4 Mountain Biking Tips For Beginners

Shake up your summer workout routine: hop on a mountain bike. Not only is mountain biking great cross-training for the sports you love, it doesn't actually feel like a workout. Riding singletrack is more like an adventure. At more than 500 calories burned per hour, it's also the perfect outdoor activity for fitness and endurance addicts.

While beginner singletrack trails are mostly packed dirt, they do serve up enough obstacles to keep you on your toes.

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These basic mountain biking tips will help you tackle the trails with confidence.

More: The Basics: Mountain Bike Skills You Need to Know

1. Watch the Trail

Cliff Krolick, owner and operator of Backcountry Excursions in Parsonsfield, Maine says, "Your arms do not steer the bike, your eyes do."

Many new riders keep their eyes focused on the trail directly in front of their tire. This can cause delayed reactions since it's often too late to respond to obstacles that are right in front of you.

Instead, focus your eyes about 15 feet in front of you. This gives your mind time to process what's ahead, so that your body can respond appropriately.

2. Steer With Your Eyes

The best way to tell the bike what to do is to look where you want it to go, and lean in that direction. If you look and lean right, your bike will turn right. Look and lean left, and your bike will turn left.

More: Turn Without Skidding

3. Climb Efficiently

"Just as gravity affects you going downhill," Krolick says, "it affects you going uphill." To counteract the effect of gravity, shift your weight forward and lower your chest. This helps keep the front tire on the ground.

Of course shifting your body weight won't help much if you don't shift into the proper gear.

More: Beginner's Guide to Gears on Your Mountain Bike

Before Krolick, who leads more than 250 mountain biking tours each year, lets his riders even sit on their bikes, he mounts the bike on a stand and asks the riders to pedal and shift with their hands.

Give it a try: Play with the different gears but keep your eyes on the chain. Watch it jump from ring to ring. Eventually this movement will become intuitive. As you approach a climb, you'll know precisely which way to adjust the gears without having to look down.

More: Climb Like The Pros

4. Descend Safely

Gears aren't just to make climbing easier; they help make your pedaling more efficient.

As you crest a climb, shift immediately into a higher gear. If you wait until you are at the bottom of a hill to shift, your wheels will be turning too quickly to engage the gears. You'll spin out and slow down before you're able to get the pedal stroke back.

Instead, shift up a couple of gears at the top of the hill, so that when you start pedaling again at the bottom, you can maintain the momentum you gained on the descent.

On the actual descent, shift your weight back to help counteract the effect of gravity. If you want, you can stand with your knees bent, ready to absorb any bumps along the way. You can also keep two fingers hovered over the brake levers but be careful not to pull them too tight or too quick. Most of the time you just need to give the brakes a gentle tug to keep your speed in check.

Test the power of your brakes with one of Krolick's favorite drills: In a controlled environment, preferably on soft ground, pedal as fast as you can. Brace yourself for an abrupt stop by shifting your weight back to help avoid going over the handlebars. You can either slam on the brakes to see just how powerful they are, or simply test the reaction with various pull tests.

More: A Brake Drill for Beginning Mountain Bikers

Of course, the most important mountain biking tip is to stay safe: Build your confidence on beginner trails, and always wear a helmet.

Resources to find trails near you:

• singletracks.com
• trails.com
• Best bet: Your local bike shop. Just be sure to tell them that you are a beginner