All Biked Up – skill courses

Has anyone done any of the Skill courses with "All Biked Up" or more specifically level 4?

All the recent jumping/dropping talk got me looking into booking a session…

You're presumably aware that Glenp is one of their instructors?

I've also thought about doing one, but I'm not really sure which category I fit into!

why don't you just go to find a suitable jump and ride over it faster and faster and see what happens? 🙂

Nope didn't know that…

theflatboy – Thats what I've been doing 🙂 but would like some direction on technique etc…

SilentSparky – why not give Richard a call? He is a very easy person to talk to. 07976 353963

How weird. I was just looking at their website and thinking the same (not level 4 though!). Must get round to sorting it out.

Out of interest… in a group situation, if you think that you're a level 3 (for example), go along, and you're either way out of your depth, or far better than everyone else learning is it just £55 wasted? This must happen periodically with self-assessment?

Won't happen like that njee20. For a start our ratio of rider to instructor is such that there will always be time for individual treatment – it is never a lowest common denominator situation.

The levels represent a progression through the skills system, building some basic principles first, then adding more and more meat to the bones. Level three is all about getting to the point where you are exploiting the trail, rather than just managing the trail. But level three will be more rewarding if you have done a level one or two beforehand because you will understand the terminology and the system. In that sense the levels aren't so much about how good you are already.

If you get a few people together you can just do a private session and it will all be totally bespoke and flexible (although, as I said, flexibility is already part of what we always do).

Oh – and if we get it wrong we'll just invite you to another session.

You sell it well 🙂

What is a normal instructor:rider ratio?

Where in the surrey hills are there trail features that you could do a level 4 course on. I cant think of any decent size jumps or drops that as a level 3 rider I couldnt already manage.

This is sort of my feeling!

I can ride pretty much everything on the Surrey Hills, certainly all that I'd want to, not being into massive drops etc. I'm relatively quick, but I'm sure I don't do things 'right' and would benefit from learning more skills. The blurb on the site puts we towards a level 3/4, but then I wonder if I'd benefit from more basic training first.

What a quandary!

frepster If you can do a little jump you can do a big one. Size is not part of it. Leith Hill has ample jumps and drops for teaching. If you lack the bottle to go bigger than Surrey Hills can offer then you would benefit from some deliberate techniques in the confidence/commitment/concentration/control department, which you could almost learn without a bike at all, let alone bigger jumps.

njee – one to six, but very often it will work out that we have, say, eight riders and two instructors. If it is a dedicated jumps and drops session (Level 4) then the instructor will be chosen for that purpose. To be honest, most people will get more useful every day stuff out of level two or three.

Its not so much I lack the bottle, I can jump OK, I just think my technique needs work. I wonder how much refinement can be done on the jumps at Leith Hill.

I wonder if I would be better going to the Tom Dowie course over at Chicksands

have seen a guy teaching up at Surrey Hills
for this company I thought he was teaching well

frepster – If it is pure jumping on its own you're after then maybe you will be happier with a big variety of jump sizes and types. We give skills sessions primarily for singletrack riding, and at the upper level of that is jumps and drops. I don't quite understand why a Surrey Hills jump is different, unless you mean that you want to go up to very tall kicker doubles – even then the technique is the same.

Cheers grantway – that may have been me, or Richard, or indeed one of our other guys! Usually either Richard or myself will lead the group. Anyhow, ta.

What's with the "levels"? Surely the session is based around the participants rather than the instructors (well at least the courses I've been on have been)

Was on a course with Tom recently – top bloke – and boy can he hit a jump fast and hard!!!