Something I’ve thought about previously, may even have done a thread about it, can’t remember, but anyway here goes…
Last night I was advising a mate how to get around a rocky steppy switchback, off the brakes, outside pedal forward, turn your hips into the corner and carry more speed than you think. Later get a “cheers that helped”, of course I’d gone around the corner deadly slowly my inside foot forward and on the brakes all the way around. My technique is awful but I seem to have managed over the years to work around this handicap and generally I jammy my way around/across/down stuff ok at a reasonable speed without many falls.

So if I do a skills will I learn to embrace the techniques (some of which I already know but don’t use) or, as I strongly suspect, will I spend all day struggling to work against my instincts and go back to my bad old ways the day after the course?
I’ve read a lot of mags over the years watched a few vids and listened to some guides and ignored most* of the advice, is there anything different about a skills course?

*there are a few things I have managed to incorporate into my riding.

I did the stop crashing with Ed a few years ago. I had been riding BMX then MTB for 20 odd years but had a couple of friends starting out that wanted to do it so I went along for the ride, thinking it would be too basic for an old hand like myself.
I took far more away from it than I had imagined. I had picked up loads of bad habits, even though I was aware of good technique. Having someone watch you and critique was worth its weight in gold. Ed did a great job of tailoring advice to suit different skill sets. We all went back and did the Flow course the year after and thoroughly enjoyed that too.

Being an older dog I’m also wondering if I’ll drift back into my old bad ways.

Anyway I’ve booked a day next month with Jedi, really looking forward to it and have heard nothing but good things about him from far better riders than me.

I keep meaning to book a day with Jedi myself, just for balance. I am interested in seeing how the teaching techniques differ. Plus he is closer to home than Ed.

Ed’s pretty close to my home, really should get around to giving him a call.

Had a Jedi course, was brilliant. However, if you don’t go out and practice regularly, and keep reminding yourself of the things you’ve learned, then you do tend to slip back into old habits. Practice and remind yourself regularly and it will eventually stick

So nearly a thread all about ME 😀
but then you made it all about you 😥

I faired better than the other person you coached though 😈

I went on one recently because I’m shitting bricks that I’m going to be out of my depth on a Spanish holiday next month.

I’m 46, been cycling forever and mountain biking since my early twenties but I have no skills to speak of. I had half a day in Stanmer Park with South Downs MTB Skills and found it really helpful. Jim didn’t tell me anything I hadn’t heard, read or seen in videos before but having someone there to watch what I was doing and give advice really worked for me. It’s true you have to continue practicing so the gains don’t fade away but at this time of year with the sun shining that’s no problem.

I chose Jim because he’s local and came recommended by the local shop. I enjoyed the whole session. If you want to point and laugh take a look at the link above and take a look at my pics (I’m Adrian in real life)

<thread derailment>

outside pedal forward

What’s that about then?

</as you were>

I faired better than the other person you coached

no one crashed on any of the sections I was “coaching” on, had a few refusals tho 😉

Cheers for the info everyone. Having proper practice sessions is probably a good idea, concentrating on technique is hard to do when there’s so many trails to ride and so little time.

thegreatpotato, left hand corner get you right pedal forward, it turns your hips into the corner helping get your weight correct, I think it also makes it easier to get a quick quarter pedal stroke in if you need to with less chance of hooking up on rocks on the inside of the corner. Pretty sure Mike from switch-backs.com told me this, probably read it in a mag too.

disclaimer: IANAcoach, could be misremembering

concentrating on technique is hard to do when there’s so many trails to ride and so little time.

This is what I am guilty of. One thing the skills course taught me was to session difficult features to improve technique and try different things. I used to do this as a kid all day long but time is too precious nowadays. I still don’t do it enough short of riding a similar local loop through the week.

As an old dog myself I went with 4 other old dogs for a session with Jedi.
We all learned something new and I’m now a much better, smoother rider. It took time to practise as it’s not an overnight thing but the experienced personal view of your riding is well worth it IMO.

I often fall back to the underlying basics if things start to go pear shaped. Something I would have struggles to do beforehand.

I won’t embarrass a mate on the course who always had his inside foot forward when riding a figure of 8 despite knowing what to do and having decades of experience. If I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have believed it

Thanks for the kind words. See you soon dude

I won’t embarrass a mate on the course who always had his inside foot forward when riding a figure of 8 despite knowing what to do and having decades of experience. If I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have believed it

Why is it bad to ride with the inside foot forward? I’m an old dog who likes to experiment with how i ride and i’m doing it more and more these days. It’s something i’ve found useful in certain situations as it makes it easier to apply my weight through my hips when cornering. It’s still not the natural thing for me to do, but when i get it, it feels ace so therefore can’t be wrong 😀

I thought inside foot forwards was correct technique.

