- Welcome back you beautiful people

and today's all about trial skills.

Taking them over to the trail

to help you get over certain obstacles.

And to be honest I'm not really good at trials,

so I bought Chris Smith in to help me

do such techniques out there on the trail.

- Yeah and it looks like you need

some work on those track stands, Blake.

So let's get into it, and get started on the track stands.

So the track stand is one of the basic skills from trials,

but a really important one.

What we try and do, is just find a nice uphill slope.

Basically that stops you using your brakes so much,

as well, and stops the bike falling away.

Basically I'm just pushing forward with my front foot,

turning into it with my upper body,

And if I feel my balance moving,

I correct it with my upper body.

So every time that front wheel moves,

just keep moving your upper body,

keeping that pressure through the cranks.

You can ease off just to let it roll back,

just to catch your balance again.

But yeah that's the easiest way, to keep looking ahead,

down at your front wheel, just see what works for you.

Another really important part

with the track stand, is to actually relax.

If you find yourself tensing up,

you're gonna be all over the place.

Just let yourself breathe, relax those muscles,

and it'll make it a hell of a lot easier.

- Right, track stands on the trial.

Well this is a perfect situation.

Look at this, it's a blind drop.

So you can come in with a walking speed,

and when you get right to the end you can track stand,

spot your line, look over to the cress.

Yep, I see my line, and then you can drop in slowly.

Nice and safe.

Alright the same applies when you come to a bit of a climb,

a technical climb, you can track stand before it,

spot your line, get comfortable and lean back,

and put the power in.

(grunts)

Damn it!

Oh.

Bloody hell!

Put the power down, for the fifth time.

Yes, yeah!

Alright this technique is the slap,

the splat, or the bump technique.

It kind of helps you out

when you come to an obstacle in the trial that is quite big,

and you can't really get over with a bunny hop.

So you what you wanna do is you come into it,

you're gonna lean back, you wanna get that front wheel

a bit lifted up a bit, splat it, slap it, or bump it,

to get that front wheel up into the air,

you're leaning back and you're gonna drive that back wheel

just over the obstacle, and through it,

so you don't have to get off your bike

in the middle of the trail.

Okay it's not all about speed when you're doing it.

You're gonna come and you're gonna lean back,

bump it, and get that whole bike over.

But it's all one fluid motion when you're doing it,

you don't wanna stop, you don't wanna,

right I gotta lift the front wheel,

right, now I gotta do this.

It's all fluid motion.

You're gonna bump it, slap it, or splat it.

Do that, get the front wheel over the log,

and when you're back wheel's coming

you're gonna pull up on the bars, pull up with your hips,

put your feet on those pedals,

to bring that back wheel over.

You don't have to do a bunny hop over it,

you can just let it go a little bit light,

so your wheel just rolls over that obstacle,

and so you can get through it.

And right the last and most important one,

is commitment, you gotta be super committed

through all stages of this slap, bump,

splat, attack thing over it.

Because if you're not, you're gonna

just drive the front wheel into it,

it's gonna send you into the bars.

Or you're gonna get your front wheel up,

and you're gonna drive the back wheel into it,

and it's just gonna stop you,

could end up having a puncture.

So you gotta be committed all the time

when you're doing the slap, pat, bump, attack.

- So here's a perfect chance

to get all trials in, on the trails.

The log across the track,

we're gonna use the splat technique.

Let's hit this hard, commit, get our weight back,

lift that front wheel up, fly across the log.

(upbeat music)

So we're gonna be taking a look at the front touch,

or the hook technique.

This is a really advanced technique,

especially on the trail bikes.

The trials guys can go up massive stuff on this,

I'm talking six, seven foot tall.

They basically hook their front wheel on the top of a wall,

bounce the back wheel off of it, in one fluid motion.

They get up on some incredibly high stuff.

This picnic table for our trail bike

is still pretty impressive.

So lets take a look at the technique for this one.

(upbeat music)

So lets take a look at the front touch.

Before we even get into this,

we need to be about two of three bike lengths away

from the obstacle that we're going up.

And I'm also going to switching,

I'm normally right foot forward.

So I'm gonna be switching my feet to my left foot forward,

so that's opposite foot forward.

What that's gonna do it allow big explosive drive

when I go to crank up onto that table.

