These millisecond saving techniques are what makes Gajser a World Champion. Amazing skills.

Insane shots! Love it!

Lovely piece of video. Looking at the speed at which he was taking that first hill, I'm not convinced that that manoeuvre was actually necessary, had he simply continued in a straight line he would still have been well ahead and probably at a quicker time as he was side on to the air flow which is never as good as front on. Watch it again.

That move is named the 'Bubba Scrub' after James Bubba Stewart who invented it.
By throwing the bike sideways on the face of jumps, it allowed him to hit the jumps with more speed while at the same time staying lower than other riders. This ultimately allowed him to put power to the ground more quickly. What became known as the Bubba Scrub not only helped lap times, it also looked awesome.

#3 The other two riders weren't racing him for position, this was in practice (as in all forms of racing there are practice sessions before the actual race). Had they been racing they would have carried similar speed upp the face of the jump.

The idea behind the scrub (as the technique has come to be called) is to unload the suspension (which on the face of a jump like this become loaded in the same way that the spring in the "clicker" in a pen does when you push it down) horizontally instead of vertically, allowing the potential force that has been built up to escape the system (the bike and the rider that is) without giving it further elevation (meaning avoiding to jump higher).

While it is true that moving sideways through the air instead of cutting through it like a knife is slowing the rider down, the loss of time in that moment is well accounted for by hitting the ground faster (and thus being able to accelerate faster).

On most jumps "scrubbing" is a millisecond-gainer like #1 points out, but on jumps like this one it is absolutely essential as going in that speed in a straight-up position (like the slow-riding riders next to him) would cause you to rocket into the air high enough that the landing most likely would cause great injury to the rider.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKr8ENCSaHM this is the same jump (about 10 seconds into the clip) as the one in this video, as you can imagine hitting that in full speed with the ambition to jump as far and high as possible would be a pretty bad idea (if you like your knees).

Edit: #4 beat me to it, I really should learn to refresh the page before posting an essay.

#5 While racing AMA moto-x back in the mid seventies I learned to scrub-off some speed on the up-side of a steep jump to keep from wasting time flying high in the air (and bottoming-out my shocks on landing) .The sooner the rear tire hits the dirt the faster you can start accelerating again. We just never tried a scrub to accomplish that technique.
The racers nowadays are incredible athletes.

#6 Happy to see people with backgrounds in real sports around here!

If it hasn't got an engine it's not sport

not really sure what i was meant to see??? He made a mess of it at first??? im confused...

physics, schmysics

I still think it would have been quicker to get off and walk.

walk...all i can afford...