Be a master at pumping without a pump track

I am a big fan of theMastering Mountain Bike Skills book which opened me to a new dimension of mountain biking by understanding how to ride better and have more fun on my mountain bike. The author insists that one of the most basic skills that you should dominate is pumping before going to most advanced ones like jumping or riding in technical singletracks.

Pumping is the action of weighting your bike to take profit of descents to get some free speed and unweighting to avoid getting stalled by bumps or obstacles like roots or stones. As you weight and unweight your bike in a successive way hence the name of pumping. Pumping seems quite easy to achieve but the difficulty is to detect those obstacles to pump and get the best timing to unload your bike.

And after this winter getting a bike light, a Nitefighter BT21, and trying night riding for the first time I realized that the light gave me a better detection system of minor bumps as they cast a shadow by the light beam,these makes any trail the perfect practice pump track if you don't have one near you and remember that practice makes the master.

Not only this could be applied to pumping, but your overall skills could be better practiced in night conditions where you are much more focused but remember that riding at night is dangerous therefore you should check our Essential night riding safety tips to ride in the safer way possible. And thanks for reading and sharing!!