General mountain biking as a cross training for motocross

[Theo]

My situation and my perspective; I understand you'll skip this if it's too long to read:
I firmly believe that the first problem of motorsport is the lack of training due to the time and money involved, hence why I wanted an electric motorcoss bike: less time spent for maintenance (and hopefully the possibility to ride closer to home if they'll ever make an E-dirtbike only track closer to where I live).
I also hate rushing to the track when I have little time to ride or having trackdays when not properly trained and rested: my priority is to sleep well and enough, eat decently (I could improve both but I'm not terrible), workout, do stretching routines and go to the track feeling strong, then I warm up a little before entering the track and all this makes the experience way way better. I don't want to do it differently. Of course, this means that I don't ride as much as I'd like to: typical situation, like many others in life, when you have to find the best compromise that works for you.
I also understand that motocross riding is a kind of cardio itself, but since the heart rate in motorsport rises a lot just emotionaly like when you get 150 bpm in a warmup lap or on the starting grid, I doubt that it's as effective as dedicated fitness workout like running, so it's not like if I have a trackday I skip a run.
I've tried renting some downhill bicycles as a cross training and, while I liked the experience, I found them to be less exciting and more dangerous than motocross, plus those trails are on the mountains, too far away from my home, so they don't really solve the time consumption problem.

The question I'd like you to please read:
I've recently found out that there is this bike park at a decent distance from where I live:

I've tried riding there with my cross country mountain bike, in slippery muddy coonditions: I've found out that it's technically difficult, in a different way than motocross, plus it can replace some of my stationary bike or running workouts since it's tiring and it elevates my heart rate.
So my question, especially @Karinshi, who's said that he's done mountain biking for many years, but also to anybody who has both mountain biking and MX experience, is this: if I start riding in a bike park like that regularly while of course still having mx trackdays when I can, will the mountain bike significantly improve my motorcycle control in your opinion?

 

[OpaTsupa]

Will the mountain bike significantly improve my motorcycle control in your opinion?

Short answer: No.

How deep do you want to go with the long answer?

Don't confuse skill and technique with physiological fitness.
They are closely interwoven, but except at a very basic level you can't improve one by only stimulating the other.
To put it differently, once your skill and fitness is developed beyond the amateur level you need to put in more and more specific training.

If you feel fitness is your weak link on the MX track than work on that. Mountain biking is an excellent choice, although it can be risky and high impact depending on what you do. It's also a time sink and that opens a different subject of how much time you have and how much time you are willing to sacrifice to training.

If you want to be faster and in better control on the track than skill development is the most direct road to it.
There is practically no similarity in bicycle riding like in the clip above and in riding 120kg Varg with 60HP on prepared MX track. Not to mention the jumping.

Like you said, off road motorcycle riding is hard on the body and risky so even if you had the time (and money) to ride every day you probably couldn't sustain it in the long run.

If I understood your original question here is a suggestion:
Use wisely every moment on the bike to develop skill. Don't do 'junk miles' trying to improve fitness if time and opportunity to ride are a factor.
Use many, many hours on the bicycle/running/gym to develop fitness. Don't expect that any other activity beside MX will make you ride ruts or jump better.

... since the heart rate in motorsport rises a lot just emotionaly like when you get 150 bpm in a warmup lap or on the starting grid, ...

This isn't true.
Once you are reasonably fit your heart rate will rise and fall congruently with the effort.
I had big crashes where HR didn't go pass 80%max, but I had fast laps where I was close to 99%max.

 

[Lost]

I rode MTB way back in the day to a semi pro standard and even had a little sponsorship (test bikes, gear etc).

While some of the skills are transferable, I firmly believe in training on what you are wanting to get better at. In this case, from what you've described MX? The closest to that would be downhill/ duel slalom (is that even a thing any more?) But it's simply not the same.

I don't know if you have an MX or EX, but I'll assume you have an MX from how your talking. Maybe get it registered or get an EX so you can just hop on and ride? Seat time will always win out at improving any skill.

For example, I have very little time this weekend, but wife went with kids to see her sister for a couple of hours today. I got on my bike and had a couple of hours training in the mountains behind my house. Decided what I wanted to practice, then spent that time, repeating my "drills".

