Hi All
I may have a chance through work to do a mountain bike leadership/guiding/instructor course just wondered who had done what and how good they were.
Also are there particular ones which are more highly regarded within the industry should I ever want to try and gain a bit of work from it in the future.
Thanks in advance for any advice
Pete

Have you been coached yourself? I picked up a lot of tips on how to coach while being coached. Obv. this is nothing to do with certificates, but I always value someone who knows what they’re doing over pieces of paper.

The MBLA courses have a very big backing from British Cycling so they are probably the ones to get as they have just been overhauled with changes to the remit/syllabus. The only other ones I know of are the MIAS courses which are equally as good but in different ways.

MBLA courses

MIAS courses

Big article about this in the last issue, or the one before maybe.

I’ve done the CTC trail leader and technical trail leader courses, obviously I can’t compare them to anything else, but they were both excellent and did give me some new tools to use that I hadn’t considered before for group leadership.

I’ve been leading groups for nearly 20 years, had already done my local authority course quite a few years back, so I do count myself as being pretty experienced in group scenarios, but I would say they were definitely worth doing from my perspective.

I did a TCL course with Jonathon at the strangely named 1mtb1 and thought it was great:

http://www.1mtb1.co.uk/

Before you jump in an get signed up – check what is happening with British cycling first. I believe they are overhauling the MTB leader process as we speak, – the cynical b****r in me thinks its so they can get more cash in the coffers, but hey!, I may be wrong.

http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/coaching/article/coast_Level_2_MTB_Coaching_Award
http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/mtbleadership

Have a look at the last issue (http://singletrackworld.com/2013/10/issue-85-sneak-peek-chipps-and-dave-go-guiding/) cyclewise used to be my LBS and I liked their skills and coaching stuff. Have a chat with them

Maybe it’s just the BC guys I’ve come across but they all seem so risk adverse that I’m amazed they actually let anyone near a bike.

I’ve done the Mias scheme up to level 3. It’s as good as any, but you can’t beat learning from paying attention to someone who’s good at it.

Are you looking for group leadership or coaching? I found that such courses are very much about leadership and not so much about coaching. (and some of the coaching points given on the level two were just plain wrong).