Mountain biking trainings and lessons

I used to ride around on BMX bikes a lot through the bush when I was a kid. We grew up in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains, so there was heaps of places to get lost in. Also, all of the basic skills about balance, safety, personal limits, what can hurt you badly if you stack it, etc, were learned at an early age. However after I was in my mid teens, I stopped riding until I got into my early 30's.

A couple of years ago, a mate talked me into going on a MTB ride with him. I wasn't massively fussed with it at the time, but I perservered. I am now, fortunately, addicted to it. But it has taken a while to build certain skills that are important to this pasttime. IMHO there are two main groups of skills - fitness and technique. Which could be further explained as physical and mental.

If you are just starting out, but are riding pretty often, you will find you acquire a certain level of fitness, or "conditioning", rather quickly. Of course, you aren't ready for entering the Hawaiian iron man. I am not But it is a "diminishing returns" thing. You get a lot of gains early on, but later your fitness improves only in little bits. If you are riding every week, you will see this conditioning improve your fitness in terms of stamina, leg strength, hand and wrist strength, balance and reflexes.

For technique, this is a harder skill, in that it does not improve unless you try things. Just riding does not acquire you improved riding technique. Well maybe at a very basic level. Technique is more mental than physical. Does this make sense? You need to put yourself in a position on the bike where you are forced to create, improvise, and possibly, maybe, save your own skin. That sounds worse than it actually is - don't worry. You learn something about yourself and your limits, in these situations. What I am really saying is just get in there and do it! A swimmer never learnt to swim by reading a book.

For a rider that has just started out on their first few rides, I would suggest a program of mixed riding trails, where fire trails (especially the hills) are used to develop fitness over longer distances. A decent level of stamina will not take many rides to develop. Also some basic technical trails need to be thrown in as well to learn something of technique. Start small, but never be afraid to try something new. A don't be too afraid of the odd stack here or there. Whenever you are learning, you are going to stack your bike. One word of caution about trying something overly technical (read dangerous) - if you are not confident, don't do it.

Hope this helps

(sorry for the ranting post).

There's a cyclinic coming up soon. I'm thinking about going. Apparently there's a major race (Polaris?) on the same weekend, so it might end up being a bit less technical than usual. I haven't done one before, so I have no idea what it'll be like.

Email follows

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For all those interested in next sydney cyclinic,

March 10th and march 11th, 9am-4pm, $150

Format has changed so will be a whole new thing to those who have done one
before.
May see some of you there.

Celia

Ah... and don't forget these YouTube training vids that we stumbled across earlier!