Quote Originally Posted by zoom-zoom View Post
Nope. The stupid thing is that this spot is not the least bit technical, aside from the roots. It's a slight downhill with a slight camber down to the right, so my tires are sliding down the camber and I'm landing on the uphill...what little uphill there actually is. It really follows mostly where the hill meets the flatter ground. The sort of thing that would be completely and utterly unmemorable...were it not for the fact that now I'm scared sh!tless of the spot. When I hit it yesterday I didn't think it was possible that I'd crash there again. Then in that nanosecond of falling the thought that ran through my brain was "seriously...again...WTF is my defect?!"

So would being out of the saddle for this make a difference?

I am somewhat consoled to know that even skilled people have a certain learning curve with new bikes. I ride with a few women who hopped on mountain bikes for the first time in the past 6 months and immediately rode like they were born on a mountain bike saddle. It can be kind of demoralizing at times to ride with them and have them swooping gracefully around in the woods while I am struggling not to destroy myself on beginner stuff.
If the problem section is cambered, you should definitely be out of the saddle so that you can not only shift your weight from front to back, but also shift the bike and/or your body from side to side. Think of it like this - you are on a section where obstacles and gravity are conspiring against you and you and need to be able to dynamically adjust your balance throughout the section. An appropriate analogy would be ice skating on a bumpy cambered slope. Your position should sort of resemble that of a horse jockey (butt off the saddle but generally centered over it, torso crouched down, arms and legs adjusting your torso's position forward/backward/side-to-side).

Having said all that, if the front and back wheels are both sliding out at the same time, you may be SOL as far as that section of the trail is concerned.