John, Anna, Steve and Bruce came to me for a group session even though they were of varied places in their own riding experience. Coaching riders of differing abilities is not that hard for me and I began as ever with the skills check. The skills check showed me the areas they needed work on and collectively I began working on body positioning, looking and footwork. I adjusted their set ups and showed them why I had done so before moving onto the drop technique. I worked on their mental skills sets here and the application of the physical and they began landing perfectly in no time at all.
We moved onto the rock garden as they were a common "fear" and then onto the trail itself. I broke the trail down into bite sized chunks and worked on line choice and braking technique.
Flat, bermed, off camber, and switchback turns were linked to pumping, absorbing, rock gardens, steps, fly out jumps and drops. We had a midway break to allow the new learning to settle and resumed after a snack to riding the whole trail end to end.
It surprised them how easy it was to jump up a fly out jump and how smooth they were now riding and how controlled it all felt.
Even riding drops and linking them to corners was far easier than they had imagined. Anna was smiling riding the whole trail and it was only 4 hours earlier that she had doubted whether she could ride it at all.
Our session was very tiring and I could see they didn't have much time left in them but I wanted to work on their body position on riding steeps. They all rode a 40ft steep drop off with total control and without the feeling of no front wheel control or wobbles.
Great session!
High5
To anyone else that may be reading this. No matter how many years you have been riding for I am positive you will have a fabulous experience. This is by far the best thing I have spent money on for mountain biking by a long way. This surpassed all my expectations.
ReplyDeleteHi Tony,
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! For such a brilliant mind blowing day. I never thought I would have done that larger drop on that decent, I was absolutely thrilled when I came round the corner and could answer all three questions with absolute confidence with absolutely no pressure, no requirement to pushing me into anything. I just knew I had it in me and landed it spot on. Well you heard my cheer as I sailed through the air and landed it was just brilliant! Especially as I never jumped/dropped before your course. Just wow!!!
I never thought I would have achieved so much grip and confidence through the bends like I did with the cornering technique you showed us. I have never had so much grip in corners before!
Thank you for being able to make it all so straight forwards. By breaking it down into really manageable chunks. It seemed like child’s play. Especially when you dispelled some previous miss conceptions / bad habits / ill advice. Everything you showed us just made perfect sense and looked effortless but the pay off was just amazing.
My core muscles are aching and my mind is buzzing from your skills course! I can't wait to get back out on the trails and continue to focus on what we learnt. It’s a real shame I had to work today as I would love to be out riding again!
See you again maybe next year. Thanks Again
Cheers,
John