How to ride BIGGER jumps (without fear!)

so I've been wanting to make a video like this for a while and it's all to do with mindset handling and dealing with fear as an athlete mountain biker whatever when I started mountain biking and I used to look at the biggest and best athletes and always wonder like what goes through their mind when it comes to riding scary big features and over the years of riding I seem to or feel like I've developed a great process for how to deal with fear and how to

actually turn fear into a positive so you can ride with more confidence and that's what I wanted to talk about in this video on how to deal with fear become more confident Rider when you are riding something that scares you or something you want to ride or hitting like some big gnarly feature so I've just recently got back from a trip from Royal Hills in France which if you're not aware Royal Hills is an event or a place where they have the Fest series jump line and this is part of an event that runs throughout the year where

Riders Free Riders come together and have a jam and they ride some of the biggest jump start or they're actually available to ride right now some of these are invite only Royal Hills is a public place so anybody can go there and ride these jumps these are some big jumps so some of the biggest ones there are like 80 90 feet which is pretty big in terms of mountain bike mountain bikes go we went there with Lewis and Tommy both really really skilled bike riders we worked ourselves through the jumps when we were there to

me it was really interesting going there because I actually went through a whole process before I went and while I was there of dealing with fear of these jumps because I've always had it inside me where if I want to do something um my mind gets so focused on it when my mind gets so focused on something there isn't really many things that will turn me off doing it sometimes when you see someone ride something gnarly or crazy you look at those athletes and you think Christ are they like are they Fearless do they have anything are they stupid

and I actually think it's quite the opposite because the nalia or scarier something looks or the more technical something is the rider doing it is usually a lot more logical a lot more methodical what may look crazy to you may be different to the rider actually doing the feature and this is kind of like how I felt a at Royal Hills I feel now I'm at a point in my ride in like I can look at a feature or a track or a jump or whatever and I can decide within

a few seconds whether I have that skill and capability to do it or not and if I do I can go through a process of visualizing myself doing this feature or jump before I've even done anything so then when it does come to doing the feature in real life it feels like I've already done it I already know how it's going to feel I can already visualize what it's going to look like I'm sorry my dog was concealer how do you deal with it for me it all started with reading a book called The chimped Paradox which I'll put a picture up here if you've never seen this book and in this book it's a book by Stephen Peters

I think who was a psychologist who works for the British cycling team which is how I got to meet this person it's this was back when I was racing down on mountain bikes and I I knew I had a good skill on the bike but the thing I found was holding me back was my lack of like mental preparation for an event or a race I felt like really good my bike in practice or outside of a racing environment a competitive environment and then as soon as it came to racing or competition the mental side of things would actually crush me and I would have

bad results couldn't ride properly couldn't get the right headspace and it wasn't until I read this book that I started to really hone and work on my mental game which has been a massive focus of mine in the last few years and I feel it's affected my riding in such a positive way or in anything I set my mind to in this book Stephen Peters if you've not read it talks about how to manage your chimp rain so that's the thing inside your head that is you know the fair side of things I can't remember what it's actually called I don't know a technical term for it but it's that

nagging voice in your head that's always telling you or should you do that you can't do this can't do that it's the thing inside your brain that keeps you safe the way that Stephen p is approached in the book is not to not acknowledge it and exist it doesn't you know try and pretend it doesn't exist he teaches you how to manage that chimp so they're thinking in the book he actually refers to it as feeding it banana has always stuck with me that and this is what I've always tried to do with anything that looks scary a new feature or anything like that so I did this at Royal Hills last week when we were there

we walked the track before we rode it so I looked at all the features with before it even ridden I knew my head I was capable of riding the features that are hands down I tried to keep that confidence to myself I don't really like talking about this stuff and like almost over hyping myself all the confidence in myself I just kind of like try to let my riding my skill do the the talking I don't in that respect I feel like I'm I want to be more humble than anything else like I don't like shouting or trying to put a stake on it before I've

done something I that just to me adds more unwanted pressure and when you're at events like this or you're riding features as big as the jumps at Royal Hills there are it's already a stressful environment you're already going to ride these huge features this added pressure is just not what you want so this is why I think the mental side of things in riding is such a big thing I feel a lot more rather than talking right now I haven't really seen many of these videos in the past I actually uh watched a video from Remy Natalia who talked about this openly in a video I really liked it

because he is someone I look up to as a an athlete and a rider who does stuff that looks insane and is insane for him he must go he must have his mental process so dialed that he is so focused on what he's doing that almost he must used to be so confident everything almost probably slows down and he hits his line so perfectly it's like artwork it's really good to watch if you don't go and check this channel out go and do it it's really really cool to see and he's the one I look up to from the mental side of things as well as like the physical capability that has been

