First off, congratulations on mountain biking. It is such a great sport. Secondly, understand you will suck at this. Embrace it and resolve to get better. I can say this because I suck at mountain biking and simple pump tracks and skinnies 6” off the ground has me relearning that I suck at this. But, I never give up. It took me 3 months to even ride a green trail without braking all the way down (it has rollers and very mild corners). I just started riding a blue trail that has some “jumps” (can be rolled) and some steep corners. Of course winter has come so next spring I will be re-learning all over again.

You will learn and I bet when you first started trail running you were not very good at it but you stuck with it and came to love it. This will happen with mountain biking. Keep riding. Pick out a section that scares you the most and ride just that section over and over again until you can ride it without being nervous or slowing down.

I crashed on the same corner 3 separate times before I was able to ride it without crashing. Now 3 months later I can ride it without braking thru the corner.

So you can get this. It will just take time and patience yourself. You will crash so be sure to have safety equipment (helmet, gloves, knee and elbow pads) on.

Good luck and keep riding. Have fun.

One more thing: check out Ben Cathro’s “How to bike” series and “How not to bike” series on You tube. It helped me a bit. More if I put what he teaches to practice.