Making movements on a bike is effectively communicating with it. Each movement you make is telling the bike to do a particular thing. For example, if you move back, you are asking the bike to make the front wheel light and rear wheel heavy.
Programming the key movements (followed by working on your timing) is a great way to improve and get the bike reacting properly to the trail you are riding over. Here are some ideas on how to do that.
Where is home?
There’s a lot of conversation out there about riding “body position” — also known as the “ready position” or “attack position.”
Effectively, this is about where you choose to place your mass, meaning your torso.
The key is to find a home for your mass — a place you aim to return to that feels comfortable and ideally strong. I recommend starting with your mass in the middle of the bike. That way you’ll have good balance without relying on the handlebars. It also gives you a baseline of roughly 50% of your weight on the rear wheel and 50% on the front, helping to balance your grip.
How to practise:
Ride along a flat fireroad and loosen your grip on the bars (no need to fully let go). Notice whether you start to tip forward or backward — it’s a good indicator of where your weight is biased.
Moving up and down
What is the movement?
This is the movement of raising or lowering your mass. That means going from a fully standing position with extended arms to a fully squatted position with arms and legs bent — moving your mass from a low centre of gravity to a high one.
When might you use it?
Raising your mass (driving your weight down so your arms and legs extend) is used to jump or pump. Jumping is driving your mass into the ground so the bike can go light; pumping is driving your legs down into the back of a roller to generate speed.
Moving forward and back
What is the movement?
This is the backward and forward shift of your mass. To move back, use your legs and think about the motion of sitting into a chair — the closer you get to “sitting,” the further back you’ll go. This often combines with a hip pivot (explained next).
When might you use it?
Small fore-aft movements happen constantly on a trail to keep balance and manage grip in corners. Larger rearward movements are used for drop-offs and manuals, where a big weight shift really helps.
Hip pivot/bending forward
What is the movement?
This is a movement many riders find tricky, often due to limited mobility or strength. Pivoting at the hips spreads your mass more evenly across the bike, rather than loading one area. As you pivot forward, you’ll usually need to bend your arms more.
When might you use it?
All the time. It links directly to how much you bend your arms — and your arms need to stay free most of the time. Key examples include cornering, riding steep terrain, and, as mentioned above, riding drop-offs where the hip pivot links with moving back.
Sideways movement
What is the movement?
This one is harder to visualise. Think about the bike moving sideways under you via your arms and legs — not your torso moving sideways. Practise leaning the bike over while keeping your mass stable. Once you feel that, you’re well on your way to more grip.
When might you use it?
In corners and, interestingly, in technical sections. This allows the bike to move freely side-to-side underneath you. Riders who struggle with this tend to get pinged off balance because they stay too rigid.
Timing - the difficult bit
As you can see, the idea is to start from your “home” position and then use four key movements: up/down, back/forward, pivoting, and side-to-side. Dialling in each movement — and improving your strength and mobility for them — really helps.
Then comes the truly difficult part: timing and fluidity — knowing when to make each movement and how to blend them. That’s where the magic happens.
Three key tips to improve timing:
Be playful: Don’t just stand there on the bike doing nothing — move! But don’t rush. Timing and fluidity are not achieved by speed.
Be experimental: Try different movement patterns to link one movement to the next.
Be structured: Practise a movement, then return to your “home” position. This will make you a neat and fluid rider.
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