Most important, perhaps, is balance. To maintain a top speed, you must always keep your bike level with the ground, which means that as you launch into the air, you have to use simple forward and back commands to make sure you land with both wheels parallel to the muddy raceway. Hit the earth with all your weight on just the front or back wheel and, if you aren't thrown into the dirt, you'll certainly lose all your speed.
This may sound simple, and initially it is, but holding your speed is made ever more trying by the increasing unevenness of the undulating landscapes you pass over. To help you with this, a confidence system is in place, which rewards successful tricks with a boost to speed and acceleration. Some larger tricks, such as tweaked flips, do slow you down a little, but significantly they boost confidence, adding a little strategy to a game in need of depth.
