realskiers

Bushwacka:

Thanks.  Just knowing that its a real challenge even for a "competent" rider and not something we are doing totally wrong. The COM advice for going downhill is what others have advised, on our recent ride Lynn liked the feel of the bike going downhill at 12mph?? with more weight over the front wheel, but you are right in that she will need to get that weight back in a hurry before she applies the breaks.  Pulling "back" on the handlebars is a good idea -- I was pulling up as I would with my road bike and found my front wheel getting bounced into the air so I stopped that (and slowed the rebound on the front shock).

Thanks for the video, will look at it tonight.  My brief look at the "Track Stand" is intimidating.

We use them for cross country type riding, not downhill or challenging stuff.  I ride some local trails here in Fairfax County Virginia and along the C&O Canal towpath from Washington DC north;  Lynn lives near the Delaware River in New York and has lots of roads/trails in her area.  Ten Mile River Boy Scout camp (12,000 acres) is less than 5 miles of dirt roads from her house, and we've had a couple of memorable rides there already (including one where we got a bit lost).

Thanks for the compliment on the bike selection. Yes, GT Marathon Carbon Pro with XT components and XTR shifters.  We got great deals last Christmas on prior year models from Performance Bike.  The pedaling is really smooth, I guess that is the I-Drive and the RP23 shocks performing as advertised.

on the track stand.

Put flat pedal on the bike to learn it. Also the instructor in the video looks downs and I highly recommend looking up.

Also I could not see what pedal where on the bike, but shimano SPDs are the best for MTBing(and for track stands). I personally am really scared to ride crank bros because of the clip falls I have had on them. The weight saving of the Crank bros comes are price of way harder to get out of, way easier to break, and the spindles break all the time.  Despite the know issues people keep buying them and there is 1000s of thread on the internet of people complaining about what I am saying.

Crank bros's pedal can let you get stuck in the pedals , SPDs can be adjust to come off really easily.

I am bascially just a XC rider as well currently my only MTB is a hardtail singlespeed, and quite frankly freeride stuff scares the hell out of me looking at it.