 

[Theo]

I have an MX that I use for motocross only.
I am a slow rider and I think that my problem is mostly skills, I don't feel unfit. Surely fitness is something that is never enough but IMO the limiting factor for me is primarily the skills.
I hoped to receive different answers since AJ Catanzaro said that anything 2 wheels is good for training, but honestly my impression is that some skills are transferable but only up to a point, like @Lost said. When I tried doing some freeriding/light downhill with some jumps, on rental DH bikes, it didn't feel much like it improved my motorcycling skills. I just hoped that my problem was little bicycle commitment and that by training more I would have eventually seen the results.
Well, I guess that I will consider bike parks as places to have some fun and develop mostly stamina.

 

[Philip]

Mountain biking is an excellent cross-training for motocross. There is nothing better.

Motocross is a high-intensity anaerobic sport. The heart rate is high. It burns sugar, not fat. You need to combine it with aerobic trailing like long low-HR training to maintain your baseline health and fitness. You can't have good anaerobic performance without the solid aerobic basic fitness. Elite MX riders do road biking for that. It is safe, injury wise, but boring as hell, and you can get hit by a car. I prefer mountain biking. It can be as fun as MX if you have nice trails nearby. You do,

 

[happyinmotion]

Mountain biking is excellent training for enduro, at least for descending skills, some muscles, and cardio.

Where I ride, some of the tracks are for both mountain bike and dirt bike, so I've ridden both on the same tracks. Skills for descending on a dirt bike are the same as descending on the mountain bike, just the dirt bike feels like a really heavy long mountain bike.

 

[Theo]

Mountain biking is an excellent cross-training for motocross. There is nothing better.

Motocross is a high-intensity anaerobic sport. The heart rate is high. It burns sugar, not fat. You need to combine it with aerobic trailing like long low-HR training to maintain your baseline health and fitness. You can't have good anaerobic performance without the solid aerobic basic fitness. Elite MX riders do road biking for that. It is safe, injury wise, but boring as hell, and you can get hit by a car. I prefer mountain biking. It can be as fun as MX if you have nice trails nearby. You do,

Ok, I can agree on the fitness part, you can pedal keeping the HR in zone 2 and have the aerobic baseline. I actually prefer doing that on a stationary bike while playing a driving simulator to keep my brain trained to react sharply even under effort. More of this theory of mine here.
What I wish I can achieve with mountain bikes is also an improvement in control skills.

Skills for descending on a dirt bike are the same as descending on the mountain bike, just the dirt bike feels like a really heavy long mountain bike.

Well, in that case gravity is your main throttle both with or without an engine and I do feel that, in those rare occasions where I find a long downslope in a MX track, the experience is similar to that rental downhill cycling I did.

 

[Philip]

I used to mountain bike 2x a week and do MX 1x a week when I was getting back into the sport after a 12-year break. I did it in Arizona in winter and in Michigan in summer, sometimes in winter too on stuffed tires. I even used a 20-lbs weighted vest to make it more interesting. I could not do MX 2 days in a row, or even 2x a week at that time until I built my fitness back. My cardio fitness was excellent, and my knees became super strong and pain-free. Then I got better and started skipping mountain biking. And now electric MX is so easy that I got lazy and thought I did't need to cross-train anymore. I really need to get back into it. It's a prime season here in AZ for that, and I actually moved here so that I can ride MX and mountain bikes multiple times per week October through May. I forgot my mission, thank you for reminding this to me, @Theo!

 

[Philip]

The 2-wheel control skills are the same. You can do more tricks on a bicycles than on a motorcycle. They learned to do wheelies, front and back flips on bicycles way before they did it on a dirt bike.

 

[Theo]

The 2-wheel control skills are the same. You can do more tricks on a bicycles than on a motorcycle. They learned to do wheelies, front and back flips on bicycles way before they did it on a dirt bike.

I guess that cornering is pretty similar except for rutted corners since we don't find deep ruts in those trails like we do in MX.
The challenge of managing the weight bias and the grip should be similar. Talking about grip, those mountain bike tyres have pretty small knobs compared to MX tyres and this makes me feeling a little bit like I were on supermoto tyres.
In jumping, things feel similar but not the same to me.
Holding the bike with legs is one of the most useful things to do on a MX bike while on a mountain bike it's not advised AFAIK and it's not possible while pedalling. Sometimes I squeezed DH seats with my thighs (remember that in DH the seat is pretty low) trying to get the same result I get with motocross but it didn't feel completely right.