seen back to Royal Hill so I went through this process of ticking off the jumps when I was there I always go through the same process when I'm riding so if there's a feature I want to do I will look at it first like I said then I'll roll up to it a few times within the first few Roll-Ups for a jump or a feature or a thing I've always had in my head that if I can't do it after three attempts then I'm completely okay of walking away from that feature and turning away from it it's just not meant to be that day whereas previous me would have almost egged myself on to do the

feature that just adds even more unwantly pressure so I've learned now to be fairly humble riding especially where I want to take my mountain biking now I want to move into this more free ride stuff I want to do biggest things I want to go down that route and to do that you need to have your mental game sharp if it's not sharp then you need to work on it otherwise you know you're gonna risk yourself for cause injury if you don't want so yeah if I can't do something with with three Roll-Ups to a jump or a feature then I'm fairly happy with turning away from it and I'm completely okay with that and you should be as well

never feel forced into doing something so if your friends like done something I could feature or something scary and you want to do it but external pressure ignore it completely ignore it it's not it's not worth the risk in most cases I also like feeling good as in the clothes I wear to ride in also help me become more comfortable different in in riding if you look good you'll feel good right or if you feel good you'll ride better same thing I always try and ride in clothes I am comfortable riding in same

with protective gear gloves no gloves Whatever by itself needs to be on point this this all goes together in preparing yourself mentally to do things because you don't have any of these dialed then it's gonna weigh on your mind now the first time hitting a feature or like dealing with fear nine times out of ten when I hit a feature for the first time I've already visualized myself doing it before I've done it I had a conversation with Tommy when I was away France actually about this it was interesting to talk about the mental side of things with him he was saying that the pressure was getting to him on the first day he

had to do a lot of traveling around because his bike's got forgotten and stuff like that that obviously added a ton of them white stressed him before it even started writing and he already decided the first day we were there that he didn't want to do the the bigger jumps that day because he wasn't feeling it which is like the best thing he could have could have done it would have been so bad if he had carried on and feeling forced to do something actually when the risk is that high on jumps like this so in that respect it was better just to be like look I'm not ready to say too stressed from all the traveling around picking bloody bikes up and all the

hassle I'm just going to relax the and chill out and then tomorrow we'll look to ramp things up and that's what happened like the next day started working through the jumps which is amazing to see yeah it was interesting chatting with Tommy about the mental side of riding and how much it actually can hold people back just with the external pressure they put on themselves when it actually doesn't exist another thing to add as well in the preparations to do in a jump I feel I spend a lot of time preparing before I've even done anything like I said before I've spent a long time working on my mental game and I believe that is almost like a bigger

part now of the actual physical riding side of things sounds counter-intuitive but I think it is if I'm looking around the feature for the first time I will spend what I feel is a lot longer in other people trying to analyze all the possible outcomes of this feature what happens if I ride too slow arms variety too fast what happens if I get the jump just right how's it going to be feel going up to take off where does my body need to be I try and analyze absolutely everything because the actual fear I find comes from Fear of the unknown so

if you're doing something for the first time your brain has such a big fear because it doesn't understand or doesn't know or feel what something is going to be like so you're literally it's almost like you're stepping off into the abyss and that's what it feels like to your brain like theoretically and we want it to try and avoid that or minimize it as much as we can you're not going to avoid it you just need to minimize it and to do that like I literally look at jumps and features from all angles I try and figure out like what I'm actually going to feel like when I do this and I picture myself doing it because that in

itself is a really big part in removing the fear of the unknown because the more you can paint a picture of what it's gonna be like when you actually roll into it your brain will be less scared for a better sense because it's already done it in its mind and that's where we want to get to with this it's also worth pointing out as well and talking about bike setup one thing that you should definitely make sure that you prepare for is if you know you're going to ride something that's deep or technical or big jumps like I was that your bike is set up and it's capable for

the job at hand making sure all your parts are running sweet making sure that everything is going to run without any problems you're not going to have any Mechanicals that's one thing you obviously want to avoid or costs and it's also worth talking about how in tune you are with your bike if you run your bike a specific way and you run the similar components or have them for a long time you should be fairly familiar with how that bike feels I feel like I'm fairly in tune with my bike and my set of my bike so if I throw my bike off a jump or drop or into a corner I feel

