Beginner's course 08/08/2012

Mark's home terrain is many sand, desert and rocks as he lives out in Dubai but was back in the UK to visit relatives. He took the opportunity to come on the course to work on his core skills that were mainly biased towards road cycling rather than off road riding.

As usual we started with the riding positions both uphill and downhill and with minor tweaks Mark started to get his confidence up on the descents. Having put the basics in place we moved on to drops something Mark was not so keen on, or rather his brain wasn't too happy about it! Some people have less worries about riding off things and very quickly discover that it isn't scary or difficult once you use the right technique. Mark learned the technique but it took some convincing and several attempts before his brain let him continue off the edge and not apply the brakes last minute. Once he a realized he could do it he had several really good runs at each thing and we built his ability up to cover 10-12 big steps in a row which he rode beautifully.

Great day, very warm for British standards, but Mark more used to desert temperatures and with great fitness, didn't even break sweat!