 

[Philip]

Holding the bike with legs is one of the most useful things to do on a MX bike while on a mountain bike it's not advised AFAIK and it's not possible while pedalling. Sometimes I squeezed DH seats with my thighs (remember that in DH the seat is pretty low) trying to get the same result I get with motocross but it didn't feel completely right.

I squeeze it. It works for me. One thigh ahead of the other.

 

[Philip]

I think my heart rate is lower on an electric bike. Has anyone compared their gas heart rates to their electring heart rate?

 

[Philip]

For @Theo

 

[OpaTsupa]

I think my heart rate is lower on an electric bike. Has anyone compared their gas heart rates to their electring heart rate?

Yes. Consistently lower on the EV, but that's not the whole story.

 

[VINSANITY]

This is a good thread.

I think mountain biking and dirt bike riding are complementary. In my experience you can focus on building your aerobic stamina when mountain biking in much less demanding circumstance, meaning you are going much slower and way less risk riding a mountain bike. Mountain biking does use similar skills but in my opinion it is not the full body rapid reactive environment of dirt biking.

Like Phillip I took a 20 year break from dirt bikes - life stuff, money and time for maintenance just didn’t work for many years. During this time I mountain biked on and off, it was fun but not the rush you get dirt biking.

Electric had changed my whole outlook, minimal maintenance is a big deal for me but I think it has improved my skills multiple ways, definitely throttle control and being able to hear you can understand when you are locking up your brakes or when you hit the face of a jump you can hear what’s going on.

For me the biggest way I have been getting my skills back up is just riding a lot in small bursts around my neighborhood. My bike is street legal so I just ride around on the roads to places that have some features, do some jumps, I have mini mx tracks in a few spots (one behind a Chic Filla is classic) - the electric doesn’t bother anyone and just pure repetition helps improve riding skills.

I am careful to not ride in places where you disturb anyone or where it is too obvious, but it is amazing how much open space there is if you just look around.

Urban Hooligan riding is the way to go, Josh Hill showed what is possible.

 

[Karinshi]

My perspective on this is that cycling helps me with physical endurance and cardio, or at least it used to, because I now have a heart condition called extrasystoles or premature ventricular contractions (PVCs), and I can't get my heart rate too high. That's why I decided to buy an electric motorcycle. I've really enjoyed cycling, but the most uncomfortable part is having to pedal uphill to then go downhill, it's very tiring. With the motorcycle, I can go up and down countless times.

I also notice that the motorcycle handles more smoothly, it goes over obstacles, rocks, roots, etc., much more easily. It feels more stable, while the bike, being so light, feels like it moves wherever it wants, and the motorcycle has more control and doesnt go away from the path, over any terrain. The sensations on both are very different for me. When I get on the bike, I feel like I've forgotten how to ride it, and vice versa; I feel out of control. It could disrupt your control over both if you switch between them too much, at least for me.

When it comes to jumps, I feel like the motorcycle is much easier; you can correct your position more easily than with a bike.

You've made me remember a great time in my life, I'll share some photos of myself, jeje

 

[Theo]

I also notice that the motorcycle handles more smoothly, it goes over obstacles, rocks, roots, etc., much more easily. It feels more stable, while the bike, being so light, feels like it moves wherever it wants, and the motorcycle has more control and doesnt go away from the path, over any terrain. The sensations on both are very different for me. When I get on the bike, I feel like I've forgotten how to ride it, and vice versa; I feel out of control. It could disrupt your control over both if you switch between them too much, at least for me.

When it comes to jumps, I feel like the motorcycle is much easier; you can correct your position more easily than with a bike.

Thank you for sharing this. So basically you are a high level cyclist who doesn't seem to gain MX skills from cycling. Maybe it's subjective, but @Lost is in a similar situation and he doesn't see mountain biking as a suitable activity either.

You've made me remember a great time in my life, I'll share some photos of myself, jeje
[...]

Wow, I wish I had those cycling skills!

 

[Karinshi]

Thank you for sharing this. So basically you are a high level cyclist who doesn't seem to gain MX skills from cycling. Maybe it's subjective, but @Lost is in a similar situation and he doesn't see mountain biking as a suitable activity either.


Wow, I wish I had those cycling skills!

Yes, honestly, i don't feel it helps me improve beyond physical endurance, which isn't bad, but I don't see many advantages. Even though it's the same thing (a vehicle with two wheels and different weights), they're completely different in practice. Not even for enduro, because the balance is different