You have been given a mountain biking experience as a gift! Your session will take place at Glentress Forest, Tweed Valley – the best mountain bike trail centre in the UK, and so on.

I’ve got this gift voucher for the Ridelines intermediate course but the sum total of my trail centre experience is two goes around Dalbeattie red and one go around the blue in the dark. I didn’t think the red was particularly difficult but I struggled on a couple of black bits and came off on the slab.

So, stick with intermediate or get myself moved to the beginners course?

(Yes, I’ll phone them up and talk to the instructor but they’ll give me a sensible answer and STW might be more interesting.)

Well if it helps,

The Blue at Glentress is superlative in my opinion; fast and swoopy and oh so much fun.

Don’t worry about “trail centre experience”, it’s just riding bikes… Trailcentre riding is just handy to put a level on things.

It’s Ridelines, aye?

“Our intermediate courses are designed to take participants from taking on blue and red graded mountain bike trails and after two days be comfortable taking on all red graded obstacles and taking on black graded trails.”

Sounds ideal tbh. But Andy’ll see you fine.

I would say push yourself. Beginners course could be patronising and boring. Don’t stay so far within your comfort zone!
I guess that’s what you wanted to hear?

Intermediate would be my guess – beginners could be real newbs

My experience of Skills courses is the instructor will gauge your level and give you appropriate instruction.

seahouse – Member

My experience of Skills courses is the instructor will gauge your level and give you appropriate instruction.

True. But also, being in a completely wrong group can cause difficulties for the whole group, including you- it’s to be avoided.

It’s a scam – they’re harvesting addresses so they can nick your bike

Please send me the invitation immediately; I’m undercover MI5 investigating this shit for the last 18 months. Do NOT, repeat do NOT tell anyone else about me.

+1 for all the intermediate comments above.

Enjoy it.

Gordy – I did a couple of days with Andy years back- he’s a real nice guy and no matter what happens his voice will pop into your head in years to come (esp for me when tired ): LOOK UP – ELBOWS etc etc.

Honestly – make your decision on what he says when you talk to him.

Is this for a “group” type session?

I got a voucher for a group session – ended up on Intermediate – and there was a mix of confidence and ability. Andy did well at boosting both in all of us. I’d say for your first session – a group is great – it dissapetes nerves – gets collective giggles etc. Even on the Intermediate it comes down to basics – weight – look – relax all that.

Any more questions then let us know.

#Edit –

being in a completely wrong group can cause difficulties for the whole group, including you-

Thats true – very true – but let Andy be the judge. Personally – I think you’ll be fine.

I cant think offhand but im sure there is nothing quite as bad as ‘the slab’ at Glentress. There are some difficult bits but they are avoidable if your not feeling it on the day. Not that the slab is that hard, just the consequences of failure are fairly high.

being in a completely wrong group can cause difficulties for the whole group, including you- it’s to be avoided

Precisely – I don’t want to wreck £120-worth of skills transfer for somebody else. More selfishly, I don’t want to trundle round with Aunt Gladys* shouting “Wheeeeeee!” either. As the man with the crazy username says, I’ll see what the instructor says. I hadn’t realised my elbows were important either so I’ve a lot to learn. 🙂

STATO – what do you mean it’s not hard ffs??? The anti-gravity field that kicks in just after you commit yourself is quite tricky.

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* – unless Gladys is smokin’ hot of course

Crazy username eh?!

I hadn’t realised my elbows were important either so I’ve a lot to learn.

Me too! But that’s what I paid for.

Google “attack position mtb”. That’ll give you the idea. Damn hard to keep it up on descents until its second nature btw (and your thighs get used to not sitting down).

Well, it was a shedload more fun than I thought it would be. Picked up a fair amount of useful advice and I think I could now ride over my car but for the expense. I kinda don’t look where I’m going much so I still need to sort that out.

I think I’ll drag the bike rack out of the shed and try to go once a week for a while before I forget it all.

Oh, and I know what you mean about the elbows now!