Developing Jon's riding some more

Today was Jon's third session and he wanted to develop his jumping more and maybe begin to ride some woodwork. We warmed up on the drops and i was able to show why the skills sets allow style to be added easily. We then moved to the 6ft tabletop and gap jump to work on clearing them with different speeds and efforts, which develops judgement. This blew Jon away as he was now judging for himself gaps. 

 We moved to a trail and worked on linking three berms and riding the following fade away jump and adding style and distance too. It's awesome to coach people who have obviously worked on their skills set since their first session as Jon had gotten to be a tidy rider now. Jon looked a a 7ft gap jump that comes after the first two berms and after demonstrating it, Jon sailed over it. A few runs from the top of the trail followed before we moved to something Jon would never had thought he could possibly ride a couple of hours ago, a 9ft step down gap that is sandwiched between two berms. A couple of small but correctable errors occurred before Jon was sailing it over and over again and also linked it to the trail above . 

 Lastly before the rains came , we moved to the woodwork to work on controlling that environment and riding a 50 meter section that contained the techniques I teach.

Amazing progression dude, High5! 

Ben discovers the kid inside

 Ben has wanted a skills session with myself for a couple of years and when the time was right, he booked in and today was the day. I could see the missing skills in the techniques I check for during my skills check and began installing my skills set. We began with cornering and the change was immediate in his riding as he could feel more grip and therefore control in each turn. We moved onto a trail to use it in the more real world and worked on pumping to gain speed and carrying that speed through one, then two and finally three berms. The grin on Ben's face never left.

I was buzzing too as we moved to applying the physical skills to the technique required for riding drops. Ben had never been comfortable with airtime and in no time at all he found himself using his new mental skills to great effect by riding all three drops with consummate ease, Time after time the same result of perfect landing occurred.

 Ben saw the tabletop alongside the drops and I could feel the trepidation in him as he asked if it was possible to show him why the skills sets make jumping easier too.

It blew him away at how simple and undramatic jumping the 6ft tabletop and landing on the down slope felt and he rode it over thirty times at least to cement it. Ben could see the 6ft gap jump and wanted to ride it but fear held him back so he continued riding the tabletop until he could answer his mental skills positively and then he sailed over it . Woop woop! We were both grinning and laughing as he really opened a door in his riding as that was the first ever gap he'd ridden. Loads more goes proved it no fluke. We had a break and resumed on the trail we started on but this time we worked on choosing when and why to pump or jump multiple sections of a trail and added the final jump after the three berms. This jump has a 5/6ft face and looms like a brick wall in front of riders as they approach. This is the same that happens at Ben's fave trail center, bike park Wales but now he was sailing into the air from that too. We took another break but Tiredness and adrenaline had got the better of Ben and he ended the session with a man hug and a high5!

Another Tunnel hill trolls session

 Andy, Paul, Alex and Jaime turned up as arranged and on arrival they said they are part of the tunnel hill trolls (hiya smiler and co!) , a group of riders whom I have coached members of before. The skills check showed me the areas that needed work on we then applied the body position, looking and footwork skills to the techniques we at ukbikeskills teach.

We began with the drop technique and used three different height drops to apply both physical and mental skills sets to. From there we moved to cornering and at first I demonstrated and they practiced on the hillside before we moved to part of a trail to work on basic pumping and carrying speed through one berm, soon another two were added.

 A welcome break followed for coffee and tea and we restarted by moving to the singletrack trail to work on applying the skills to multiple sections on a trail. Pumping, jumping, rock gardens, steps, and drops were linked to berms, off camber, switchback and flat corners. Any errors were now being self diagnosed and with line choice and braking adjustments they all became faster. A broken linkage bolt on Andy's santa cruz tallboy didn't deter us as he started using my own bike instead.

We moved on to a 6ft tabletop to work on clearing tabletops and landing on the down slope. One by one they all cleared the tabletop, much to their amazement and both Paul and Andy rode the gap jump a good few times too. I knew they were tiring but we were all buzzing to we moved to the original trail with the triple berms on it but this time they were choosing to jump or pump sections of the trail and everything all clicked for them. Nearly six hours since we began our session ended and a cracking session came to an end . Let me know how the riding goes and remember, today is day one.

High5!