Pivot Turns

Hard enduro trails don't leave room for wide arcs. Switchbacks on steep hillsides, gaps between trees and rock shelves on a climb all ask the bike to change direction in less space than it needs to turn at full lock. A pivot turn is how you do it without stopping, getting off and dragging the bike round.

Pivots also save energy. Enduro21's write-up of a Graham Jarvis tutorial describes him using "small pivot turns to move the bike without expending energy", using his body weight to work the suspension and "just a little bit of clutch and throttle to let the bike do most of the work". That's the goal: a small, calm correction, not a wrestling match.

On big races they are constant. Nick Fahringer told Dirt Rider: "At Romaniacs, there will be hills where you will do 100 pivot turns. [I'm] not exaggerating." If each one costs you a stall, a dab and a restart, the hill wins.

A pivot turn is not a new skill. It's clutch control, rear brake, front brake and static balance combined at walking pace. If one of those is shaky, fix it first.

Most switchbacks and tight trees need only the first. The other two are for places where even a slide won't fit.

• Stand, with your knees bent. Jarrod Bewley rides tight switchbacks standing with his legs bent, "cowboy-style", which "lets the bike move independent of me". Daniel Milner will sit only in "the really tight corners" where speed is slowest; then a leg out helps balance.
• Choose which peg to weight. Weight the inside peg to turn the chassis; Milner says "weighting the inside footpeg helps turn the bike and maintain an arc." Weight the outside peg for grip; Fahringer's rule on a hillside is that "you have to weight the outside peg to create traction." Turn on the inside peg, drive out on the outside one.
• Right foot on the brake. On a left pivot, your right foot stays over the rear brake whenever the front could lift. On a right pivot the right foot is on the ground, so, as Pat Smage points out, you have no rear brake and rely on clutch and throttle to keep from looping out.
• Cover the rear brake whenever you can. It anchors a rear-wheel pivot, brings the front down if a lift goes too high and steadies the bike through a slide.
• Look at the exit. Turn your head to where the bike needs to point before it starts to rotate. Your body, and then the bike, follow.
• First or second gear. Low enough for the engine to pull from walking pace. The gear selection lesson explains why second is smoother.
• Small beats big. Rotate a little, settle, rotate again. Two small pivots are easier to control than one big one.
• Use the terrain. If pivots on flat ground are a struggle, Pat Smage plants his foot on a stump or rock for more leverage and more room under the bike. On a bank, your foot sits lower than the bike and takes a lot of its weight, so plant it firmly. Driving the front tyre into an angled rock helps lift the front on the rebound.

This is the first pivot to learn and the one you'll use most. You arrive at the turn slowly, lock the rear wheel for a moment so it steps out and swings the bike round, then drive out.

Bewley describes it on a tight uphill 180: he locks the rear "briefly to perform a brake-slide to help turn the bike on the spot, before getting immediately on the gas". Milner puts the skill in one sentence: "The skill is in the transition from rear brake stepping the back out, to the throttle keeping it there."

How to ride it:

1. Approach slowly in first or second, standing, turning your head to the exit.
2. Turn the bars towards the turn and weight the inside peg, as Bewley does, to start the bike turning.
3. Press the rear brake firmly for a moment so the rear tyre breaks loose and steps out.
4. As the rear swings round, release the brake, move your weight to the outside peg for grip, and feed in clutch and throttle to drive out.
5. Once the bike points at the exit, stand tall and ride away.

A brief lock is fine. A long skid ploughs a rut, wears the trail and gives you nothing to steer with. The rear brake lesson covers pedal feel.

This is the pivot for when the front has to move and the rear can't: an uphill switchback, a rock shelf on a climb, a tree right in front of you. The sequence below is Australasian Dirt Bike Magazine's pivot wheelie for a stalled climb, turning left. Learn it on flat ground, turning no more than 90 degrees.

On steep, stepped climbs the rear-wheel pivot is done on the move, from one flat shelf to the next. Fahringer describes it for Dirt Rider: "I coil my flywheel and my legs to wheelie the bike and initiate a rotation of my turn." His points are worth learning as rules:

• Weight the downhill peg. "My weight is on the downhill [foot]peg," he says, because that's what gives the rear tyre grip on a slope.
• Keep the free foot ready. "My unweighted foot … is available to dab on the side that I can touch."
• Land somewhere flat. "You always want your rear tire to end in a safe place to stop or regroup, so the flattest spot."
• Hold it on the clutch. When you land, "pull the clutch in and only have enough clutch drive to hold pressure, but not move."
• Aim high. "It's always better to aim high than low." Losing height on a climb is hard to win back.

When a climb has gone wrong and you need to turn right round, don't try a full 180-degree pivot on the face. ADB says plainly that very few riders can do one on a vertical climb, "so don't do it." Stall it, hold it and turn the bike round as the kill/start lesson shows, or read the hill climbs and descents lesson for when to bail.

Going down a tight switchback you can't wheelie round. The answer is to pivot on the front wheel instead: load the front brake so the rear goes light, then swing the rear round.

Ridden, this is a stoppie pivot, and it's covered in the stoppies lesson. Most riders do it off the bike, which is safer and just as quick on a steep hill. ADB's stoppie-turn feature puts it bluntly: "unless your name is Graham Jarvis you're probably best getting off the bike."

Shane Watts's method for Dirt Rider, when you can't ride the turn wide:

1. Put the front tyre in the turn's rut if there is one, and "step off to the inside or uphill side."
2. "Squeeze the front brake hard, press down and forward on the handlebar and press against the middle or rear of the bike with your thigh or butt."
3. Let the rear swing round. "You just control the bike with your leg as to how far you want to swing that rear tire around."
4. Get back on and weight the outside peg as you move off, "to limit the chance of that rear end sliding out".

Two cautions from ADB: "the bike will spin to the opposite side of the one you're standing on", and keep the bike "leaning slightly towards your body to prevent it from high-siding." On speed: "you need less than you think."

Start on flat, grippy ground with two markers. Do every step in both directions. Most riders have a strong side; spend more time on the weak one.

Take a short break between drills. Rear-wheel pivots are hard on the clutch.