Technical MTB Mastery: How To Ride Faster

Perseverance is killing your technical mtb mastery.

There. Said it. And before you bounce muttering about participation trophies and whatever—hear me out, because what I’m about to tell you contradicts literally everything you’ve been fed about improving on technical terrain. But it’s also the reason why some riders progress in months what takes others actual years of stubborn suffering.

We worship perseverance in mountain biking like it’s some sacred cow. “Just keep trying.” “Push through.” “Never give up.” We frame quitting as failure, weakness, some kind of character deficiency—meanwhile, the riders actually cleaning that gnarly rock garden you’ve been session-ing for six months? They quit the wrong approach on attempt number three.

Strategic quitting isn’t giving up, it’s refusing to waste another second on methods that don’t work.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth most skills coaches won’t tell you (because it doesn’t sell $300 clinics): the difference between intermediate riders spinning their wheels and advanced riders progressing rapidly has nothing to do with persistence. It’s about knowing what to persist at and what to ruthlessly abandon. The best technical riders aren’t the most stubborn—they’re the most willing to admit when their approach is fundamentally broken and torch it entirely.

Think about that last technical feature you’ve been “working on” for months. How’s that going? If the answer is “not great” congratulations, you’ve discovered the difference between productive practice and ritualized failure. You’re not building skill—you’re building a habit of doing it wrong with slightly more confidence each time.

Let’s redefine perseverance: True grit means having the courage to quit approaches that aren’t serving you, even when you’ve already invested time, ego, and Instagram posts into them.

Five Times Quitting Makes You Better (And What To Do Instead)

1. Quit Sessioning the Same Feature the Same Way

The flawed approach—you find a technical feature that’s kicking your ass. Maybe it’s a steep chute with an off-camber root at the bottom, or a rock roll with this weird transition that feels like it was designed by someone who hates bikes. So you session it. Over and over. Same entry speed, same body position, same line, different result only in whether you dab or completely yard sale this time.

It won’t work.

When was the last time doing the exact same thing produced a different result? That’s literally the definition of insanity, not training.

Here’s what’s actually happening: you’re grooving a neural pathway for failure. Your brain is getting extremely efficient at executing a technique that doesn’t work, you’re building world-class skill at… being bad at that feature.

What to do instead: After three failed attempts using the same approach—quit. Immediately. That approach is dead to you now, like completely abandon it. Instead, change a variable entirely. Body position, entry speed, line choice, vision focus point, even your self-talk (I’m serious). If that doesn’t work after three attempts? Quit that too. You’re looking for the approach that produces immediate, noticeable improvement. Once you find it then you session it—but you’re sessioning success not failure.

I watched a rider spend an entire afternoon trying to clean a technical climb, getting progressively more frustrated and honestly kind of dangerous each time. Finally told him to quit and try it in a completely different gear, one higher than felt comfortable. Cleaned it second attempt. He’d been spinning out traction for three hours when the solution was just… admitting his entire gearing strategy was wrong from the start.

2. Quit Trying to “Build Up” to Features You’re Not Ready For

The flawed approach: you see a feature that’s clearly above your current skill level, maybe a sizeable drop or this technical line you saw on someone’s helmet cam that looked absolutely sick. So you create this elaborate progression plan, you’ll start with smaller features, gradually building confidence and skill until you’re “ready” for the big one. Sounds logical right? Methodical even, very Type-A personality approved.

Except—technical features don’t scale linearly. A three-foot drop doesn’t prepare you for a five-foot drop, it prepares you for three-foot drops. The body position, consequence management (that feeling in your stomach), commitment level, timing—completely different animals. You can nail hundreds of small features and still be utterly unprepared for the big one because you’ve been building the wrong skills entirely.

What to do instead: Quit the feature entirely. Not forever but for now. Be brutally honest—you lack prerequisite skills that have nothing to do with that specific feature. Maybe you need better weight distribution fundamentals, maybe your vision skills are trash (probably this), maybe your bike handling in slow-speed technical terrain is the actual limiter. Go work on those in lower-consequence environments then come back. Or find a coach who can session the actual feature with you properly from day one.

