Need help learning to stand up!!

[jran]

Dirt Wise

I recently got the vid. "Dirt Wise" with Shane Watts. Great section on the proper body position when standing and how to use that standing position to benefit your ability in a bunch of technical stuff. I thought it was a great video. He also had some practice drills you could do to help you feel more comfortable with it and increase your balance.

 

[Oldcow]

I posted this similar thread over on another site and one member mentioned to weight the inside peg. I have been weighting the outside peg. Got to try it out today and i must say it worked killer. Buzzed right through a lot of stuff i would normally sit down through!

Can you explain what this means "weight the inside peg"? I need all the advice I can get to learn standing !

 

[JoshP]

When you are turning you want your weight on the peg on the inside of
the curve, so making a left turn you would want your weight on the left foot. It sounds weird but it works and really allows you to turn harder through the whole turn as to where I always felt like the bike wanted to straighten out when standing through a turn. The only way to become a good standing rider is
1. To stand all the time if it hurts then you are doing it right and if you have a hard time standing at all do some weight training or weighted walking / hiking to build you legs to allow the stand. (A starting goal is stand for 1 hour straight while riding.)
2. Practice standing at very slow speeds, make sudden stops and starts without touching or removing feet, general trials riding techniques help big!
3. You need to practice and perfect your riding stance. What I mean here is your arm position, legs, body weight over the bike.
*If you stand too tall or straight your weight is off and also you can not attack terrain well. Too close to the bike you can't accept terrain changes or
little throws in the trail, hence the huge problem with trying to ride fast when sitting.
Hope it helps.

 

[1800 Spam]

hey guys kinda new to this forum, i stand alot more than most of my mates, it mainly comes from riding trials bikes as a kid. You defently have a lot more control standing in both slow technical stuff as you have much better balance and you are in a much more dominate position on the bike, putting you in control of the bike instead of the bike being in control of you; and in open stuff as it puts you in a position which is ready to react to up coming obsticals, or suprises that sneak up on you. If a log or bog hole catches you while humming along in 5th/6th gear, while sitting there is a good chance you will crash into it, but standing you are in control and ready to react, you can get your weight back, forward, or pre load the bike to get you over the top of the obstical.
I also find that if i do get myself into trouble, including running too hot into a corner, and washing the front wheel under brakes, it is alot easier to regain control while standing with you putting your foot down than in is while sitting, putting all your weight onto your foot and possible doing yourself damage to your knees etc

i find that i have alot more control when entering corners standing, as you can shift you weight alot better to steer the bike, and control any sideways behavour.



The key is to use your legs... GRIP THE BIKE WITH YOUR KNEES while accelerating and breaking, this will prevent your arms from becoming tired and will give you control! The bike can be steered with out using your arms, and you can practice it by riding down a hill, standing up, knees bent, with your weight central, now take your hands from the handle bars and while rolling use your legs to steer the bike. If you push down on the right peg and lift up from the left one the bike will steer right, and vice versa.
I find this good practice as it reminds you how much work the bike can do for you. Another handy thing to remember when ridding it tight trees is to stand above the bike, steer it with your legs, but keep your upper body upright and let the bike lean underneigh you. That way you can thread the bike and handle bars through really tight trees, without getting yourself tangled up in them, whilst also keeping up on the pegs.

As far as bike set up i like my bars higher than stock (i have spacers), i run my gear lever around 25mm above peg height as this makes shifting while standing comfortable without having to remove my foot from the pegs, i have my rear brake lever again slightly higher than the peg so its comfortable to use standing (i use my rear brakes alot) and my levers are set just down from horizontal, this ensures that my wrists are at the correct angles while operating my levers to maintain their strength (my wrists have had multiple injurys so i have to be careful.

Just remember to use your leg muscles to grip the bike, and also to steer the bike.

Hope this all helps

Sam

Ride smooth, ride fast


2007 EC 250 (for sale)
2009 EC 250 (comming as soon as the doc says i can ride!!!)

 

[Cruiser]

Some very good tips here.. I find myself sitting more the older I get.. I would always stand, rarely sit down,, now when I start to get tired I stit then I get sloppy.. I find it helps me stand to set all the controls and bars to the standing position,, so it becomes uncofortable to sit.. reminds me to stand back up..

