skills - it's fun and great bike handling may just get you out of some difficult situations.

Playing on your bike and improving your bike handling skills isn't just for kids on BMXs - being a skillful cyclist has benefits for everyone who rides a bike.

Matt and Simon have picked 5 key skills for you to get out and work on. So, head out on your bike, work on a couple of these and let us know how you get on!

Music: Ged Adamson, Lee Wilson Wolfe - Made from Gold

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Music licensed by Cue Songs

[tommyzemich]

This intro, with the sounds that Matt is making, is just priceless! :D

[michaelredbourn]

Really good for me thanks.

I used to live on bikes when I was in my early teens and could even ride on the crossbar or handlebars.

I'm 70 now, in good shape and just bought an 18 gear used hybrid.

I can still ride a bike of course but get very wobbly at slow speeds and especially when turning corners or looking over my shoulder.

I will work on the exercises and thanks again.

Michael

[RockstarBruski]

I like all of your tips except riding with no hands bc while ive riden bikes for about 50 years now and can ride without any hands you never know when road debris or drains, pot holes, etc will throw your bike left or right. Last month i was riding down a hill at 35mph and hit an unseen large rock that bent my rim and launched my bike and I up into the air. Fortunately I had both hands on the handlebars and didnt crash. One week later I was riding very slowly to a stop took one hand off the handlebars to reach something, hit some unseen sand and crashed breaking my scapula (shoulder). Id recommend keeping both hands on the handlebars as much as possible and if needed stopping to put on a jacket, etc. My 2 cents of experience. Cheers! 😎

[ferdinandaugustifson]

now at 59 years, I still enjoy riding as much as I ever did. Been riding since I was 4, building my own bikes from parts I scavenged from old bikes I always kept, and living in San Diego, Ca. has afforded me the opportunity to almost always have good or better conditions for riding, (like the best overall weather year round ) the about anywhere else in the world. Anyway, been riding no hands since about 8 or 9 maybe and still do almost always. It is much more comfortable and yes, it does keep handling skills and optimum levels. Also the riding very slowly and trying to maintain complete control of the bike. For anyone who hasn't tried it, it's much harder than you might think. Anyway again, I just started checking out riding vid's on line, have found some very helpful points and enjoy seeing what other riders are doing. If you see me riding in San Diego County say hi (or not, whatever), but always, God Bless and keep riding.

[effyleven]

When I came back to cycling at age 71, I found it useful to practise riding really slowly. I used the quiet residential cul-de-sacs of local housing estates. Each day I could feel my balance returning and also improving... which was one of the main reasons for taking up the bike again.

[woodyeckerslyke]

The best bike handling training I got was doing a CBT learning to ride a motorbike. Included some of the above especially the idea of slow control:

A couple of suggestions:

1) Try turning in the (empty!) road without crossing the white line in the middle.
2) (Related): See how tight you can ride a figure of 8

I use these skills a lot. Been trying the bunny hop but can't get the back wheel off the ground. Still, it took me about 10 years to be able to track stand. Perseverance :-)

[bludog]

Re-watching this in March 2022...SO memorable with Originals. Love it!! God bless you all

[Dumah]

could i do all these in the same time?.. no hands, looking backwards, bunny hop straight line and slow in the same time?

[gingerrussell]

You should have added a disclaimer to the riding on the white line bit. Something like might not be advisable when wet?

[gimkilo]

I learned "no hands" when I was a kid. Then I learned to control the direction of the bike with no hands. Something I learned how to do recently (and I have a hybrid bike) is standing up(not sitting) with the pedalls parallel to the ground and letting go of the handlebars. To do this, I have to kinda "hold" the bike between my knees. (And of course, I cant pedal when I do this.)

[honeydane]

I'm 17 and ride my bike to school everyday. To school it's uphill, home its downhill, so riding home I always lean back, take my hands of the bar and chill whilst coasting down the street with my mates

[Selfmadeinheaven]

I can attest to riding slow as a good balancing feat to learn. I learned on my motorcycle which weighed unbelievably more than my road bike. Let's just say that my balance carried over into my cycling and helped just yesterday actually. 😃🚲

[pspboy]

Great tips. I need to work on these. I have a really tall mountain bike though, with huge 29" tires, so I will need to work on the bunny hopping and skidding big time!

[hakonsakariassen]

I cant go slow while connected to Strava

[pspboy]

I do the slow speed ride when I wait for traffic to pass by. I'm getting better at it, and it helps to eliminate stopping altogether and readjusting my pedaling motion.

[Gixerpilot]

Simon, is that your pair of white socks tucked down your shorts, (opening scene), or are you just pleased to see... Matt?

[magnaviousyk]

One of the best thing to do if you're riding a road bike is, try to ride MTB off road from time to time.. sometimes in RB, you feel like you're not in control, it's fast, didn't do maneuver really well, slight nudge and you fell off your bike.. while riding MTB train your senses to fully control your bike where you want it to go, is it straight line, slow, even let your bike loose a little bit then perform correction.. this is essential..

[BrendanTBurke]

You sort of covered it in #2 riding a straight line, but looking over your shoulder and riding a straight line and not swerving (for example checking on traffic or other riders coming up behind you...) is a skill worth its weight in gold and deserving of its own separate skill set.

[RonaiHenrik]

Its funny to see these are skills I've learnt just by using my bike a lot :) And being a messenger for a few months.

[beachbum]

So essentially all the things I do while riding my fixed gear just applied to a road bike, haha.  Great video, guys!