Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 94 total)
  • riding with the girls?
  • lucyayres
    Free Member

    Hi, I wanted to ask any girls who ride (or guys who ride with girls) about areas of riding that you might want to improve on? If you could do some specific skill sessions what would you all find the most valuable and how would you like to learn? If any of you have found any really good courses or methods would really appreciate the heads up. cheers

    valleydaddy
    Free Member

    Have a word with Stuart top lad

    http://www.forestfreeride.co.uk/pages/courses2.html

    allthegear
    Free Member

    Getting wheels off the ground for me – I’m not very confident jumping but then that is probably the same for guys, too.

    Rachel

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    stills8tannorm
    Free Member

    Cheers Valleydaddy.

    I’d estimate that over the course of any one year we instruct more woman than blokes (60-40 split). Regardless of sex the majority of folk are looking to increase their overall confidence. If you break it down into skills, techniques or general areas of riding then women most commonly want to know.

    • How to deal with speed and avoid panic or over braking.
    • How to lift the front wheel (low and high speed) … lots of people believe they need upper body strength, so it’s a nice surprise when they realise they don’t.

    Blokes want to know about drops and jumps much more than the majority of women do … but that often changes throughout a course as confidence rises. I must say that after 5 years of instructing one thing that always shines through is, no two people are the same. 😉

    Munqe-chick
    Free Member

    I would love to learn how to jump, I’m confident jumping off small stuff on a full susser but not on my HT also cornering at speed. I’m happy that I am confident enough to pick up the speed but sometimes cornering goes a bit wrong!!! Why you doing some courses? need any girls to test your courses on??

    atlaz
    Free Member

    Without sounding a little daft, surely the needs of women riding and men riding are really the same? When I went for coaching, I wanted to gain more confidence with drops and jumps and gain some more advanced trail skills. How would that differ from the average woman who’s been riding for 4-5 years?

    becky_kirk43
    Free Member

    Why you doing some courses? need any girls to test your courses on??

    It seems confidence is a big thing for a lot of people!

    I need to get the confidence to try steeper / rockier things. Was at sherwood at the weekend at got off the bike at a couple of places near the dh bit (whereas my friend who was mountain biking for the first time just did it without thinking!). Did a rocky drop that was about 1 ft (so not huge I know), it wasn’t graceful but I did it, mainly because I was going to fast to realise it was a drop and then had no choice but to do it!

    Munqe-chick
    Free Member

    The average woman is less aggressive when riding and might be more interested in overall fitness and technique, potentially wanting to ride quicker. I rarely ride with other woman as they aren’t anywhere near as technical, or quick whereas I love down Hillingdon and technical riding so I disagree with your comments Atlasz.

    lucyayres
    Free Member

    THANK YOU all so much…so helpful!! I am part of a mtb company in the alp’s and we are putting together a women’s specific week. I really wanted to make it a true reflection of what all levels of female riders want and not base it only on my own experience or what i think they might want? I rode for a summer in Whistler and did the women’s Wednesday riding evening which were amazing, i was sceptical at first but really did find that my confidence and riding level went up a lot!! I wanted to know if other girls found it easier riding with other girls or in girls specific groups and if this is something they would want?? Thanks Stuart…great advice, you are right about feeling confident above anything else, if i am relaxed and having fun on my bike i ride 100 times better! thanks again

    stills8tannorm
    Free Member

    Munqe-chick, you’re right about the aggression. Some aspects of riding do require / are easier with a certain level of controlled aggression … women are, on the whole less aggressive than blokes so this needs to be coaxed out at times. On the other hand blokes often need to surpress the aggression.

    *Women often have an easier time learning how to ride ‘using their heads’ because they don’t ride with dangly bits 😉 … if you know what I mean.

    * No offence fellas.

    Diane
    Free Member

    Look up the ‘Air Maiden’ event girls! http://www.airmaiden.com 😀

    Munqe-chick
    Free Member

    I would love to ride with more girls however I don’t know any that are really my level/abiliity. Sometimes I will encourage other girls out but that has to be a day when I don’t want to do so many miles or technical trails. I have tried encouraging and coaching others but they just don’t seem to love it like I do, which is why I always ride with the boys. It can be frustrating for me to improve as well, because the boys are WAY quicker than me, so I struggle to find someone to chase down hill to push myself down hill so it’s hard!

    slowrider
    Free Member

    I’m still working on replacing aggression with spodstyle stu, just bought a dh bike though so could get a bit messy. At least I’ll be practicing the ol’ ballistic path 😯

    stills8tannorm
    Free Member

    I saw you’d bought another … your kid got your hand me downs then? 😉

    littlegirlbunny
    Free Member

    I could do with a) looking forward more, b) focusing more on the task in hand

    geordiemick00
    Free Member

    Is this a blatant marketing ploy or what!!

    molgrips
    Free Member

    I would like the cojones to be rad and get large amounts of air. I know I have the skill and I can get moderate amounts of air easily enough.

    Munqe-chick
    Free Member

    And that is where you are going wrong Molgrips! a lot of women just want to learn to do jumps and drops as technical skills for the trails. We don’t wants lots of rad phat air 😉

    Hairychested
    Free Member

    Why does googling “riding with the girls” lead to this?
    [video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmmZ48EDfHk[/video]

    xiphon
    Free Member

    geordiemick00 – Member
    Is this a blatant marketing ploy or what!!

    Yup and not very subtle either!

    slowrider
    Free Member

    I saw you’d bought another … your kid got your hand me downs then?

    nope not this time, sold the complete bike to buy a kona operator at a silly discount. got a zesty for an all rounder

    stills8tannorm
    Free Member

    Marketing ploy by who? … someone asked a question and people have answered it.

    xiphon
    Free Member

    It’s called market research.

    geordiemick00
    Free Member

    still s8tannorm – Member
    Marketing ploy by who? … someone asked a question and people have answered it.

