Intermediate course 030312

The rain was lashing down as we set off from the car park in the valley and started climbing up the hill. It turned into horizontal snow by the time we reached the top and the trails were full of greasy mud. Did this mean that we had a bad time? Absolutely not, thanks to Greg and Catherine whose enthusiasm wasn't curbed by a minor thing like rubbish weather. Thankfully we could warm ourselves with cups of tea in front of the AGA in my kitchen halfway through the day!

As usual on the intermediate course we covered different techniques that aren't strictly necessary for mountain biking but will allow you to progress your riding much further once you have mastered them. One of these is track standing which both participants very quickly got the hang of, the other is bunny hopping where both of them almost immediately were able to lift both front wheel and back wheel of the ground. But we also put in a mix of challenges involving tricky climbs, power assisted front wheel lifts, drops, narrow steep descending and very tricky turns.

Towards the end we put the bunny hopping practice into good use for jumping off stuff and particularly Greg (as I predicted seeing his absolutely fearless personality earlier in the day) took to it like a fish to water and certainly made sure we ended the day on a high!