You say you like the endurance aspect, so are you booked in to Mayhem, Sleepless, Kielder 100 and all points in between?
Maybe pairs race the 24hr at Bonty?

Might put some spring in your step if you have a specific event in mind and that will focus your training and increase your fitness levels & prevent you worrying about how to improve as it sounds like you've exhausted the other options!

The other thing about the courses is that unless you go away and practise the skills being taught, and keep practising them, simply attending these days is a little pointless.

Depending on your budget, you can employ a coach. A pal of mine had an on-line coach for her Iron Man bid to great effect.

Regarding the comments on skills coaching.

If you dont think the top guys do skills coaching you are dreaming. They will also be using video analysis of their riding (and others) to pick what is happening and where they could improve. Some people are absolute naturals and will be riding their bikes extremely well without coaching, but many people have bad habits, or do wrong things that can be fixed by having a good skills coach analyse your riding.

As for jhw, learning the skills on your own is one way to do it, but is often the long way. Getting someone to give you the fundamental skills to handle the bike correctly, along with the theory of why it works can shorten the learning process immensely.

I coach here in New Zealand. I have had riders along on courses. When they started with me, they were at the back of their group, and walking bits of the downhills. After the first course they were riding much more of the downhill and no longer taking the chicken routes. After the second course they were riding well up through the group and still improving. It is why I coach skills, I love seeing people improve and love seeing the sense of achievement when they ride things well.

Juan, I think it is quite normal for peoples overall riding to initially go a little backwards after a skills course. When riding we need our reactions to be done in the subconscious. Basically if you have to stop and think about what you are doing it is all over. When you have been on a skills course it takes some time to assimilate the information and store it as reactions in the subconscious. Until you have the new information stored you will be over-thinking your riding and not riding naturally. Once you have the new information stored and are able to use it out on the trails that is when the improvement will happen.

I rode with Cycle active a few years ago and did their lakeland loop ride for a week and couldn't believe how much my riding improved. James Richards was the guide and he was awesome, it was like being coached for a week and he ran through basic stuff that enable me to take on things that I would have bottled before, and he has such a big personality that he made my week , plus he's an ex XC and DH dude, and it was brilliant setting him ride challenges every day , that he invariably managed, ;0)

Skills course until you find a coach you get on with – then MTFU the credit card and get some one on one coaching. In a fairly intensive block (like 3 w/ends in a row or something). It will have an effect.

The more regular riding helps you practise those skills which helps confidence which helps cement the skills, which helps confidence… and so on and so forth.

Try riding road? Easy to fit a quick hour on the roadie in to keep you bike fit – spend the time to focus on pedalling good circles, staying off the brakes when cornering (find a quiet back street!) when the ground is consistent to get the idea of positioning and where to put your body weight… lots of transferable skills can be practised on the road, rather than just zoning out and pedalling or worrying solely about HRM zones and that stuff that all the mags refer to.

I'm a sceptic!

I'm not sure that just riding with people who are faster / better than you will get you riding better. I've done this and watched as they rode stuff smoothly a lot faster than I did but I couldn't work out how they did it and why I wasn't doing the same. Also a lot of the time I was concentrating on my riding so much I didn't really pay anyone else that much attention, so I never learnt as quickly as I would have liked. If you stop and "session" a section with people offering advice I can see you'd learn but this is very rare on a group ride.

Also, I don't see the value in just wanting to ride fast, you need control too and having the right foundation will allow you to go faster. Progression is key and if you just add speed into the mix without improving your skills then you will injure yourself. If you improve all areas at the same pace then you'll get faster with less injuries.

I've got a LONG way to go before I can ride the way I want to but I have to say a skills course helped me no end understand what I was doing wrong and what I was missing. It could be something as simple as putting your heels down at the appropriate time.

This is a good thread, I like how the OP pre-empts all the usual stock replies.

Personally I think my riding has improved more over the last two years than the previous 15 or so, and I put that down to…

Riding with faster people – A big factor, just because it makes me ride faster to keep up.

Skills day – Useful in showing me how to jump and drop properly, although I still lose my bottle too much.

Riding more – Found more people to ride with (partly thanks to STW), most of whom are quicker than me – so I'm sure I've got a little bit fitter.

Riding DH – Going to the Alps and doing some uplift days in the UK, have found this has made me a lot more confident at XC riding.

Practicing the same bit – When I started going to Aston Hill (southern DH venue) I was doing different tracks every time at random, but after meeting another rider there who was riding the same track all day I tried the same thing – and it really worked for me. I could feel my progression throughout the day, which was very satisfying.

I'm still only an average rider and still pretty unfit, but I'm enjoying it and it seems to be working.

like what i got now a 30lbs 6 inch bike.

Maybe having a huge bike with 6 inches of travel is not quite the way forwards!
Something with 4 inches and 5lbs lighter might help you with your fitness as you'll be more inclined to get out and rig-it with guys who you know to be faster and more trail competent.
I wonder, by having this millstone between your thighs is a way of not getting out and practising all that you’ve learnt.
Just one take on it.

