What to do with your feet when Cornering
- Feb 4, 2015
- 2 min read
Photo Credit - Johnny Photo / Rider - Ryan Kuhn
I just received this email from James Wilson and thought it was worth sharing. A common question from riders is about the importance of switching your feet when entering a corner and the role of "dropping the cranks" in cornering. James Wilson offers some great thoughts on the subject.
Where he believes the confusion is based is on some common cornering advice that is a perfect example of someone misinterpreting the movement behind the technique.
James had shot a video addressing these questions and explaining why switching your feet is more efficient - and when you should keep the same foot forward - as well as the role of shifting the hips instead of simply dropping the cranks. Hopefully it clears up some of the confusion behind what you see pro DH riders do and what is actually driving what you see them do.
Again, in his opinion the confusion stems from riders who don't understand movement trying to interpret what they see the pros doing. Since they don't understand the movements behind the techniques they teach the techniques themselves but they often get the real cause of the technique wrong.
For example, shifting the hips causes the cranks to drop but if you don't know that then all you see are the cranks dropping. You then then misinterpret what you are seeing as the dropping of the cranks as what drives the technique.
But if you start to focus on "drop the cranks" instead of "shift the hips" then you can easily get confused as to what is really going on.
Hope this makes sense. The real test is to try it out for yourself and see.
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