Riley Okely's QS Outdoors
Description
For my QA outdoors award, I intend to spend my riding my home made mountain bike trails and getting out to places like Dookie Hills, Shepp Mt Bike Tracks, shared pathways, Urban riding.
One of the first skills I felt I attained in this time was jumping with both wheels off the ground. This was an awkward skill to do in the beginning, but through out doing this and progressing I have been able to achieve the accurate timing of fork compression and using body weight to manoeuvre the bike into the optimal positions.
The trick move, endo, sounded impractical to use whilst riding but with gaining the ability to use this skill I found it useful at times when I needed to stop quickly and transfer the rear wheel’s position. The endo is when you pull your front break to stop movement of it and balance on this front wheel while the back wheel is in the air. In the future I will be working toward achieving extended endo moves; endo 180, endo 360, endo to backwards roll and endo to back wheel hopping.
I have learnt that the movement of the bike and my position on the bike is key when going over or through or around obstacles. This is extended to riding in general too. It helps with reducing the impact to the bike and my body reducing injuries and mechanical breakdowns.
Pumping is the action used to gain more speed out of jumps or small mounds. I feel that I can complete a pump track pretty well while using pumping techniques. There is certainly room for improvement with stability and speed in the pump tracks and on the ‘flow’ tracks.