You state you like the endurance rides, but a 30lb bike with 6 inches of travel….. I’m struggling to think of a single endurance event that would warrant this sort of bike.

More details please.

Lots of good information on this thread.

2 things which I found really helped me a) get better/faster/confident b) enjoy it more

1: Look where you WANT to go
Sounds stupid, but its really not. It was a road ride that taught me this lesson most. I used to find that when going round a corner fast, I couldn't help but drift out to the edge of the road and rough stuff. It even had me off the bike once at speed. Through talking to others I was told to
– bend the inside elbow and drop my shoulder into the corner
– turn my head and shoulders to where I want the bike to be going, and not to look where I think I may end up ( like the verge ).

After doing that, I found I could corner faster and tighter, and since then I've not been drifting out as much. People have already said this on the thread, the wheels do slip a little from time to time, but if you looking where you want to go, for the most part the bike will simply follow.

2: Slow speed technical climbing
Granny gear stuff over bumpy bumpy things. I used to be absolutely rubbish at it. But by getting out there and practising on the bike, I have become a lot better at it. I now am placing the front wheel where I want it to go, and knowing what to expect when the rear wheel hits bumps etc etc. I find my body moves all over the place and my arms are working hard and it didn't come straight away, but over time my balance has greatly improved and the ability to get up awkward little bits has increased. It means I can make steep climbs without dabbing and stopping and getting frustrated.

Both of these things make rides that bit more enjoyable.

I dont worry about being the fastest. I weight 15.5st and have a heavy full susser. I find finishing the ride having enjoyed it the main thing, not completing it 30seconds faster than the day before.

I think Ton is right… Chill out a bit, why not find some newbies to take out riding, you have been riding a lot for a long time and on plenty of different terrain by the sound of it, maybe your assesment of yourself is out of kilter, and a few nice non life threatening rides out with some beginners will help you re asses where your at.

Do/can you apply what you've learnt on the skills courses to other trails?

Do you go out and practice skills? Even 10 minutes spent popping up and down kerbs helps. A session out in the woods practising corners, or trying different lines across some rooty bits. – using the stuff you've learnt on the courses – forcing yourself to apply what they've taught you – not just falling back into your default "bad habits".

(as you can probably tell), I have a bit of a thing for "body memory". When you learn to do something new or different from normal, you have to do it LOTS until it becomes instinctive to do it that way, rather than in a panicked situation reverting to your old skills.

There's also a large degree of MTFU involved. You currently reside in your comfort zone. To get better (which you want to do), you need to step outside it. The trick is to do it in a controlled environment, and wear armour!

A trick I use, if I'm struggling with something, is to compare it to something near as dammit the same that I can do. A corner is always a cornee – same technique. If I can do *this* jump, then I should be able to do *that* one, as it's only a foot bigger. Think laterally!

…and most of all, believe in yourself! That's the biggest thing!

LEVEL 2, what it teaches

This is just how STW used to be, without all the unpleasantness!

If it helps, there's a m/cycle skills company I used to use. Their most popular course was level 2 of 5 levels. Riders each year would re-do level 2, a sort of back to basics and how and where to look course.

I think the main thing you need to do is work out what you most want to improve on and work on that. Pick a weak point and try and fix that.

I'd second chakaping's suggestion about practising the same bit repeatedly. If you're out on your own get into the habit of noting the bits you think you could ride better and stop and ride them until you work out what you think you're doing wrong. And then ride it using that insight ride it till you think you've improved it. It's ridiculously satisfying to finally get a bit 'right'.

Even bits you do feel happy with have a look at them and see if you can see different ways to ride them and try them. There are bits I've ridden loads of times that after I stopped to think about them I found better lines through.

And if you do crash go back and work out why and see if you can see how you could have avoided it.

When you're out riding with mates then try and work out where it is you loose time to them. Do they take different lines, brake at different points, shift their weight differently?

And then after a while of doing this sort of thing you can always go back to do a skills course with a shopping list of specific things you want to improve which should help you get more out of it.

Doddy is with MTBR? Shows when I last read a mag !

You appear to have done everything reasonable to try and improve and I would bet you are probably much more accomplished than you think you are. Maybe it's time to accept what you have and just carry on enjoying it – after all you have a very nice bike 😉

Chances are you are merely suffering from post holiday blues.

The other thing that I don't think anyone's mentioned is to try riding different trails and areas. Personally I reckon part of the reason for my less than amazing skills is that I mainly ride around London (Swinley, North Downs etc), so I don't actually face tricky drop-offs that often, for example.
It's amazing when you do go somewhere new (Afan, Moab, wherever's realistic for you) that you do make the step up in skills as required. And it's when riding all these different types of trail that you apply the skills you've learned etc