So its one of the things you should do !
Have you ?

Riding with a pro

best to wer protection and dont let the wife know 😳

yip… with all the athertons at lladegeda last year 😀

amazing experience …

I rode with Emmeline Ragot &Ffion Griffiths a few years back. Supremely talented ladies without any pretentiousness or big egos. It was just a ride out with mates. Ffion advised me to put a few quid on Emmeline for the worlds… I didn’t & she promptly won. Smoothest rider I’ve ever seen.

I know a guy who dated a pro rider, so he definitely has.

I’ve done a skills day with donny, not sure we did he same things as the guy I know and the pro though?

We have an ex-world masters champion on our club run. Don’t think he was ever professional.

Nope, and indifferent.

Lots.

Both in training and racing (on the road). Got hammered by lots in the early days of mountain bike racing; Grundig at Strathpeffer anyone?

I’ve ridden with a few Pros.

I have very briefly followed, then caught up with once he stopped, Ruaridh Cunningham a few times. Ridiculous. “Why don’t you try the faster line?” “Because even now you’ve told me it exists, and even though I just saw you ride down it, I couldn’t tell you where it is”

Lots of riding in the vicinity of, at races, but that’s not really the same thing.

Rode the short bus with Danny Hart at Antur He seemed quite overawed to be in the company of the famous Northwind off the internet.

Yes in training.

Both depressing and awe-inspiring at the same time. Their ability to float over bumps and take meters out of you round every corner is out of this world.

Did a guided tour in Chamonix with an ex pro who’d (apparently) ridden for Gary Fisher some yonks before.
Probably the best all rounder I’ve ever seen, jumps, techy climbs (all in middle ring) downhills, the lot. He went all day on a couple of drinks of water from horse troughs. Awesomely talented bloke. (his English was as bad as our French which made for an interesting day)

Yep, Sean Kelly and Ian Stannard 😉

Yep, my mate in Canada is an ex-Norco factory DH team rider and I couldnt see his ‘arris for dust when I last rode with him 😳
The annoying thing is they can tell you where you’re going wrong without even seemingly looking at you! 👿

Killed him on the uppy stuff tho *takes respite* 😀

I rode quite regularly with a number of local pros in Merseyside back in the eighties. As a roady if that counts.

Ridden with Nick Craig a couple of times, silly fast in places where I just couldn’t work out how it was possible to be that smooth.

A kid in the club I used to ride for set off with what he thought was our group (first ride with us) for what he thought was a Sunday jaunt with a cafe stop but had ended up joining Malcolm Elliots Sunday training ride.

He sidled up against him and started going on about how he wanted to get into racing etc and had Malcolm ever done any racing himself.

Malcolm to kid – ‘Have you heard of the Tour de France…’

The kid said he thought the pace was hotter than he was expecting!

Cheers

Danny B

Pro? **** off, I’ve ridden with GW!

A few, reminds you how shit you really are. 😀

speckledbob – Member

I rode quite regularly with a number of local pros

😯

Won a training day with shaums march. Legend.

Me and mini-aracer rode with Tracy Moseley and Liam Killeen last week. 🙂

“Why don’t you try the faster line?” “Because even now you’ve told me it exists, and even though I just saw you ride down it, I couldn’t tell you where it is”

😀

Rode some backdoor trails at Sunn with Anne-Caro and Francois Gachet. They were really rather good.

I wasn’t.

jambo – Member
Won a training day with shaums march. Legend.

Me too, amazing rider.

Was that at the old ski slope just south of Bristol?

No, Stainburn.

I have rode with an ex pro who retired a couple of years ago from the roadie scene. Bloody hells bells he is quick and I mean damn QUICK.

Italspark and I went skinny dipping with Jacquie Phelan midway through a ride while hiding from the park ranger.

Showed Rob Warner around our local trails. Funny man. The amateur fell off too – clipped in, on a 29er 😆

Yeah a few have been on Reliability rides on the road that I’ve done.

Ridden with a few pro roadies and trackies.
Ride with Nick Craig every once in a while and I’ve raced with Barrie Clarke, Ned Overend, Sue Thomas etc. Probably the best MTB race experience was doing a lap at Mountain Mayhem with Ned. Fastest lap ever, at the end of it, going round the campsite in towards the finish I was proper **** and Ned said in his quiet American drawl “Hey, I’m doing a second lap here, you coming with me?” I gasped no, I was handing over to a teammate and Ned goes “Oh, well all the best, have a great race, nice riding with you”.
Nice riding with ME? Ned, I was honoured to be sharing the same trail as you.

The most memorable one is probably doing a Derny training session at the track with Marianne Vos. Holy shit, she was amazing. SO smooth, absolutely thrashed all the regulars, rock steady behind the Derny yet quiet and completely unassuming. She posed for a couple of photos with some of the regulars afterwards.

You really notice that all the pros are just quiet and modest, never bigging themselves up. It’s all the wannabe Elites that are the cocks.

ridden with ex olympians – roadies- a couple of times

Way out of my league

I was once just ahead of Tracey Moseley at the top of Innerleithen DH during the practice for a race (this was some years ago). I graciously allowed her to start her run first and set off less than a second after her to see how long I could keep up. She was out of sight within seconds, before either of us had even hit anything difficult.

Crawford Carrick-Anderson
Andy Parks

I’ve ridden with Tracy Moseley, and regularly ride with a few of the elite Enduro riders like James Green, etc…

Yep – for the past three years , Mick Ives joins us for a few days on the works Lejog. Multiple world championships and current Masters Cyclocross World Champ. The stories he tells about the people he has worked with and knows are outstanding, and all in a matter of fact manner as conversation. He has a list of championships as lonf as your arm and a few worlds under his belt. Plus he doesn’t mind a few emails asking for info. Good for getting how team kit from as well.

Check out http://www.miracing.co.uk

I’ve done a skills day with Chris Ball, so I guess that counts as yes. Ridiculously smooth, just made it look so so easy!

Fabien Barrel at a demo weekend, chased Rachel Atherton down the pleney (for 6 corners till she took the mad as hell route through the woods) some of the current Womens DH lot.

I’ve been out with binners and hora….does that count?