The riders who progress fastest? They quit features beyond their current capability without ego attachment, work on actual skill gaps, then return and often clean things first try because they’ve built the right foundation—not because they’re naturally talented or whatever excuse we tell ourselves.

3. Quit Riding With People Who Reinforce Your Bad Habits

The flawed approach: you ride with the same group every week. They’re your buddies, you have fun, the trails are familiar and nobody’s really pushing their technical riding because well, that’s not what this group does. You all collectively agree that certain features are “too gnarly” or “not worth the risk”—you’ve created a comfortable echo chamber where everyone’s skill level remains frozen in amber (or whatever that saying is).

Your riding buddies might be great people but terrible for your progression, if everyone in your group rides the B-line around technical features guess what becomes your normal? That becomes your identity. “We’re not those riders who do the crazy stuff.”

What to do instead: Quit that riding dynamic—not necessarily the friendships but the exclusive riding arrangement. Deliberately seek out riders who make you uncomfortable with their skill level, not reckless riders, but skilled riders who clean features you think are impossible. Watch them. Ask questions.

This is terrifying by the way. You’ll feel inadequate, your ego will absolutely scream. Do it anyway. I quit riding exclusively with my comfortable crew for six months and intentionally tagged along with faster more technical riders—felt like a complete beginner again, like properly humbling. But my technical riding improved more in those six months than the previous two years combined. Sometimes you need to quit being the hero of your current group to become competent in a better one.

4. Quit Techniques That “Should” Work But Don’t For Your Body

Some YouTube coach or skills clinic taught you “the right way” to corner or pump or weight a front wheel through technical terrain, so you practice it religiously even though it feels awkward and produces mediocre results. You assume you’re just not doing it right yet, that more practice will make it click—you persist because this is “the correct technique.”

Here’s a radical thought: what if it’s the correct technique for someone else’s body geometry, fitness level, and riding style but wrong for yours?

What to do instead: Quit techniques that don’t produce immediate improvement for your specific body and bike setup, experiment aggressively with variations. Taller riders and shorter riders often need completely different body positioning for the same feature—someone with a 2024 long-travel enduro bike needs different techniques than someone on a 2020 trail bike with steeper geometry.

The best technical riders borrow principles but develop personalized execution, they quit dogmatic adherence to “proper technique” and instead obsess over what actually works for them, on their bike, on their trails.

5. Quit Measuring Progress By Features Cleaned

You judge your technical skill development by whether you cleaned that rock garden or made that drop—binary success/failure. If you didn’t clean it you failed, if you cleaned it once you succeeded. This creates bizarre incentives where you’ll attempt the same features over and over for validation rather than actually developing transferable skills.

What to do instead: Quit outcome-based assessment entirely, measure progress by skill acquisition not feature completion. Did you maintain better body position today than last week regardless of whether you cleaned the feature or read terrain more effectively? Did you commit more smoothly even if you dabbed?

The riders who progress fastest quit caring about individual features and obsess over developing skills that transfer across all technical terrain—they’ll “fail” the same feature ten times while working on vision skills and consider it productive training because they’re building something more valuable than one cleaned line.

What Are You Ready To Quit?

Real talk: you probably have at least three things right now that you need to quit. Training approaches that aren’t working, techniques that feel wrong, riding partners who’ve plateaued and are keeping you there with them.

The question isn’t whether you’re persistent enough—the question is whether you’re brave enough to quit what’s not working.

This week, identify one approach to technical terrain that you’ve been persisting with despite mediocre results, something you’ve told yourself you just need to “work harder” at. Then quit it. Completely. Try something radically different or abandon it entirely for now.

Because the riders who progress? They’re not the ones who never quit—they’re the ones who quit fast, quit often, and quit smart. Always moving toward approaches that actually work rather than grinding away at approaches that don’t.

Stop persisting at the wrong things. Start quitting your way to competence.

Check our Full Mountain Biking Guide for more info and tips !