My better half events (horses) and has a lesson every week religiously. This got me thinking, having never been told/shown how to ride a bike properly I’ve more than likely picked up some shocking habits over the years and there is always room for improvement.

Been riding for a good few years now, raced downhill when younger and more recently jumped on the enduro bandwagon.

Is this a good or daft idea? If so, can anyone recommend an advanced skills courses/tuition day ideally in the west midlands or wales?

The standard answer: http://www.ukbikeskills.co.uk/

Not where you’d like; but is what you’re looking for. I travel a long way for sessions with Tony.

Thanks for that Rob, straight away looks far better than any I’ve found so far.

Quality of course is definitely more important than location so happy to travel.

Campbell Coaching – run out of Afan and/or Llangollen. Couldn’t believe how much I learned from them and I’d been riding for 25 years… http://www.campbellcoaching.eu/

Thanks for the recommend rob

I did a session with Pro Ride Guides and I took away a lot from it. Got a full day private session booked with them for Wednesday now as well. 😀

Still not booked this…

Has anyone had 1 to 1 tuition with Donny?

http://www.neildonoghuecoaching.co.uk

One day of good tuition is more valuable than years of pootling along by yourself. There’s something about the “safety net” that a good instructor provides that allows you to really push yourself. Never had any experience with Neil Donoghue, but considering his history of racing I’m sure it’s a safe bet.

Booked in with Neil on 1st Dec. I’ll let you know!

I’m a big fan of coaching. I’ve been a full time guide in the Alps for the last 7 seasons and would still bite the hand off anyone offering me some decent coaching.

In your area you area and highly recommended, is Forest Freeride.

Stuart (still_s8tannorm of this parish) offers superb accommodation, a fantastic location, coaching at all levels, and is just a good guy to hang out with over a weekend (or a day, or whatever amount of time you want).

I’d be very interested to hear how you get on superfli, though I’d like to have made decision and booked it by then!

I’m a big fan of coaching. I’ve been a full time guide in the Alps for the last 7 seasons and would still bite the hand off anyone offering me some decent coaching.

Completely agree.

I’d like to think I’m fairly handy on a bike, race results are getting better but know there is huge room for improvement both in terms of technique and fitness.

Far better value IMO to throw money at coaching than at the bike!

I’ve had my day with Pro Ride Guides now and it was great. I went in with the sole aim of getting faster. I’ve been getting consistent equivalents to top 10 in senior at UKGE but I needed some help if I want to be in elite by 2016. I came out with lots of little things to work on and some top tens out of several thousand and a couple of dh track KOMs on Strava. Comes highly recommended from me. This was with Joe Rafferty. Also got my training plan from him to start tomorrow.

http://www.ukbikeskills.co.uk

Tony transformed my riding in a few hours coaching!!

I’ve been coaching the fitness side of things for a long time, and it’s hard to ignore the gains that can be made from skills coaching as well, especially for the enduro guys I work with. Even some of the endurance focussed riders gain so much from being confident on the downhills – it takes away a lot of anxiety and allows focus on just riding. Bad habits get ingrained really quickly, and like said above, in some sports skills tuition is expected and required. I don’t see why mountain biking should be any different. Perhaps because it’s newer.

I’d be interested to hear what Jedi etc etc think about any kind of accreditation for skills coaching? It seems like a logical step for the sport to take, but it would be so hard to create a system that was actually valid and worth pursuing.

There is a British Cycling Mountain Bike Coach scheme which in theory goes from coaching kids up to coaching Olympians. I haven’t really looked into it, but it’s something I’m thinking about doing. I’m qualified as a Mountain Bike Leader and International Mountain Leader to work as a guide in the Alps, but it would be good to develop more skills on the bike coaching side. Info here: http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/coaching/article/coast20110907-Level-3-Certificate-Coaching-Mountain-Bike-0

I’m also a high-level snowboard instructor. To reach the top level, it’s compulsary to do some coaching courses (up to UKCP level 2, coaching athletes at regional competition level). These were really good courses, some of the best I’ve done. Backed by UK Sport / Team GB / (whatever they’re called), so some really good background info.

Coaching, as opposed to instructing, is interesting – you can easily get involved with athletes who are better performers than you are. The trick is to still be able to give them useful input. It’s one of the few times where the usual instructor training course approach of teaching the other people on the course starts to feel very real, as teaching/coaching your peers is what it’s all about. That said, this dude was on my level 2 coach course. Not sure I really had much to offer him:

Tuition’s great, there’s a lot of different things you can get from it apart from the obvious It might sound daft but on one of mine, what I mainly gained was confidence in my own abilities, rather than new skills- I was a big grab-bag of self-taught and trial-and-error and I never really had much faith in all that but I found it really useful just to get an independent view of where my riding was. A few quick fixes made a big difference too.

But you only take out what you put in- I did a dirtschool jumps day, had a great day but never really practiced anything afterwards and 6 months on, I’ve lost a lot of what I gained. Not a fault of the course, all about the pupil!

I’ve had 1:1 and mixed group coaching in a number of formats/with different instructors over the last 7 years, but always recommend Tony Doyle http://www.ukbikeskills.co.uk/ as mentioned above. I cannot express just how much he did for my riding, both with immediate effect at the time of tuition (changing poor braking habits), and over the long term when the tuition really started to sink in and become a habit.

In addition, in the summer of last year, I had a 1:1 day with Neil Donoghue http://www.neildonoghuecoaching.co.uk/ for the very practical reasons of 1) he was closer and 2) the waiting time wasn’t as long

I found, much to my surprise, that Neil’s coaching complemented that I had already had from Tony Doyle and I benefited massively from the session. His cornering tuition has stayed with me and, despite spending a lot of time road riding over the last year, I still remember the advice when I get back on the MTB.

I am tempted to have another session at some point with either Tony or Neil.

I have never really found group tuition to be as beneficial as 1:1. The group is either too advanced, or not advanced enough for each member. Often focus on individual problems is difficult when there are other people for the instructor to consider. They are fun though 🙂