Top 7 Bike Skills

MUSINGS FROM A COACH - 3 JUNE '25

Training and getting strong as a cyclist offers numerous benefits. It significantly improves leg strength (and upper body strength if you’re a mountain biker) and cardiovascular fitness. You have a wide range of efforts and zones to explore, making it an incredibly enjoyable experience. And you can spend extended periods on the bike, embarking on long journeys.

The process of strengthening your cycling skills is equally enjoyable. The principle of “work in = performance out” holds true, resulting in a direct 1:1 ratio of effort to improvement. This allows you to truly feel the impact of your training. Cycling is a sport that can be improved at any age, and the more you pedal, the better you become. Every pedal stroke counts!

That said, there still are skills that should be learned to both maximize performance and improve safety. Here are my top skills to learn to improve your cycling:

1 - Balance. Above everything else, having and maintaining good balance is the key to maximizing performance and staying injury free on a bike. By this I mean we must have the left-to-right balance AND the fore-and-aft balance. A good rule of thumb is what we teach in mountain biking: you're balanced if you have light hands and heavy feet.

2 - Stopping. Is this a skill? You bet! How we use the front and rear brakes, when we use them, and how - if required - do we 'shift' our balance during braking. In general, a good way to think of braking effort is to imagine you're squeezing a tube of toothpaste - you don't want to do it too quickly!

3 - High-Speed Turning. 90º - 180º and everything before, in the middle and after those angles are what we should become efficient at. We want to carry as much speed as we safely can in order to prevent having to stop and start after every turn. The key? Look where you want to go. Turn your head and get it out in front. The faster you go, the farther ahead you should be looking.

4 - Climbing. This is just fitness, right? Well yes and no. It's true that if you want to become a better climber, you should climb more. However, becoming a better climbing also requires a kind of 'dancing' on the pedals. As we stand, we should think about a quiet and still torso while we move the bike beneath us.

5 - Descending. This skill is just and accumulation of all the skills reviewed so far. When we gain a level of competence in these skills, we're able to safely descend well while enjoying it!

6 - Slow Steering. Being able to bike extremely slowly requires balance, braking (while pedaling), often standing (like climbing), constantly balancing and looking ahead. This skill allows us to truly think of the bike as an extension of our body.

7 - Off Road Skills. All the above is required along with fitness! Off road, we must have the ability to get over obstacles that often require extremely short and explosive power. So while the power isn't the skill, it's how we use it on technical trails.

All of us can ride a bike. But riding a bike with good skills not only drastically improves our performance, but also makes us safer which leads to more fun.

Gratefully,

Mark

CEO Team MPI