 

[skid jackson]

hey guys kinda new to this forum, i stand alot more than most of my mates, it mainly comes from riding trials bikes as a kid.

I'll second the "lots of good tips" comment!!
I picked up a beta 200 a year or so back. I use it mostly in the spring before the regular trails open up and sometime late fall or winter when there is no snow. It more or less solved my standing problem. Now if I sit it is because I'm tired.

On a side note ... when I got the beta I asked other trialers about raising the bars like you would a dirt bike. They all said not too. You need them low for when the bike goes verticle. So I got used to riding with the low bars. On a lark I lowered my dirtbike bars back to stock because going through turns seated with the high bars was like riding with ape hangers. Because of the beta I had gotten used to standing with lower bars and it did not phase me when I went back to the low position on the dirtbike. Though sometimes I wonder if having them in the stock position might throw off my body position.

 

[Hamish]

hey guys, I have always been crap at standing , but one thing I have noticed going from the kato 300 to the gasser is that its much harder to grip the gasser with your knees.
The inside of my boots touch on the frame guard, where as on the kato I could grip the seat with my knees. Any mods anyone has done to cure this problem?
I was thinking of gluing some hard foam to the frame guards. being 6ft3" doesnt help either

Other thing is re weighting the inside peg. I always thought it was the outside peg you wanted to put weight onto when cornering to reduce the chance of the front washing out which I must say is a problem I rarely have these days with the kato in the garage

 

[JEEPUSAURUS]

Hey guys, I stand pretty much always, and grip bike with my knees, by doing this you have way better control of the bike without getting arm pump by holding on with your hands, as was said earlier on you can steer the bike with your knees.
As far as control, i feel that you need to keep the front wheel planted to keep the bike going were you want it to go, (to keep it planted for me, if i cant read the front # plate i'm not far enough forward) and proper sus. setup.
And as far as the pegs go I agree with Hamish on weight issue, Picture your bike from behind, now draw a line from the outside of the footpeg to where the tire comes into contact with the ground, then lean the bike over(as if cornering)The line on the upside is your weight pushing the tires into the ground, the line on the downside is your weight pushing the tires sideways, and this works for me, if i want to keep the bike on my line i weight the outside peg, if i want to get the bike to drift through the corner i weight the inside peg
Try going in a staight line and weighting each peg back and forth and see what the bike does, for me it moves the opposite way of the peg i'm weighting.(the rear of the bike)
I hope this helps, but this is what works for me

 

[widebear]

Hamish. tall guys like us need to get the centre line of the bars at least half a inch forward of the fork tube centre line, and a bar with less sweep in order to keep a proper balance that wont be un comfortable and force you back into a sitting mode,I had no problem standing up during all of Sundays ride after gettin a prickly pear cactus thorn jammed into my left ass cheek, did'nt want to ask my buddys for help. not that they'd helped anyhow.

 

[dank]

Dirt Wise

When i first started riding i had a habit of sitting, for which i was remanded heavily by the father of the girl who got me into riding. he threw a move at me while i was at her house, and told me to learn. now i know leaning from videos sounds lame, but i had just purchased an 03 Ec 250 and i needed all the help i could get. it has helped immensely. the video is called Dirt Wise, and it features Shane Watts, or "Wattsy". while they do alot of talking about the man himself, he also does alot of teaching, on subjects such as riding in the rough, turning, and, most importantly to you, standing. For all the help it can give you it is definitely worth the buy.

 

[HydroDog]

Put on a seat from a 2007 bike. After 5 miles of riding you will stand up.

 

[Troy F collins]

I think when you develop your craft and become a faster rider you do tend to become a "stander" because its a lot easier to tidy up speed when you absorb it with help of your leg travel.....short turns no problem too..just a bit of rear brake..a quick sit down.. power out and go.....

But throw in multiple tighter sets of turns and things need to be done differently....you need to rely on the front and in these instances you have to have your weight on it...MY problem is not sitting down enough !!!

