Private day 130511

Husband and wife, Alan and Frankie, came to jointly learn new mountain bike skills, but on two different levels. Frankie being a complete beginner had to start from scratch putting in place all the core skills and getting used to the rocks etc, while Alan was already at a very good level. For him we concentrated mainly on either very technical climbs or scary looking drops and downhills. He was very quick at putting in place the tiny changes in body position and mental strategy required to be able to really push the limit of his riding. This was even more evident when he was learning to bunny hop as for each attempt he was just jumping higher and higher which forced me to improvise making higher and higher obstacles!

Frankie was slowly buiding her confidence in the bike and herself riding terrain rockier than stuff you would normally find at trail centres, but being still at the panic braking stage (a reflex to suddenly grab the brakes) she had a fall right at the end. Showing great attitude she despite being quite sore and shaken up she got back on the bike for the last rocky descent back to the cafe, which told me she has got a bright future on two wheels! Great effort from both of them and it was a pleasure spending a day with such a lovely couple.

Hi Emmy,
thank you for your e-mail and for the links to the photos and your

blog. If you could make the videos available to view that would be good.
We both had a fabulous day with you and learnt a great deal about core MTB
skills and for me some of the more intermediate skills of bunny hopping and
how to tackle those scary drop offs! I'm certainly mor confident about how
to tackle that sort of thing now and how important body position is.
Frankie was a bit sore on Friday night as she turned her ankle in the
morning and it didn't really flare up until teatime, but it came on very
quick and painful. She's much better now so no lasting damage to it (a bag
of ice looks to have done the trick!), although she still has a few big
bruises as a reminder of her tumbles! It hasn't put her off though and
she's already talking about a day out at Llandegla soon.


Thanks again for a great day out and for all your help and advice. It must
have been quite tricky for you to cope with the two of us and our different
skill levels/needs, but we both benefitted and learnt a lot. Thank you for
your patience!
Kind regards
Alan