I would like to say a big thank you to Steve for the training on Saturday. Im really glad that I booked myself onto the beginners mountain bike course.
It's enabled me to learn new skills and gain confidence that I couldn't have attained by myself. It's also allowed me to understand where I have been going wrong when out riding each week by myself. The techniques/stratergies were explained well and in a way that I understood.
I achieved most of the skills on the day with a need to continue practicing to refine them. The photos Steve took while training and the footage of skills practiced were forwarded by email. Detailed feedback was also emailed on my development during the training day. All of this is most beneficial and a positive reference to use, while continuing to practice my mountain biking skills.
Thank you & I look forward to coming back for the intermediate course!!
Phil and Ceri were so new to biking they didn't even have bikes! Rebecca had only had hers a couple of months so today's riders were a blank canvas - which is great - lots of good habits to learn and no bad ones to shake off. As the two chaps were wondering about what bikes to buy I brought along a hardtail, an XC full suss and a 7" travel freeride monster so we could swap bikes and directly compare over the same obstacles while we were learning. They soaked up all the basics on gears, cadence, breathing, braking, uphill and attack riding positions happily. Then we got to the first downward bits. "You don't expect us to get down that do you?" 10 minutes later I was struggling to drag them off to the next section and I think it was only the promise of learning to jump drop offs that finally got them away. They all managed that too. And Phil even cleaned the "impossible gully" at the end of the day - though he wasn't willing to repeat it on the XC or hardtail bike!