To practice this I set up an area where you can mark out a small radius "figure eight" on flat ground... then ride it out....you'll find it forces you to sit as you pivot the corners foot down......and also forces you to lean forward coming out of the turns when you apply the power too...do it over and over

I try it when I can...but I find as I get older the upper leg and hip joint starts to cramp up if I sit too long

so its back to the old adage "its easier to tidy up speed..than to speed up tidiness"

 

[radicalron]

Maybe I missed it but the first thing to do is get the ergos on the bike rigged for standing, bar position and controls are key. First and foremost you have to be comfortable standing and working the controls. My guess is that the seat and peg height are good (the size eight shoe size gave it away). So focus on the bar position, clutch, brake and throttle. Also set your brake and shifter for standing.

Get the ergos right and start practicing the drills mentioned and buy all three Shane Watts videos they are inspiring. Practice lifting one leg off of the peg when riding, start with some straight line riding then move to doing figure 8s lifting thie inside foot off the pegs. Your balance and confidence will improve and it will get your comfort level up quick.

 

[rbm33]

i am just the opposite of you. my "standing up" riding is much better than my "sitting down" riding. i can run the pace of the slower pros while im fresh and standing up but when i tire and start sitting im running the pace of the novice riders!!

a couple of tips i have is dont be afraid to move around and work your bike underneath you as you are standing, alot of people tend to tense up and not relax when they are standing. also, if you notice your hands and arms getting tired quickly, you probably arent leaning foreward enough. alot of people preach keeping your head above the number plate when standing, but its really more about keeping a neutral balance point and letting your legs do the work, which means under acceleration you would be leaning foreward more than you would at a constant speed and certainly more than braking.

one little trick i do when practicing and riding slower is to take one hand off of your bars while standing and rolling through some turns smoothly and slow.
it wont take but a second to determine if your positioning is neutral or not.

hope this helps...

 

[mrkartoom]

Get a trials bike. You'll have no choice but to stand and it will be more 'normal' when moving to the other bike.

 

[GasGasDreamer]

if the shock has too much preload, you will feel like you have more control if you sit down. if i were you, i would see what your preolad is now. adjusting the preload by seemily small amount of 2mm makes a huge difference. the better the back end works, or another way to see this is the less the back end kicks, the more comfortable and confident you will be standing up.

another thing that helps with standing up is to not lock your knees. they need to be bent so they become your suspension component.

throttle and brake control, or lack of control, becomes more evident when you are standing up too. before you twist the throttle to go fast, try 'pre-leaning' forward in anticipation. the same goes for braking. make your body position and tension start to adapt before the actual event takes place.
this might sounds stupid, but doing a deliberate dump over the bars can help reduce the anxiety of going over the bars. i am pretty good at controlled get-offs. probably because i suck and bail often, or because i'm pushing my envelope. i think dirt riding is like snow skiing in the fact that falling is just part of the experience.

 

[lankydoug]

+1 on standing wile riding is similar to snow skiing. I set my throttle brake and clutch controls to be optimal for standing position and have been practicing trials exercises like full lock figure eights and riding tight circles around trees and over logs. This seems to be helping my standing skills and it surprised me how difficult and tiring it is to go slow.

 

[waycrazy]

Funny enough what helped me standing (which I am by far not perfect at) is riding my mountain bike. I started riding a bicycle because I was out of shape and as a after effect I found out it has helped me with motorcycle riding.I think because I was working so hard at peddling and thinking more about dieing from exhaustion,that everything else fell into place. Also find that just coasting your bike with the engine shut down helps too. Kind of takes that bucking bronco out of the equation tell you get used to the feel and balance needed to stand up.

 

[motogroove]

+1 on standing wile riding is similar to snow skiing. I set my throttle brake and clutch controls to be optimal for standing position and have been practicing trials exercises like full lock figure eights and riding tight circles around trees and over logs. This seems to be helping my standing skills and it surprised me how difficult and tiring it is to go slow.

I always tell people that dirt biking is like skiing, especially the whole thought process and total flow concentraton.

If the pedal weighting thing is confusing, try pushing the handlebar away from you on one side. You might be surprised which way the bike goes.

I stand as much as possible, but know that it's not unwise to save energy when a section allows you to sit. A good neutral position doesn't require too much energy, and as folks have mentioned, you can keep it pretty neutral by shifting your body to compensate for the awesome power and other intended dynamics.

 

[andykr87]

When I rode C class racing gncc's taught me to stand. They are brutal and fast. I weight 260 and I just can't pound through a lot of nastiys being this big so I have to stand up to absorb the hits and trail garbage.