Blowing away the gaps in their skills

 Rory, Jem and Scott turned up as arranged and wanted to sharpen their trail center/singletrack skills.
The skills check revealed footwork, looking and body position errors collectively and I set to work.
The pictures are blurry as it was raining but you can see the results of their new skills as we 1st began with the drop technique. Their new mental and physical skills already paid dividends as they started to land perfectly and they knew why!
Onto the skills trail and we began work on linking the 14 sections on the trail together using their new skills.
Flat, bermed, off camber and switchback turns were linked to rocks, pumping, absorbing, steps and drop offs and soon they were riding faster and smoother than ever.
Nath showed up to give a helpful eye as we moved to riding steeps and they were shocked at how simple it all was and how so much easier they were now. A near vertical drop off proved no problem after a demonstration from myself.
We ended our session by moving to another trail to work on pumping and absorbing multiple sections of a trail to gain free speed and then to carry that speed through a corner. every time it was correct , they got noticeably further than when errors were made. The errors started creeping in as they became tired so our session came to a happy close and I cannot wait to hear of their future ride exploits
High5!

Tony (@ukbikeskills)

Nath (@ukbike_nath)

Brothers on bikes

 Mark and Dom are brothers and  joined together for a skills session as they both wanted to get some air as Mark in particular had never been able to get even small airtime without it going wrong or feeling like it will. The skills check revealed some good habits that were buried beneath missing body position and looking skills. I set to work and moved to the drop technique to work on applying their corrected skills and also the mental skills that myself and Nathan instill.  The effect was immediate as they both rode and landed more comfortably than ever and a 1 meter drop felt like a small kerb as it should.
I then moved to the top of the skills trail to work on basic pumping and also to work on their cornering.
We took a break for some @hasbean coffee and moved to the steeper terrain to work on riding near vertical drop offs and once again the ease of it all blew them away.
We moved back to the lower half of the skills trail and worked on line choice and braking areas when linking drops into corners and it wasn't long before they were riding the whole trail top to bottom and linking all 14 sections on the trail together smoothly and controlled but faster than before.
 Onto jumping, their bug bear and I worked on their application of the skills sets using a 6ft tabletop and they were soon landing on the transition perfectly and then used their mental skills to easily ride a 6ft gap jump along side it. The smiles beamed as they had repeated goes with the same result. Onwards and upwards we moved to the pump and jump trail to work on sticking to the trail and gaining speed by pumping and they carried speed through the midway berm. Later they were choosing whether to jump or pump sections on the trail . I could see they were tiring and even another @hasbean coffee break didn't help as mentally they were too tired to continue and our session ended with a welcome pint in the local pub. awesome riding guys.
High5!