Mountain Bike Tuition Skills Courses

Alan has only recently started riding off road, in fact only about 10 times with one being a mountain bike race! Alan used to be a competitive runner but due to injury he started riding.  With the roads being quite unpleasant to ride on due to too many impatient car drivers he tried a bit of trail riding with some work colleagues and enjoyed it so much entered a race straight away!

With regards to the race he found that he was fit enough but as soon as it came to the singletrack he was left standing. He was braking, losing momentum, not getting round the corners which was very frustrating. He decided that if he was going to be competitive and progress in this sport he needed some coaching.

So with my brief done we headed for the trails.

To start with I got Alan to ride round a little corner circuit so I could see how he was riding already.  This highlighted a number of fundamental skills which were missing so we started back to basics to iron these out.

The first skill we worked on was his body position on the bike…..”control” or “ready for anything” stance and how to adapt this to get round corners.  Straight away Alan found it so much easier to move the bike around by being out of the saddle and shifting his body weight. By lowering his saddle a tad and adjusting the position of his brake levers also helped.

After a quick demo and practice of the best and most efficient way to use your brakes we headed to the 4 corners.  This trail gave Alan the opportunity to practice making the quick transition from a left hand corner to a right hand corner whilst controlling speed. Alan worked well through the corners and looked confident moving away from the saddle and leaning the bike over more as the trail tightened so he could get the best grip.

Once the 4 corners were mastered it was on to stickler with the many singletrack corners to work through.

After working on a few of the sections I then followed Alan whilst we rode the whole trail.  I could see how his riding had improved just after a couple of hours coaching and believed with practice he could finely tune his riding to flow more freely and be able to improve his race times/position.

So a week after Alan’s coaching session he entered his second ever mountain bike race, the Gorrick Fun Race.  He came 1^st out of 25……..not bad for a Rooky, in fact pretty awesome!

Good luck and enjoy

Elaine is a lover of the great outdoors. She runs, cycles, does adventure races and triathlons. With an injury keeping her from running she was out on her mountain bike more and decided she wanted to learn the necessary skills to build her confidence for off road riding.

We began the session with a quick briefing about SwinleyForest followed by talking about the bike set up and completing a  safety check before setting off.

Firstly we briefly covered how to change gears smoothly whilst using an efficient pedalling technique for going up hills off road efficiently.  At the top of the climb it was time to explain the ideal body position to adopt when riding off road.  Elaine picked this up really quickly which was great as this meant we could move on to the core skills to cornering.

On the way to the introductory corners we went through how to use your brakes safely and confidently and adjusted Elaine’s brake levers so they are easier to reach when in the control position.  We then started moving our weight around the bike to introduce where her body position should be to gain the best traction from our tyres.

Moving on to cornering we started with a simple one just to get the basics correct. To begin with Elaine stayed fairly straight on her bike with not much movement.  However, after a few tips she started to lean the bike and shift her bodyweight around which was great.

Moving on to the four corners it gave Elaine the opportunity to practice making the quick transition from a left hand corner to a right hand corner whilst controlling speed. We also looked at line choices and visual irritations on a trail that may affect your confidence and commitment and spoke about how best to tackle them.

Elaine worked well through the corners and looked more confident moving away from the saddle and leaning the bike over as the trail tightened so she could get the best grip. With her confidence growing we moved onto Stickler to work on linking some corners and using tighter bermed corners to challenge her “looking” and “footwork”technique.

Another aspect of off road riding Elaine wanted to learn was to get over obstacles such as roots/logs/step ups on the trails so we spent a bit of time running through the technique for this.

With time running short we headed to Seagull and covered the “cone of movement” going over a mound in the trail and followed the trail to the green gate before heading back to the Look Out.

See you on the trails soon.

Andy use to mountain bike but after a break from the trails he decided to start again.  He has been back riding for the past year with a group of work colleagues.

The specific things he wished to learn to do better was cornering and also find out what “pumping” was all about.

So with my brief done we headed for the trails.

We started with the fundamentals of mountain biking…the body position on the bike…..”control” or “ready for anything”  stance.  By just adjusting his body position and a tweak of his brake levers Andy could feel the difference and the confidence this brought, especially when it came to braking.

Moving on to cornering we started with a simple one just to get the basics correct. To begin with Andy stayed fairly straight on his bike with not much movement. However, after a few tips he started to lean the bike and shift his bodyweight around which he felt made a huge difference.

