You know when to mash and when to spin, you’re a billy goat on the climbs, and you bomb hills with the greatest of ease, but somewhere between all that busy work is a technique that obviates pedaling, allows you to carry (and gain) speed through obstacles, provides more stability, and makes riding look so easy (and fun). This magical shred-tastic secret is called pumping, and if you’re not already doing it, grab some bar and drop your post as it is bound to take your riding to another level.
Pump tracks and flow trail are carefully crafted playgrounds for learning to pump whereas rock, root, and other gnarliness tricks our minds into thinking the trail is out to thwart our shred-worthy intentions. Not so! Within the trail and its technical features is stored energy accessible not by pedal, but by syncing body movement with the terrain. The moment you start seeing obstacles as opportunities, nasty gnar becomes “flow” trail limited only by your ability to implement and master pumping.
