Finding lines in the summer

One measure of how much your skills have advanced as a snowboarder is how tightly you can draw your lines down the mountain. Must you always take wide, sweeping turns that consume the width of a bowl, or can you make tightly controlled turns down more narrow trails? How about darting between the trees?

One way to sharpen your skills in making tighter turns on the snow is to make them on a mountain bike. At least that’s my conclusion after stepping up my game on the bike today, when I ventured onto a trail with rocks and logs deliberately placed on the downhill slopes.

There are lots of techniques you can consider when riding on such a trail (do a Google search on the terms “rock garden mountain bike” or something like that). Here are three points that seem relevant not only for biking but for snowboarding (or skiing) in technical terrain: Pick your line and stick with it; trust your equipment; and consider wearing protective gear.

The larger point, though, is that confidence builds confidence. If you can overcome fear in one area (riding through rocks while riding downhill on a bike) you might be able to overcome fear in another area (riding your snowboard through the trees, on ice, or whatever). In riding my bike, I’ve drawn on my memories as a snowboarder (“you’re scared of this? Remember what you did at X.”). This season, I’m looking forward to drawing on mountain-bike memories as I seek challenges on the slope.