I alternate between feeling faster than last year and feeling slower than last year. In general, I sort of feel slow, but then I hit certain sections of trail or do certain rides, and I realize that I am still getting better. I should probably do a test again and prove it to myself.
I bought a new mountain bike DVD last week: Fluidride: Like a Pro. It is definitely more downhill oriented, but when I watched the preview and I learned something from the 30 second snippet, I thought it would be worthwhile. I watched it Friday night, and there's great material. I thought the format was very good: a little lecture, followed by some demonstration. The main instructor covers the material really fast, which is sort of a double-edged sword. For the first time through, it was probably too fast, but I think it will be good for repeated viewings.
(I love pictures like this where the rider is leaning so far!)
Sunday was my opportunity to try some of this stuff out. I rode over to my home trail, PLRA for a couple laps. I wanted to do two things: work on staying in a neutral position and try the drop technique they showed in the DVD. When I remembered to do it, I definitely descended and cornered faster and more comfortably in the neutral position. It's something I'll just have to keep working on to make a habit.
As for the drops, I used to always either try to roll a drop by pulling mostly up on my bars (at low speed) or bunny hop a drop (at higher speeds). The DVD explains why bunny hopping off drops can be a bad idea. The main drop technique on the video emphasizes shifting your weight back to lift the front wheel. Nothing new really, but they explained it in a way that worked better for me. Anyway, I tried this on most of the drops at PLRA (none are very big, 2ft, at most) and it worked really well, fast or slow.
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