like I'm kind of at one with the bike and I know roughly where my body needs to be to get to do what I want to do and having this like connection with your bike is really going to help in increase your confidence and reduce that feeling of fear when you are doing something scary because you know exactly where you want to put your body and how how you are feeling connected to your bike components of your bike as well as a big thing so being in check with all the parts of what you can you connect

yourself to your bike with the shoes that you're wearing the cleats on those shoes the pedals your grips your gloves a tire pressure suspension setup making sure the goggles are clean making sure the helm is like a correct tightness to like being safe and like comfortable as well these all go into helping you deal and manage fear when you're doing something scary or they have done for me anyway and I've learned a lot of this stuff from other Riders as well although they don't openly talk about things if you watch them or maybe some Riders do

talk about aren't you if you just watch people learn from yourself try and get in tune with yourself and the components in your bike because if you can do this you'll spend less time worrying that your bike isn't going to hold up to what you want to put it through and you can actually spend more time actually focusing on the task at hand which is doing this feature that's in front of you there's like there's literally nothing worse than having your mind unfocused and thinking about something else like oh my God like is my shot gonna blow up down this is my tie gonna blow off the rim like is my derailleur gonna survive this or whatever it is

rather than being completely confident in the gear that you're running and just being able to focus on riding your bike feature at hand riding is also fluid as well and so is your bike setup when we're at Royal Hills for example I made a number of different changes to my bike as I was riding the features and building up to these big jumps because I'd never in something that big so I was kind of adjusting on the Fly I had a setup that was fairly I was fairly happy with but because I'd never ridden at these speeds before on these jumps I knew my bike setup had to be slightly different and adjusted I increased my

tire pressure I increased How firm my suspension was just to deal with the intense speed and the the jumps and stuff like that always pay attention to your bike so as you are riding so if you feel something could benefit from a little change or tweak maybe it is more pressure in a shock or less pressure in your tires or the The Handlebar roll or your brake lever height try and be really in tune with your bike and think about how it's set up because this will help you in like a massive way and it does take many years to to get to that

point I feel to be in tune with your bike and no right I need to change this to make this outcome like sometimes people don't know what is actually wrong and what they need to change on their bike to make it feel how they want they just like oh my God my bike's got a problem but I don't know what's changed but when you in tune with your bike and you can say right and if I adjust my handlebar roll it's going to make me feel more like this I need to be more further back on the bike I need to be further over front whatever it is make sure you get to a point where you can feel in tune with your machine the next point to cover it is probably looking at your body like are you correctly fueled

are you correctly hydrated did you go on the piss the night before and feel like hungover or like not 100 basically because if you want to do something that is outside of your comfort zone you can never done before you want to be like as close to 100 as you can be like mentally as well and physically obviously I try to make sure that I am correctly fueled for what I want to go and do because obviously if you dehydrate as well that will affect how focused you are and I like to make sure I'm 100 focused on

something if I feel that I'm not all there in my head I'm more than happy to walk away from something I've never done before you've got all your preparation done your body your mind your setup on your bike now you come to the point where you want to ride this feature of do this line or whatever I guess you could say it goes two ways so the first outcome is that you ride this feature or do whatever you're planning on doing and it goes completely to plan and if it does go to completely to plan then congratulations give yourself a pat on the back um but I would equally at the same time

be looking at like how that experience was for you what went well what could have gone better did it actually happen the way you visualized it like how it felt how it looked or you know whatever and that's what I like to do I like to always try and be really analytical on my riding and what I'm doing to try and progress and move up to the next ladder next one with a ladder sorry it doesn't always go to plan like you can sometimes do something where you're stepping out your comfort zone and inevitably you will have a crash like it's just part of the sport in whatever you're doing and I

think it's also beneficial to if you do a feature and you do crash have a look at like what or like what didn't go quite to plan and then you can work on avoiding that mistake for future attempts or future progressions of your riding and that to me is how you build a really solid base as a rider mentally and physically I don't really have a s I really really like step-by-step process as to how I methodically do these features but this is kind of like my thought process that I go through when I'm riding something new or something

that is completely out of my comfort zone I've never done before because it can be enough sometimes to overwhelm people it overwhelms me sometimes and you wouldn't be surprised that the amount of stuff I've walked away from I walk away from quite a lot and like I said before there's no shame in it I'm quite happy and almost like quite proud of myself sometimes for walking away from things that I just know that I'm not feeling 100 for I'm not ready for I hope this is useful for you guys drop me a comment below if you have any questions on mental game or if you have any tips as well to share with myself or

people watching this video would be really useful to hear cheers for tuning in see you next video go Shred