The Art of Mountain Biking

When you choose a line, you're making a commitment—to a direction and to an experience. Viewing line choice as a commitment frees us from myopia and opens us up to creativity and flow. 

We talk about:

Three ways to approach line choice [3:30]

The fast line [4:20]

What is actually fast? [5:48]

Things to push against to go fast [9:15]

Going over braking bumps [13:52]

The safe line [16:15]

Line choice when riding behind others [22:24]

The fun line [27:27]

Ways to ride the same lines, differently [31:40]

What to do on a bad line [36:53]

Line choice and trail etiquette [38:39]

Let’s connect!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle’s project-based growth model at You Need a Thing. Please don’t forget to rate, subscribe, and share this if it resonates!

Extreme sports enthusiast and Nitro Circus alumnus Colton Brockbank joins the podcast to discuss healing from injury—as an athlete, and also in a deeper way. 

Colton is an extreme sports athlete, director, marketer, and coach who rode a snowboard on wheels and “did some trash can things” for Nitro Circus.

We talk about:

Things that come up in the face of injury [9:50]

How we forget skills after injury [10:42]

Risk and window of tolerance [14:22]

Performative self worth and deeper causes of injury [17:48]

The “no” energy of injuries [28:25]

Finding replacement outlets [29:28]

Sports-as-coping vs sports-as-expression [35:55]

Stress inoculation and post-traumatic growth [40:23]

Is how you do one thing how you do everything? [45:28]

Referenced in this episode:

We referenced a couple other episodes again, including our Fall Better episode and our conversation with Antonio Garcia.

Stress inoculation (here’s a cool Nature article about it) and post-traumatic growth.

When Jamie mentions “crest,” she’s talking about the Wasatch Crest trail.

Let’s connect!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle’s project-based growth model at You Need a Thing. Please don’t forget to rate, subscribe, and share this if it resonates!

Standing on your bike is a useful tool for both climbing and descending if you understand how it works and when it's called for. 

We talk about:

When/why you should stand up [7:33]

Standing while climbing [9:51]

Weighting your back wheel while standing and climbing [16:12]

Standing while descending [24ish]

Standing up for yourself [33:59]

Balance between individual and collective re: standing up [39:47]

Reading the situation/trail [48:36]

Air Bud [51:29]

Referenced in this episode:

We nudged new listeners to please please listen to the positioning episode and the braking episode. And if you’re a bit further along as a rider, check out our chat about cornering.

HIIT: High Intensity Interval Training

Study: Association between muscle mass, leg strength, and fat mass with physical function in older adults: influence of age and sex, published in the Journal of Aging Health

Leg strength is a better predictor of brain health than any other lifestyle factor examined in a decade-long study on cognitive function in twins, according to this article.

Danielle did not, in fact, look up Air Bud, so the question about whether the dog flies or plays basketball remains.

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle’s project-based growth model at You Need a Thing.

You have to go slow to go fast. And sometimes, you have to stop completely to create choice and freedom. So take pause, mkay?

We talk about:

Coming to a stop on a mountain bike [12:47]

Getting perspective [15:12]

The challenge of slowing down [15:32]

Finding alignment so you can pause [17:01]

Body position [22:10]

Choice vs. decision [31:23]

Purchasing freedom on the bike [36:15]

Jamie’s bike journey [43:03]

The pleasure in learning [48:08]

Going slow is countercultural [49:57]

Referenced in this episode:

Basically just a bunch of our other episodes, namely the one with Antonio Garcia (one of our favs, btw) and the one about transfer.

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work directly with Danielle at You Need a Thing.

There are two ways to get better at a physical movement: either generate more energy or maximize your energy toward forward movement. This episode is about the latter. 

We talk about:

The cost of unnecessary movement [7:46]

Pump tracks [13:18]

Cognitive chatter as tension [20:55]

Compensating when tired [26:57]

Future visioning [37:17]

Checking in with your body in the face of old patterns [45:59]

Referenced in this episode:

The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos, Why We’re Mean to Our Future Selves

The Stanford Marshmallow Studies about willpower and impulse control

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle’s project-based growth model at You Need a Thing.

When you form a relationship with your breath, you open up a world of possibilities for your ride. 