    Well you were given a nice intro, almost like someone answered a genuine question, you then lined up someone to intro you and hey presto along comes the answer….

    lucyayres
    Free Member

    Munge-chick. I know exactly what you mean about not knowing your level and not finding other girls who want to ride the same sort of thing . I would say though that if you can find other girls who are at a higher level you will learn a great deal riding with them. I ride with guys ALL the time which I really love and is great fun, but if I want to learn I go with the girls. we session stuff a lot more, take time over looking at our line choice and there is always a different atmosphere in the group. That is not to say we don’t still push it. I learnt to jump and drop and have done all my biggest lines with the girls!thanks again for the input…nice to know there are a lot of girls out there wanting to progress!

    xiphon
    Free Member

    [cynical mode]

    All we need now is a link to their company website, and piggyback onto STW, for good search results…

    [/cynical mode]

    stills8tannorm
    Free Member

    Jesus … someone you’ve never met, spoken to and don’t know asks a question. You have experience with the subject, so do your best to answer their question. Someone else also mentions you in the thread because they know you have relevent experience … I suppose you believe Area 51 too? 😉

    stevious
    Full Member

    Hi Lucy,

    My fiancee is a relative newbie to mountain biking, and I was chatting to her about what she felt were her areas of weakness to overcome. She came up with:

    – Moving weight around effectively (she’s more used to road biking and commuting)

    – Maintaining momentum over obstacles (she often stalls at fairly minor bumps and gets very frustrated).

    – Maintaining balance and confidence on rough ground.

    She’s in the process of booking a session with Jules Fincham’s bike school to help address these points.

    Munqe-chick
    Free Member

    Xiphon.. does i really matter if it is!? It’s nice for us girls to talk amongs ourselves for a change, plugging for customers or not, that’s a decision I will make with parting with my cash.

    The problem I have Lucy is I don’t know ANY girls who are my level or really even similar! Very excited though as my new Giant Cypher 1 5″ travel full susser arrived today can’t wait to test it out in Wales and start trying those drops 😉

    domino
    Full Member

    Yes to wanting to learn jumps and drops – in fact I am booked on a course in May to do just that!

    Xiphon and geordie mick – push off.

    xiphon
    Free Member

    :mrgreen:

    slowrider
    Free Member

    My daughter is bit ‘off’ biking at the moment due to being busy with drama. Whe she is on it she is a phenomenal climber and has lots of natural ability but always struggles beyond a certain speed. She says it’s because ‘boys are idiots, they switch their brains off’. Maybe…

    Munqe-chick
    Free Member

    Domino where are you doing that course then? I fancy going on one but haven’t found any local or at a reasonable price if I’m honest. The boys are off to do a skills day with Jedi, but I wasn’t allowed to go 🙁

    domino
    Full Member

    At Gisburn (which isn’t very local for you I don’t think) – details here from Minx blog here. But you could make a weekend of it and do the social ride on the Saturday too.

    Munqe-chick
    Free Member

    Oooo no Gisburn is a bit far….

    ART
    Full Member

    Yeah I fancied Debbie and Jen’s day out with Ed too, but it is a bit far for me as well (and it’s sold out now!). MC – whereabouts are you? I ride mostly with my bloke but have several girlfriends I ride with who are pretty competent and are always happy to hook up with other girls who are looking for a change to their usual riding company. 😉

    Munqe-chick
    Free Member

    I am in Oxfordshire .. are you local!?

    Bunnyhop
    Full Member

    I’ve always found that the chaps learnt to ride BMX or similar when younger, which many women don’t, so, when we decide to try mtbing, we’re almost starting from scratch.

    For myself, I don’t always feel part of the bike and should trust my ability more.

    Confidence is the issue.

    Munqu-chick – its a shame you don’t live near us (the edge of the Peak district), the girls I ride with are in 2 groups – The social group and the – ‘I can ride well and they do all the technical stuff that the chaps do’ group 🙂

    Munqe-chick
    Free Member

    Boo I ride with girls once in a blue moon! I have some friends from back home who I ride with occasionally but as mentioned that’s when I want a pootle and I’m not bothered about technical stuff. I jsut find it really hard to improve as there is such a gap between me and the boys. They are great for letting me ride with them, but there is too much of a gap when DH etc for me to follow them! I always start of blasting but it doesn’t take long until I’m in eating their dust 🙁

    i am happy with my speed and confidence to be far and I love my bike. For me it’s probably cornering at high speed and the drops. I often find I’m more technical than the men going up though which makes me chuckle. won’t be as bad as the willy waver out on the weekend who was riding up a hill we had come down, we made a light hearted comment about “Oh you should be coming down that hill” his response was “not if you’re training for the Trans Rockies” .. what a cheeser! The best bit was later that day we were ripping down THE most awesome descent and he was pushing UP .. ha ha not much good training going on there 😉

    clareymorris
    Full Member

    In general women have an aversion to risk whereas men don’t so riding skills and learning needs are going to be very different indeed. I have done a skills course and a jumps and drops course with
    http://www.cycleactive.co.uk/courses.html
    They are based up here but do courses countrywide (check out the website) After each course I really have seen an improvement in my bike handling and therefore confidence.

    M-C Bunnyhop is right I think you need to move up north you would be in your element riding up here (lakes for me). Seriously though if you were planning a trip up to the lakes we would be delighted to ride with you and show you some technicel lovliness 😀

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