Wednesday 28 May 2014

Loz and the Berkhamstead crew
















































Loz, Doug, Jon, Ali and James arrived for their alpine preparation session. I began as ever with the skills check and set up changes and discovered footwork and looking needed working on first and later on, body positioning and the all important mental skills. 
 The drops were the first sections we started on and they were all amazed at how simple and easy it all felt. All 3 drops to 3ft were ridden using their mental and physical skills sets. We moved to basic pumping and cornering using 2 berms and they were soon gaining speed through them with confidence and commitment. After a few good runs we moved on to riding over large rocks/stumps and the required application of techniques in that context. They were amazed at the ease of that too and after some practice we took a break for coffee.
 On resuming, we moved to riding steeper terrain and once again applied the skills decide whether to ride a near vertical drop off and I demonstrated different ways of doing this.
We moved on again and this time to linking drops into corners and the required line choice and braking areas. As their skills grew more embedded they found themselves becoming faster and faster. Now it was time to show why their skills apply to jumping tabletops and gaps. It took no time at all for them to one by one sail over the 6ft tabletop and some even rode the gap jump a few times too and now they were buzzing but I could see they were tiring. We chatted and moved on to the trail with the two linked berms and worked on pumping and jumping multiple sections of a trail and linked the two berms in as well. After a few runs they knew they were tiring and soon our session came to a tired and happy close. Have fun in the alps boys.
High5!

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