Rudi had been coached by me previously and wanted to share a session with his riding buddy Liam. On meeting I ran them both through my skills check and found I needed to work on their looking, body positioning and footwork in all areas of the check.
We began with the drop technique and it was here that I worked on their mental skills too and soon they were landing all 3 drops easily and perfectly. Rudi rode the 6ft tabletop as I had taught him to jump previously and Liam wanted to learn that too so I obliged and soon they were both sailing over it.
They used their mental skills questions to positive effect and they both then rode the 6ft gap jump side too! This was the theme for today as they both bounced off each others successes.
From there I moved them onto the skills trail to work on cornering and carrying speed and absorbing sections. Flat, bermed, off camber and switchback corners were linked to drops, rock gardens, pumping, steps and upslopes. They really got to grips with the trail and was soon linking the whole trail together nicely.
I could tell they were tiring from the physical aspect of the climb to the top of the trail so we moved onto riding steeps. I worked on their body positions here too and as ever demonstrated too.
I used various slopes from 40ft high and one that is nearly vertical too. I showed different ways of riding into steep stuff and the lads followed suit.
They were blown away at how easy it was but I promised them I'd teach them to manual through jumps earlier and I wasn't going to let them down. In a couple of minutes, both Liam and Rudi were manualling over a 9ft tabletop and loving it!
On request, I then demonstrated to whole line to them including the 20ft+ gaps of air supply to them and that ended our session as they were mentally and physically knackered. We celebrated the session in the local pub with a cold beer. Amazing riding guys.
High5!
No comments:
Post a Comment