So I've got my front foot forward,

as I'm lifting that front wheel up nice and high,

I fixated on a point where I wanna place

that front wheel on the bench.

So when I've got that front wheel on the bench,

I'm squashed down on the suspension,

and I've curled my feet around the pedals,

I've lifted that back wheel up,

whilst pushing forward with my handlebars,

driving that bike onto the bench as well.

You might find that your back wheel

sort of barely makes it up, but just keep pushing forward,

and pushing the weight and driving your hips forward,

and that bike will go up onto the table.

And once you're on there, it's easy,

this is the easiest part.

Roll to the edge, give it a quick stab on your pedals,

do a mini wheelie off of the bench,

keeping that front wheel nice and high.

Land, back wheel first, ride away, nice and smooth.

There's a few mistakes that when it comes to using

that front touch technique, that you can make quite easily.

One of the ones I see a lot,

is coming in with your cranks level.

Like I said, it's really important

to make sure you've got that good foot,

your wrong foot forward.

Just allows that drive that instant pfft

to lift the front wheel up.

If you're coming in, with your right foot forward,

or your strong foot forward,

you've got nothing to drive that bike,

you're purely trying to do it with your hips,

and your body, and it just won't happen.

You really need that rear wheel drive,

and the explosive technique to get your up onto there.

So for the front touch or the hook technique,

front wheel placement is crucial.

If you come underneath,

you don't lift that front wheel high enough,

basically you're just gonna go straight over the handlebars,

and probably slide across the bench,

which is gonna be pretty cool, and make your mates laugh.

But if you go too far,

you're not gonna get enough lift off that back wheel,

the bikes gonna hit sorta there

and your chain rings gonna bash into the table.

And again you won't get up on the table.

You really need that to be right on the first

little bit of the table.

As soon as that hits, drive that front wheel in,

and lifting the hips up, drive that bike onto the table.

- Now we are gonna use this hook.

Well this hook technique is perfect

when it comes to a step like this, a little ledge.

It's got a little bit of slope,

so when you're coming in,

you're coming in with a little bit of speed.

So what you're gonna do is lift your front wheel up,

as soon as your front wheel has tapped there,

like Chris has told you,

you're gonna force your body weight up,

pulling on your pedals,

curling your feet on those pedals to get that back wheel up,

land, and put the power down and continue down the trail.

(upbeat music)

Ah yes, logs, the log ride.

When you come to trail, if you're out in the carpark,

or you're out on the trail, it's a great time

to practice your balancing skills

when it comes to a log like this one,

'cause you can just get up onto this thing,

have a little bit of a hook, ride along.

This is a great place to start

building a confidence in your balancing skills.

Especially when you come to a bit

of a sticky situation out on the trail,

where there's a bit of a north shore, and it's a bit narrow,

and it's like six foot up in the sky.

You don't wanna be learning it straight away

and chuck yourself in the deep end.

(upbeat music)

(grunts)

(laughs)

Oh so close, damn it!

- So let's talk endos.

The basic endo is a trials move,

isn't much use to you out on the trail.

So basic endo is when you go along,

you pull that front brake on,

shift, squash that suspension,

and move your weight forward

whilst holding onto that front brake.

I'll just show you this maneuver now.

So we come in, pull that front brake, squash.

So that isn't much use out on the trail.

What we need to learn

is how to move that back end of the bike around.

So let's talk through a few techniques

on getting that back wheel all the way 'round.

Basically all we're doing, is just starting a technique

at our toes, so connecting to the bike,

so you're obviously pushing into those pedals,

whilst turning with your feet and your ankles.

And continue that motion up though your hips

and your upper body, whilst holding onto that front brake,

whilst looking as well.

You really need to look with your head.

If you do it whilst looking straight,

it will just go straight.

You actually need to turn and look

to where you want it to turn.

Basically that will let that whole bike

maneuver all the way around the corner.

- I've done this a lot,

and that's taking the wrong whole trail.

So the super stylish way to do this,

to turn around, is the endo.

Perfect way to turn around, head back down the trail,

and get back on the right trail.

Oh, I knew left was the right one, silly me.

Woo hoo.

Oh wow, this corner's quite tight.

This is where the endo is going to come into play.

Just to get your rear wheel 'round.

Come in slow, do that, and drop in the trail.

Right, without the endo, even slower, way more awkward.

Look at that, ha!

So the endo, in hindsight, is way better.