Monday 10 January 2011

Beginners course 090111

Arriving at Roman Lakes, the starting point for the course, I immediately recognized Jennifer and Neil! We must have met at least 2-3 times on the trails in the last year and it was an absolute pleasure to spend a day with this lovely pair. It was immediately obvious that climbing wasn't a problem for either of them although Jennifer found it helpful leaning  forwards more to be able to use her lowest gear better. We also spent some time learning how to do power assisted front wheel lifts to further enhance their climbing abilities.

When it came to descending it was a matter of making them more relaxed and able to move their weight around on the bike. Steps and drops were quickly mastered by both of them. Neil had to concentrate on keeping his cranks level (common for people who also ride a lot on the road) while Jennifer was doing everything right but needed to build her confidence up on rocky descents. She gradually got there and managed to ride some particularly rocky trails very smoothly.



It was clear from the start that they enjoyed talking about skills and thinking about the benefits of small adjustments to where you look and bodypositioning, which made for a very interesting day with lots of good discussions about the physics of riding a bike!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Many thanks Emmy for such an enjoyable and beneficial day!

We learnt much more in a single day than we had learnt in months of riding on our own. We rode some sections of trail much more comfortably than we previously had, and also rode sections of trail that we previously would have thought beyond us!

We'd recomment this course to anyone who wants to develop or brush-up on their core skills, which are fundamental to all levels of riding.