Well what a session that was. Sean, Laura, Drew, Dave and Parriag arrived s arranged for their private mountain bike coaching session and they were all at different levels of experience and a recent trip to tenerife had shattered laura’s confidence and she didn’t know how much she would be able to do. I said to them not to worry and the day unfolded like this.
The skills check showed that they collectively needed correcting in their looking, footwork and body positioning and a few set up changes help this no end and that left me to work on their mental skills when riding sections out on the trails.
The drop technique was first and they all got their wheels off the ground and landed perfectly from pretty much the word go. Laura surprised herself by riding the first two, and that from someone who said it wouldn’t happen (told ya )
Next we did some work on pumping and cornering. It wasn’t long before they were linking three berms together via control zones and line choice.
We moved to a singletrack trail and worked on their fluidity when linking multiple sections of the trail together. Flat, bermed, off camber and switchback turns were linked with rocks, drops, absorbing upslopes, steps and drop offs. They were soon riding the whole trail with control ad confidence and that meant they were faster too!
I demonstrated riding a very steep drop off and they used their mental skills to decide whether to ride it too. Dave and Laura sat that one out comfortable in the choices their mental skills amounted to and the others rode it. Stunned is the word as they found it remarkably simple and easy to ride.
Lastly, we moved to the trail with the three berms to work on applying the techniques we at ukbikeskills teach when choosing when to jump or pump sections o a trail ad everyone got some airtime too. Dave and the others were absolutely loving their new skills sets now.
What an amazing session with a great bunch of people.
High5!
