Richard came to me last year and returned wanting to develop his riding further. Being a world champion triathlete, I was able to use his muscle memory from other sports to enhance his off road cycling.
On meeting I made the necessary set up changes to both his bikes before running him through my skills check. I could see that body position needed work so I set to work.
We moved straight to the skills trail and I worked on the top half of the trail to begin with. I worked on advanced pumping and we used this free speed to connect to the trail and link it to bermed and flat corners, rocks and 180 switchbacks. We worked hard on body position here and I could see that looking had not become an unconcious action yet , so I worked on that also.
We added the next half of the trail and rather than show how to fly, I showed how and why you stayed glued to the trail which is faster in the right context.
I worked on braking areas and technique which enhanced Richards control during linking drops into corners. As the session progressed, Rich became faster and faster. on a timed 70 meter section he was 3 seconds faster than earlier in the session.
I moved us onto the pump and jump trail and worked more on harnessing the trails energy and Richard began using every dip in the trail to gain speed to enable him to jump the 9ft tabletop contained withing the trail with ease. each run connected more rhythmicly than the last and soon Richard was sailing down the trail with less effort.
Lastly, we worked on the alpine swicthbacks and focussed on looking and footwork to enable Richard to ride them confidently and with a commitmment that was greater than the 1st session and I could see he had really been working on this aspect in his riding.
Richard used both hardtail and full suss 29er's during the session and I know the developments will really take effect on either choice of bike.
Awesome riding dude!
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