The picture on the left shows no body movement or weight shift so struggling to corner.

Picture on right, so much better!

Moving on to the four corners it gave Andy the opportunity to practice making the quick transition from a left hand corner to a right hand corner whilst controlling speed. We also looked at line choices and visual irritations on a trail that may affect your confidence and commitment and spoke about how best to tackle them.

Andy worked well through the corners and looked confident moving away from the saddle and leaning the bike over more as the trail tightened so he could get the best grip.

Along Tank Traps I set Andy a challenge which was to stop pedalling and see how far along the trail we could get before we came to a halt.  With me in front and using the dark art of “pumping” I started moving away and Andy could see the advantage I was gaining.  We headed to the pump track so I could share my knowledge of pumping with him.  Andy did struggle with getting the movement through his bike but was progressing all the time. This skill required a bit more practice to be able to gain flow and momentum while on the trail and save energy.

Time flies when you’re having fun and the session was whizzing by so we headed towardsSurrey hill to do a bit of coaching on a few drop offs.

Andy is happy to do drop offs but wanted me to assess his technique and make sure he was doing them properly.  With this in mind we covered body position, foot position and where to look which helps you to relax and build confidence.

The big learning points for Andy were under rotating the wrists/heels as he had always been very upright.  Also leaning the bike over with the foot down when cornering.

Hope to see you enjoying the trails

John is a regular rider at Queen Elizabeth Country Park, where they have recently upgraded the trails. So there are now switch backs and bermed corners to contend with, rather than the natural trails. He’s also recently purchased a new bike, so decided to give a skills session a go.

We covered the basic safety checks and briefing before heading out to the trails. 

We spent a short while just focusing on the control position, braking and bike set-up; adjusting the brake levers to enable easier reach.

We discussed the idea of the platform for your feet, and how you adjust this as the terrain become steeper, while still focusing on the “under rotation”  

Basic cornering followed the braking exercises; changes to the body position,  “dropping your outside foot”, and the use of the hips. We focused on the heel position to help over come a dominant right foot while working on the figure of 8 exercise. As the foot work was causing a few unbalanced corners.  

After a short downpour in the weather, we headed into the single track to try the four corners, and linking the corners together.

We then headed over to “Stickler” to sample the challenges of the bermed corners on  “Stickler Three”. Here we focused on the body position and bike position, and how it can affect the line around the berm. As well as working hard to get the looking through the corner towards the exit.  Berm on Stickler

As we headed back towards the centre, we did a few exercises on pumping, and how you can use this to gain flow and momentum while on the trail, as well as using the pump to control your bike over obstacles, drops and steps. 

Final debrief at the car park and it was time to head for home.  It was a pleasure doing the coaching session and I hope to see you out on the trails soon, you never know – I may just take a trip down to QE Park to sample the new trails.

Rob rides regularly in the local race scene, including the Gorricks and Southern XC Series. He’s been finding that while he has the fitness to keep up on the fire roads and straighter parts of single-track, when things get technical, the other riders were pulling away from him.

As always we covered the basic safety checks and briefing before heading out to the trails.  We spent a short while just focusing on the control position, braking and bike set-up; adjusting the brake levers to enable easier reach.

Basic cornering highlighted the issue that Rob was staying in contact with his saddle, for most of the cornering, which was restricting his cone of movement.  We spent a bit of time focusing on getting the balanced position for the corner, as well as using the hips and heels to increase the corner grip and control.

After linking the four corners together, we then focused on line choice, through the corners, and how you can broaden out the corners and use the berms to your advantage, and not have to brake so much through the corners, allowing you to flow smoother throughout the trail. (more…)

Diamond Jubilee weekend saw Matt come to Swinley. He’d ridden here a few times before, and felt it was time to try and get a bit more flow and control through the corners.

We covered the basic safety checks and briefing before heading out to the trails.  (more…)

Easter break saw Liam with the 4 kids come to Swinley, William and Lizzie had been on a course at another centre, Henry and David were new to skills sessions.

We covered the basic safety checks and briefing before heading out to the trails.

We spent a short while just focusing on the control position, braking and bike set-up.  As is common with children’s bikes the brake levers are always set up too far away for their hands to reach the levers.  After a few adjustments we were sorted.

Basic cornering followed the braking exercises; changes to the body position,  “dropping your outside foot” and “looking” helped the group start to flow around the corners. (more…)