We talk about:

What is breath? What is it for? [1:15]

How breathing patterns can be set in childhood [7:56]

Working with the rhythm of breath for movement [16:20]

Holding your breath, grunting, and yelling [19:19]

How to become aware of your breath [25:27]

Breath is the problem AND the solution [31:14]

Self coaching with breath [41:20]

The nature of the exhale [44:03]

Central channel breathing and visualization [50:28]

Referenced in this episode:

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor

Andrew Huberman of Huberman Lab

Study: Effect of yelling on maximal aerobic power during an incremental test of cycling performance, published in the Journal of Sport and Health Science

Paper: The Laughter Prescription, published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle’s project-based growth model at You Need a Thing.

Backcountry skier Melissa Gill joins us to talk about her journey using outdoor sports and meditation to heal through grief. Mel's story will be featured in an upcoming documentary by Patagonia.

Content notice: This episode contains real and honest depictions of grief and death.

Melissa Gill is a woodworker, meditation teacher, Head of Operations for SimplyMTB and a lover of anything outdoors. She sees backcountry skiing as a playground for adventure and self development and in the summer months, can be found trail running or sleeping in a hammock in the middle of a forest. Of all things in life, she is most is passionate about mental health and creating safe spaces for healing for both her and her community. As a mindfulness meditation teacher, she believes most things in life can be solved, healed and made more beautiful with a heavy dose of self compassion. 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Meditation teachers Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach.

Danielle has written about the loss she describes in this episode for the Medium publication Age of Empathy.

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle’s project-based growth model at You Need a Thing.

If you're on a mountain bike, twists and turns are both inevitable and plentiful. Cornering is complex and dynamic skill that everyone can improve, and we break it down (a lot) in this episode. We may also bring up rollerblading a time or two (or twelve).

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle at You Need a Thing.

You want to feel strong. You want to go fast. You want to climb features. But have you ever thought of riding... beautifully? Renowned Spanish guitarist Antonio Garcia joins the podcast to discuss the crossover between music and mountain biking and how practicing "beautifully" can take your riding to a new level.

Antonio Garcia (Jared Antonio Garcia Lyons) is a Spanish guitar performer/instructor from Santiago de Queretaro, Mexico. Antonio has performed in many prestigious venues as a solo artist as well as an accompanying guitarist for flamenco dancers and bands.

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle at You Need a Thing.

The people who can navigate uncertainty often are the most resilient. But how, exactly, do we do this? The ability to transfer knowledge from the past to the present is one tool--both on and off the trail. We'll show you.

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle at You Need a Thing.

People know that they should practice, but we don't often enough talk about how to practice. That's why we invited Griff Wigley from MTB Practice Lab to jam about what makes for good practice. 

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle at You Need a Thing.

Fall prevention is primary. Yet having skills to help you work with a fall, not resist a fall, can help you not only mitigate injury (when possible), but also widen your ability to tackle things that might intimidate and stop you otherwise. 

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle at You Need a Thing.

Habits of thinking are just as important as physical habits, and it's important to train both. In nine, we dig into some tools for managing our thoughts. Oh, and there's some language in this one. Turns out, we could only restrain ourselves for so long...

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle at You Need a Thing.

Flow states have a vital role in both fun and mental health. In episode 8, we preach to the choir about mtb's capacity for flow and talk about how to design your life to hit flow states more often. 

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle at You Need a Thing.

Want to feel more stable and achieve more flow and stability through corners? Mastering rotation will help. Disclaimer... we get a little weird about feet in this one. 

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle at You Need a Thing.

There's a time to push against, and there's a time to give way. Knowing how to strategically invest our energy opens up a level of consciousness and playfulness that can take you to the next level.

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle at You Need a Thing.

Now... and next. It's not an either/or, it's a both/and. Your "now" sets the stage for where you're going, and your "next" can create the energy you need to move forward. Heed both. It's a dance. 

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle at You Need a Thing.

Holding center is a practice; a way of finding ourselves, integrating what we know, and keeping ourselves stable and present. On the bike and—you guessed it—in life. This was a fun one.

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle at You Need a Thing.

Knowing how to stop (and slow down) is what enables us to go fast--on a bike, and in life. In episode 3, we break down the mechanics and psychology of braking. 

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle at You Need a Thing.

The best riders understand how their bodies move through time and space. In episode 2, we hit the topic of positioning from all angles--physical, psychological, temporal, emotional. 

Work with us!

Book a lesson with SimplyMTB or work with Danielle at You Need a Thing.  

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