How do we become good Mountain Bikers?

7 Aug

How did I learn to ride?

For me, it started in 2015, on a Neilson Holidays trip to Lesvos. For some reason I decided to give MTB'ing a go - thanks to my knee's and hand eye coordination, windsurfing, wakeboarding/waterskiing and tennis were no-no's, and I needed something to do when the wind was no good. Over the course of the 2 week holiday, something clicked, and I realised I'd found a new sport to fall in love with! After getting home I bought myself a Hybrid Trek – I wasn't sure what I wanted or needed, but I thought it'd cover all my bases, at least for now. Fast forward to 2016 and I got to do it all again, twice – we snuck in another holiday at a different Neilson resort at the very end of the year, this is where I met the guy who is my biking buddy, Ben, who was the resort bike guide.

Shade seekers in Lesvos, Greece

Biking with Neilson Holidays in Ortakent, Turkey

Once I got home, I realised I wanted to take this seriously. That meant making some serious decisions – do I need a new bike? What bike do I get? What is my budget? How can I be serious at this as a 41 woman with 2 children?

The goal:
To be able to ride virtually any trail I want, with confidence and skill, and to enjoy it. Ambitious, much?

What are the paths?

Chatting to a lot of the mates who I bike with, when asked how they got to where they are today, the common response is simply ‘I just did it as a kid’. Watching my own 14 year old son mucking around on a bike, it hit me. What takes me hours of mental preparation, planning and concentration he does in a blink of an eye, and when it doesn’t get it right, he doesn’t get mad he just carries on as if nothing has happened. Whereas I, as you will see, do not take failure so lightly.

If in doubt, get your coach to hang the bike over a feature!

Ok, so clearly I hadn't learnt as a kid, so what was open to me? Coaching seemed the obvious answer. It turns out I wanted to go from Zero-Hero, and I assumed that a coach would explain how to do this in nice easy, magical steps. How wrong I was! Several sessions with Fergus Walker (Trail Days MTB Coaching) made me realise I had to start from scratch and re-learn basic skills. I wasn’t even braking correctly!

Next I had a coaching session with Katy Curd at the Forest of Dean (FOD). Again we went back to basics first – foot position on the pedals, body position on the bike, basic pumping and manuals. Katy recognised that I need to be able to ‘feel’ where my body should be for different skills and so she adapted and came up with various techniques such as the manual bike balance trick to give me muscle memory. A coach adapting to the individuals learning style is both the sign of a good coach and a key benefit of 1:1 coaching. My session with Katy led to one of my biggest break throughs to date. By the end of our session I was mastering small drop offs and several other skills that had previously been beyond me. I had a triumphant afternoon’s post-coaching ride around FOD with Ben and was on top of the world. The following morning we went back to FOD for another day of fun. I was really looking forward to showing Ben my new drop-off skills but overnight I'd redeveloped my old mental block. I had returned to where it was pre-coaching and I was devastated. We left the drops disheartened and carried on riding, trying not to let it get in the way of me enjoying myself. Just before lunch we returned, after having smashed some far more technical trails and I conquered them again! Afterwards I realised that the only difference between Saturday morning and Sunday morning was my mental game. NOTHING else had changed. So, if I could control that, I could hit anything I wanted.

The Manual Balance Trick

Katy and me - post coaching happiness!

Not everyone can afford coaching though, so what do you do? Well, you ride! Find a local club, find some MTB mates, get out there. It’s well known that if you want to get fitter and faster, ride with people who are fitter and faster. The MTB world is incredibly friendly and helpful, and I've found that through watching how more experienced riders approach trails and technical features, I’ve been able to mimic that and gain confidence. A friend of mine rode a lot as a youngster and then had a long gap before getting back to mountain biking. Chatting to him, I found he’s done the same. He found the best local rider and then battled to keep up with him and achieve everything the other guy could. It might not be as fast a progression rate as being coached, but it's still a lot of fun!

Sessioning the trails in Covert Woods

And now?

My focus for the next race in the Southern Enduro series was born from that moment of frustration in FOD. Before Round 2, I rode my local downhill trails repeatedly and constantly pushed myself to face every feature that frightened me. I allowed myself to feel the frustration and pain of disappointment when I let fear beat me. I would then focus on the way I felt when I got those things right. I rode the same features repeatedly until they didn’t bother me and I felt nothing but elation conquering them time and again. Learning to spot when I was too mentally tired that I had to walk away became important and it might sound mad, but I spent every spare moment off the bike visualising the features and techniques, remembering the method and the feeling of conquering them all. This is what allowed me to finish Round 2 feeling ‘YES, not ANGRY', happy I had given my all, and done the best I could.

So, to answer the HOW question, for me it’s a combination of coaching, copying and visualisation. Beyond that it’s just practice, on the commute to work I practice everything I can; be it trackstands at traffic lights, manuals off curbs, bunny hops on speed humps, stair runs off the City walls and even popping to the local woods on my lunch break. There’s still lots of work to do but one thing’s for sure, I couldn't do it without the support of my friends and the guys at Biketart!