akmal's bike park

akmal's bike park

Wednesday 21 July 2010

Climbing Tips

yeap, I cleared this section on my bike
 
I shared with you Alimuddin's tips on climbing in my previous entry.
Here's another one that came in my email mailbox just before the BP ride, but I forgot to mention it.
 
 
My version of it, instead of counting rocks or singing an annoying song or argue with yourself, I'll put in positive thoughts. Just like Wendy and her siblings thinking of happy thoughts in order for them to be able to fly to Neverland, in that Peter Pan movie. You get my drift? No, not the self made movies from Indonesia. It's that movie adapted from the novel, you dirty minded crankers.
 
Or, I'd resort to zikrullah. Simple, repititive, and hopefully makes for a blessed ride. Also, you can pace your cadence and breathing with it.
 
One thing I found out is that when I have negative thoughts, the uphill climb doubled it's difficulty in a snap. It's a lost battle before it even started. Well, it is still difficult even when the mind is filled with positive thoughts, but it's not as tough. For some hills, they actually were not as hard as it seems, like the one above that I cleared in Batu Pahat last Sunday.
 
Another thing I employed is to sit on the nose of the saddle, especially for a steep hill. Made my butt sore a bit, but it's not for a long climb. Sitting on the saddle nose makes my body's center of gravity shifted to the front and that gives some grip on the front tire. It's a balancing act; you have to find a position that won't make your rear wheel lifted.
 
If you have a lockable fork, use it by all means when climbing. Your pushing up when pedaling will be transfered right to the ground and won't be sucked by the plush strokes of the fork.
 
Try it out yourself on the trails this weekend.
Dang, it's only Wednesday... still a few more days to go.
 
Thanks for dropping by.
Think positive thoughts.
 
photo by Suffrizal A. Karim

5 comments:

Afrezal Karim said...

Zikrullah works for me.. satu lagi.. reward urself bila dapat lepas hill..dengan rehat for 10mins ker.. belasah air dekat checkpoint ke :)

akmalhizam said...

Riezal,
Alhamdulillah. Keep it up, bro.
Memang, kelmarin masa dah sampai kat CP3 Batu Pahat ride tu, aku belasah tembikai. Lagi siket nak kembung :D
Naseb baek teringat nak balik...

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Angelina said...

Thank you so much for this article! I am new to the biking community, and this post has given me much more consolidated insight than any other resource I've found.

Ernest Garrett said...

Such a great biking community I have never seen before. I hope this community will keep good contribute for mountain biking. Thanks for sharing this amazing article with us.