Entrance – Riding Tips

Thank you for stopping by the riding tips page. If you are a rider or racer, this is the page you should focus on the most! The first point to going fast on a motorcycle is doing so without crashing. You must focus on how you ride the motorcycle. Do nothing else until this is mastered. In the gym Ryno teaches the movements that make your body stronger to help with these techniques he is teaching in riding. The Gym movements are all functional movements, the gym and the riding work simultaneously together.

If you use the gym and riding tips page together, they will help your speed and progress by getting your body in the best conditioning and position to ride or race a motorcycle. The body makes the motorcycle go and do all the amazing things we do on it! Let’s make sure your body is ready when doing the most dangerous sport in the world! This is my favorite part of the site because I love to break down riding technique and the technique of the top pros. We can understand what they are doing with their bodies to go as fast and get though a section as quickly as they do. Most riders have never truly thought about why the Pro’s can go faster than the majority of everyone that rides. If you understand how the bike works and how the body works, then you can see how to put the two together.

There is a certain place or positioning that you have the best control on the bike. This is where you are one with the bike. This is also where you are able to stabilize the bike, be ahead of it, and where you are able to focus on paying precise attention to your riding. The bikes movement comes from its suspension and the separation at the head set, so the bars can go side-to-side. This right to left movement is separate from the forwards and backwards movement you also get on a bike.

The body works generally the same. Its movements are in its joints and there are a lot of them all over the body. The body has separation at the hips and pelvis as they go up, down and side-to-side. If and when any of these single areas are stabilized, it enables you to keep your balance. In the upper and lower body, the body moves and stabilizes at its optimum in functional movements and positions; these are squats, lunges, twists, pushes and pulls. In all these movements you are strong at the base, which is the feet, keeping knees slightly bent, hips unlocked or butt out, back straight and eyes up to the horizon. This position is when the body is in its most optimum position.

Now when I teach around the world, I see a lot of technique that simply is not functional. It’s scary. Why? The bikes produced today are faster than the bikes even a couple of years ago and they have stronger, more powerful torque and traction. This magnifies your acceleration, stopping, swapping and whatever the bike is doing. Of course ideally, it’s best to be in a correct position for strength, stability, balance, coordination, efficiency and quickness. This doesn’t mean you will never crash, but it does mean that you will be a much better position to help avoid this scenario all together.

We are talking about a new era in Motocross here and there are three people that have dominated the sport during the last few years: Carmichael, Stewart, and Villopoto. These riders are putting weight where it needs to be, are always looking ahead and are at full attention when they ride. Each of these riders is one with the bike, stabilizing the bike and body where they should. I will point out that not one of these rider are perfect in all areas at all times, but they are all amazing riders. Even as good as they are, there are still areas they could improve upon to be better! This is why every sport has coaches or multiple coaches and the focus is mostly based on technique. Even the best of the best can improve.

In this “Riding Tips” section I am going to teach you how to put your weight in the right places, be one with the bike, stabilize the bike, be ahead of the bike and be at attention when riding. The reason I am so confident with what I’m teaching is because I feel it when I’m riding. In my prime, I used a technique that was not functional. My speed was way too fast for my technique to handle and I had a lot of crashes. My speed hit a plateau because my technique simply did not allow it to improve. When I started learning and educating myself on how the body works, I took what I learned and felt in the gym with my body, compared it to the bike and wow! What a difference I made in my riding and understanding of how to make the bike and rider become one.

I have done so much work on dissecting the techniques I am teaching. All the top riders are using parts of these techniques, whether they know it or not, so enjoy these tips and remember your speed and safety is only as good as your technique can handle! Let me be your coach. Click on the boxes and master one thing at a time. If you are a member, then there’s more valuable info inside this site! If you don’t want to be a member then you can buy my DVDs that have a ton of information in them. Thanks and good luck. Let’s do some work!

-Ryan Hughes