If you are new to biking, take note of the following vital biking skills to increase your confidence and ride safely:
Hook Your Thumbs
An essential safety measure is keeping at least one of your thumbs beneath your handlebars at all times. Doing so will help you avoid getting in an accident due to your hands slipping off your handlebars. This is likely to happen if you hold onto the tops with all of your fingers over your bars. In such position, is you hit a bump and are not prepared, your hands can slip off, resulting to a crash. Simply keeping your thumbs at the right place can prevent this common accident.
Palm Protection
Two nerves run through our palms and they could become painfully numb from long hours of biking. This can happen when: (1) you ride without gloves (always wear comfortable and nicely padded gloves because they absorb most of the vibration from riding and also protect your palm during a crash); (2) you grasp your bars too tightly (so relax your grip); and (3) you do not move your hands around to different parts of your handlebars (so every few minutes, make sure you shift your hands and grip in a different spot).
Relax!
Riding with a an extremely tight upper body is one of the common mistakes of new beginners. When you ride with locked shoulders and straight, stiff arms, you are tiring out your muscles for no good reason and you would most likely have a sore arms and neck at the end of your ride. So you should relax when riding. Keep your arms nice, loose, and slightly bent; and drop your shoulders. Train yourself to relax: every 20 minutes or so, shrug your shoulders in order for them to drop and relax. Bring your elbows down and closer together. Shake your arms to help them relax. Then bend your elbows and take deep breaths. Thinking about letting all the strain leave your arms, neck, and shoulders can also help. You will feel a lot better and gain a lot more control of your bicycle if you learn to ride comfortably.
And don’t forget to have fun!
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