I have seen some threads in here asking about coaching in Scotland and thought I would post up my experience. I went to Laggan today and spent the day with Ben Cathro of Sick Skills. He ran 4 different sessions all of which were very good. If anyone is looking to get some coaching I think you would enjoy workin with Ben. He was very informative and enthusiastic, really wanted to see you progress. I really enjoyed it, noticed an improvement in my riding and it only cost me £20 as he was doing an offer for the Laggan bike demo day. Highly Recommended!

Ben deserves to do well at this. Shame he couldn’t maintain his worldcup efforts as he was on the pace. Clearly a brilliant rider and comes across as a top bloke.

the guy seems like such a laugh in any videos i have seen, so i can imagine any skills course with him would be pretty dam good fun

I was checking out his courses, which one did you go for? I reckon that a beginners course might be a bit basic, but not sure I want to go for the full on downhill coaching. Basically I’m keen to learn how to carry more speed through the corners, weighting the bike correctly etc etc as this is the one aspect of my riding that I feel really lets me down

Cheers for the kind words Graeme, glad you enjoyed it. You were roosting those turns at the end of the day, was great to see!

tpbiker: All my courses work on the basic skills involved in riding but are just tailored to the different disciplines. DH coaching will work on things like cleaning gnarly technical sessions, big jumps and also just basic body positioning. XC coaching will work on things like cleaning tech climbs, conserving energy, efficiency and ALSO basic body positioning.

So really just pick the discipline you ride most. If you are quite new to the sport or feel your skill level is quite basic the XC intermediate session is for you. If you view yourself to be at a decent skill level or even at a very top level of skill then the advanced course is for you. There is of course an overlap for both so even if you are in the wrong one you will still learn loads. I accomodate all skill levels in my sessions.

It’s good to know people are unsure about which course to choose. I’m going to update the site over the next few days to add some clearer info each course. There will also be some new dates at locations like Innerleithen, Glentress, Fort William, Laggan and others.

Cheers

Ben Cathro