I think it’s no bad thing for any rider, no matter how experienced to do a skills course (or even a technique critique session with a like minded/better rider) once every year or 2 – almost like a technique MOT, just to highlight any bad habits you’ve got into. I’ve been riding a bit over 20 years now and I’m still learning new stuff, and still falling into bad habits when I don’t do a certain style of riding for a long period.

Outside foot forward on hairpins basically helps open your body out and gets your hips pointed through the corner – a variation on the laser cock theme. This is a typical example – I absolutely cannot ride left foot forward, because I never practice it. In my defense I’m pretty good at techy hairpins, so can bluff it better than most, but I know I could be better still.

wilko1999 – Member

Had a Jedi course, was brilliant. However, if you don’t go out and practice regularly, and keep reminding yourself of the things you’ve learned, then you do tend to slip back into old habits. Practice and remind yourself regularly and it will eventually stick

This.

I was “Jedi’d” recently and it was a great experience – Tony puts things across in a very digestible way and the progressive nature of the set-up there enables you to prove to yourself that if you can do X, then it’s not such a stretch to be able to do Y or Z. It surprised me that many of the notions and the received wisdom that informed my technique, insofar as I thought about it at all, was a load of old bollocks that didn’t stand up to much in the way of scrutiny.

The thing I took from the skills day was that sessioning trail features is simply not something me and my usual riding buddies do very much of – we ride big, long XC loops which go out of their way to incorporate interesting trail sections, but we ride over them once and then crack on to the next one. So we rarely improve much at tackling berms or jumps or drop-offs or whatever because we don’t practice them until we can do them satisfactorily. I still need to set time aside to do this, however, for me to fully internalise what I learned and for it to become second-nature.

Since doing the course, I wouldn’t say I have gone back to my bad old ways as such – paradoxically, I’ve probably fallen off more often since doing the skills course which suggests it has given me the confidence to ride a bit more on the edge of what I feel I’m capable of in terms of speed or level of technical difficulty. At least now I’m falling off with a bit more grace and panache.

I would have thought the outside pedal forward thing was to help you point your hips in the direction you want to go,

qtip is right but I struggle with that element too, if it’s tight and nadgery switchbacks I just drop the outer pedal to 6 o’clock and get ready to lift/drift my inner foot Sam Hill style….that’s how it feels in my head anyway!

I also thought it was inside foot forward – so your hips can rotate better and point to the exit. I ride left ft forward naturally and have always found left handers easier to carve round

I ride left ft forward naturally and have always found left handers easier to carve round

I can “carve” fast left handers better (with outside pedal down) but I always put this to UK driving on the left, much more experience of barrelling around LH corners on junctions (right hand are more usually stop, check and turn). Pointing the hips thing definitely seems to work for cornering generally (which outside foot forward automatically does for you) and the 1/4 pedal stroke thing makes sense – sticking in a quick pedal stroke and ending up with your inside foot down while trying to turn sounds like a bad idea – outside foot forward would put you into the more usual cornering stance.
As Jedi has read this maybe he can comment on whether it’s a valid technique that he recommends.

As with JonEdwards I really struggle to ride wrong foot forward but can bluff it to some extent, do wonder whether I could get a sizeable improvement by changing techniques

fingerbang inside foot forward points your hips away from the exit, sure you can counteract this but I assume outside foot forwards just makes it more natural.

Jedi showed us to ride outside foot down, something I feel far more comfortable doing on left-handers. This is mainly due to my goofy stance on the bike – right foot forward when coasting along. Although as I mentioned above I’ve practised loads in the last year and feel much better on right-handers too, although its still not as instinctive.

Jedi showed us to ride outside foot down

yeah outside foot down for general cornering, this was more for slower rocky hairpins where you want to avoid pedal strikes and may need to stick in a quick quarter turn of pedal propulsion.

I ride outside pedal down in all.turns unless super steep.switchbacks then my outside.pedal is.forward so I can turn in an.open body position. Makes rolling endo turns.easy.

I’ve been trying to deliberately right wrong footed in an effort to become “ambifooted” (<<< if that’s the word). It’s amazing who wrong even basic moves feel with your worst foot forward……. 😉

I ride outside pedal down in all.turns unless super steep.switchbacks then my outside.pedal is.forward so I can turn in an.open body position. Makes rolling endo turns.easy.

I’m very much outside pedal down most of the time on the hardtail but on the lower slung full-sus I’m more inside forwards/up, outside backwards/down, with the amount of back vs down depending on the corner. This seems to set me in a nice stable position for pumping quick turns or balancing a drift on longer ones. However I really struggle with tight switchbacks and now you mention it I can picture outside pedal forwards helping me get the more extreme outwards and forwards weight shift to let the back end drift/skip/lift around the turn whilst the front sticks. Will try it next ride!