Tuesday 26 April 2011

The return of Travis






I coached Travis a year ago and it was good to see that session had paid dividends in his riding but a washout in a loose corner knocked his confidence. During the skills check I picked up why this happened and I set about correcting his body positioning in corners and also building back his looking too.
We went to the drop sections and Travis rode them confidently and I worked on his body position during flight and landing.
We then moved onto the skills trail and I worked on his cornering on flat,bermed, off camber and switchbacks. We then linked them to pump bumps using the speed manual, rock gardens, fly outs and steps.
I worked on line choice when linking drops into corners and Travis really began to fly along the trail.
We both rode the trail end to end a few times and on his final run he took 9 seconds off his first run for the 200m trail to be the 2nd fastest rider along that trail and he said he felt smooth and perfect, he was!
I then moved onto jumping using a table top and also his big fear of gap jumps.
In no time at all Trav was landing perfectly on the tabletops transition. He then used his mental skill set to ride the gap jump on his own accord and rode away smiling every time.
Finally we moved onto a wooden berm to work on carrying speed into them so he could handle ny he came across on his holidays abroad.
Our session ended when Travis declared he was tired and it ended with a demo of the skill set in use by myself on the woodwork trails.
Great session Travis.

1 comment:

  1. Just wanted to pop on and thank you for an excellent session Tony.
    I wanted to concentrate on jumping, and your session gave me confidence to attack two jumps on local trails which have been scaring me for a while.
    However, the work we did on cornering has been a revelation. The techniques that you taught me have massively changed my riding - i can't believe that such a simple thing has made such a difference. Thanks again Tony.

    Travis
    P.S. Is it wrong that I keep on reading your blog to see if anyone has beaten my 2nd place time?

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