Riding Whooped Straights
From DirtyTorque
RIDING WHOOPED STRAIGHTS
These are another novices’ sand nightmare. Typically the novice rider follows the contours of the land and endures something of an uncomfortable roller coaster ride as the bike falls into the dips and heaves sluggishly over the rises. Speed over the ground is restricted and energy spent is actually quite high as the pulling motion of the bike stretches the rider.
In the photo sequence we’ve gone straight for the right way to tackle a whooped straight. You have to keep it in your mind that even doing whoops the right way, is massively strenuous. You’ve got to be prepared to be highly mobile on the bike, stretching back and forth. There isn’t a gym machine on the earth that can replicate the kind of punishment whoops can administer. Anyhow, you can see at the outset I’m in the enduro standing position we introduced in Top Tips 1. Legs bent a bit, straightish back and head looking well up the track, not at the front mudguard, nor the first whoop. From there you can see the weight transfer is actually quite radically rearward. That’s in part because I’m on a 250F and there’s not that much power to keep the front light, on a more powerful bike I wouldn’t need to be so far back.
I’m not pulling on the bars, but I am keeping the front light by pushing my butt over the rear mudguard as I power on. The goal here is to keep the front light and aim to keep it high, if it is to touch the ground it must be on the crest of the whoops, not in the hollows. You’ll see how the rear tracks the ground and how the suspension loads and unloads as the bike progresses. It helps to have the rear shock rebound damping set a bit slower for sand, so when the shock unloads it doesn’t ping you forward and so forcing the front wheel into the next hollow.
This is, by the way, a committing technique. Resist the urge to chop or roll off the gas as you’ll drop into the hollows and as good as stop dead, and no doubt get a taste of the sand.
You’ll see that at the end of the sequence we attack a climb. You’ll notice that even here I stay as far back as I can until the bike levels on the climb and then I centralise on the bike.
That’s about it. There’s a lot of practice required and no small amount of fitness required too. But using the basic technique of keeping your weight rearward and the front high and light you’ll find your confidence will build.
We’ll have some more sand bugbears for you next month. Kiwi
Reference
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