So following on from Rachel Atherton and Weeksy's 'Do you race' thread - how's the best way to get kids (especially girls) into gravity racing?
The local MTB club where I've just started coaching is very XC & CX oriented.
There are a few of the kids who don't feel like they can race XC as they aren't 'race whippets' but also don't seem to know much about Enduro or DH.
How's the best way to encourage these to give either discipline a go?
There doesn't seem to be a massive amount of kid focused Enduro rounds, Criçkley Flyers do a Go-Ride DH series at 417 which I'll try and see if the kids are interested in.
Any other decent DH or Enduro series for the beginners?
Thanks
Pedalhounds is generally easier than other Enduros
Little Fodders and their races are a great start point.
417 races are Fab, really good.
No idea where you are you based, so a little hard to be too specific.
We've been lucky in the north of Scotland to have had the Highland Hardline series in the past, which at one point was about 5 Mini-DH races through the summer for U10 to U18 riders. It was driven by Black Isle MTB club, with Aimi Kenyon's dad running the show. Given where she's racing now, I think it worked out ok! That series has ended (for good, as I understand), so there's a few of us trying to get a new series running.
Our first race is this weekend, at the Lecht Ski Centre, with 100 kids racing. We've sold out and if it goes well, we'll look to try to expand it into a series for next year (trying to find spare weekends though is really hard once you start de-conflicting with all the other gravity events). We're also really lucky to have the Aberdeenshire Enduro Series, run by a great team at Doon tha Brae Events. They run a four race series, where riders as young as 9 can race (with a chaperone following them round). Typical 'short course' races are about 20km, 5 stages and about 8-900m of climbing, so quite hard for the youngest ones, but we have about 25 of our kids riding each one.
Specifically to try to answer your question about how to get girls into gravity racing - that's a tough one, with no easy/quick solutions. It takes time to build up skills and confidence in some younger riders, so the more you can get them training on terrain similar to what they might be racing on, and practicing the technical skills they need to have locked in, the better. Female role models help, especially if they can also coach them from time to time, mixed training sessions, where they can learn from more experienced riders is also helpful. We've also run some girls only intro sessions, which have worked really well.
You've also got some races at Cannock in the Ridge run, Red route etc at Stile Cop.
They're a BIT more techy, but mostly still not impossible for the youngsters.
Racers Guilde series. They have chicken runs for any of the bigger features but they're still fairly 'red' at times.
I think my daughter would like to dabble in a bit of racing, although probably something including pedalling and fast, tech downhills, but it probably needs to be quite relaxed at first, as she had an off that definitely hit her confidence.
Amber had a gargantuan MTB crash on the way home from school about a month ago. She was pedalling hard down a long, steep dirt chute, front wheel hit a stone and flicked sideways at about 25 mph = several huge somersaults / cartwheels. Very scary to watch. She lost a lot of skin all down one side and off her stomach, she also had quite severe whiplash the day after. If she didn’t have a full face helmet then her face would have been an absolute mess. The day after, her wounds were looking bizarrely healed and the whiplash had almost gone. Message to a friend was don’t worry, I’ll be back riding VERY soon. Three days later she looked fully healed apart from the appearance of healing skin then did a school marathon event, horse riding and mountain biking over that weekend. The physical stuff healed quickly but she still has a way to go psychologically and still doesn’t feel happy enough to do all the stuff she was doing previously. Going to enter the events at the Malvern Classic and see how she enjoys that 🙂
PMBA Enduro have the Hope Academy Enduro (3 rounds at Gisburn, Ae and Kirroughtree), Ae is a week on Saturday.
They also do a free U10 single stage race at the same locations.
2 weeks in Morzine got our 10 and 6 yr olds hooked. Then more recently fun trips to Grenoside, chicksands, and bringing the eldest on fun grown ups rides. They get hyped on Matt Jones, Jono Jones and Bernard Kerr YouTube stuff. We have deliberately swerved the structure of clubs. 10yr old is now 11 and is doing his first dh race in a couple of weeks.
Our local kids bike club runs trail focused groups for 7 yo and up, then at 12 they can choose ‘adventure’ (casual XC trail riding), ‘race’ (high paced XC trails, option of racing the high school series) or ‘enduro’ (gravity trails but not lift accessed).
It’s hard to get more girls in there. By that age many kids, and the majority of girls, have already decided what ‘type of athlete’ they are, so it’s hard to get them in if they have no previous experience with more gravity focused riding.
Previous 2 years, my oldest was the only non boy in the enduro group(~40). This year we have several(including my youngest).
As far as races, we are lucky, our local mtb club runs a midweek ‘enduro’, that is free to members, 2 short stages per night, fun atmosphere and always a recreational and advanced option, so they can pick how tech of trails they want.
Last fall my family did a regional bike festival enduro race and the kids loved it, so this year we are doing 5 (of 6) enduros, and 4/4 DH that make up our regional series.
For that series they score 16 and younger separate.