A great way to get the hang of riding through slow, tight turns is to ride in circles. You can even practice this in your driveway or yard. This tight turn drill is a precursor to learning a trackstand and its a lot more fun. At first you may want to do this drill with your feet unclipped.

The challenge is to make the circle as small as possible. This requires riding really slow and even using the brakes. The handlebar may be turned so much that you can't make full pedal strokes because your knee or foot will hit. The solution is to ratchet the pedals, making partial strokes. Do this smoothly and gently because too much force will push the front wheel and widen the circle.

It takes lots of balance to turn very tight. At times you'll be almost at a trackstand. Go clockwise. Go counterclockwise. Learn to make a smooth, tight transition from one direction tothe other.

Even though I've been riding for many years, I still practice this simple drill. In winter, for instance, I'll back the cars out into the snow and ride laps in the garage with my son. He'son his BMX bike. We set up an obstacle course and chase each other. We make a contest of seeing who can turn the tightest. It's fun, and it definitely translates to staying relaxed and in control when real world situations require active balancing.

For additional fun and to include some riding friends. Try a "Slow Race" mark out a very small square box on the ground with chalk, it should be a tad longer than a bicycle. Start bigger and move down as you get better. Have two riders parallel in the box and have them mount their bikes at the same time and the first one to fall or leave the square loses. If you fall down a lot or fear being knocked down, perhaps the riders should be in seperate squares. Wade has seen an excellent track stander jump his bike till he faced the other rider then push the other rider over from the side. You can decide if that is legal or not in your race. Or borrow a page form motorcycle events and make several adjoining longer tracks, maybe 20 feet long, about a foot wide. Everyone starts at one end and the last one who to the other end wins. If you go sideways out of your lane, you are disqualified.

All of these things are fun and help your handling capability whether you ride Mountain bikes, road bikes or any other kind of bike.