John came to me after his wife bought him the session as a gift. He brought along 2 bikes asking which he should ride and after I said "just ride your favorite one" he settled on the full suspension and I set to work. I always begin with my skills check and today was no different. I made set up changes and identified his present and also his missing skills.
We moved onto the drops to apply both his new physical and also his mental skill sets. immediately he could feel the difference his new body position made as he began landing perfectly and was at ease with it all.
After a while we moved on to the skills trail where we began with the base technique of pumping and using the energy gained.
We used the gained energy to ride the following berm and flat corner. John used his feet, body and looking skills to comfortable ride faster than before. I added in a rock garden, switchback and another berm to the line and John really began to ride fluidly.
Next up I added a fly out jump and showed why his skill set makes jumping simple and the following corner with stepped exit, which proved no problem for him at all. Finally, I showed him how to link the drop technique to his cornering technique by line choice and braking areas before it was time to ride the whole trail end to end. The difference is his riding was amazing and the smile never left his face as he chuckled out loud at the end of each run.
Finally, I moved us onto our final technique of the session, jumping tabletops. These feature more and more at trail centers and I wanted to show john why they can be dangerous but also why they are easy using his new skill set.
John hadn't been in the air on a bike since he was a kid but that was about to change as in a few small steps he was sailing over the 6ft tabletop and laughing as he did so!
A few more jumps and our session came to a close, ending an awesome session.
Great start to the new riding year John!
No comments:
Post a Comment