Thinking about skills training in the new year, but not sure who comes most recommended.

I’m in Yorkshire and would want to do it somewhere up north (dales, lakes, etc). The great rock website looks quite good and probably has my vote so far. I’d be interested in endorsements for Great Rock, or recommended alternatives.

Cheers.

Bit further south (but still Yorkshire) – A-Line coaching?

Great rock aka Ed o is excellent highly recommended and a great coach but will be travelling south to see Jedi next year for a change

Can highly recommend Ed, he’ll get you moving properly on the bike, and you’ll have a blast as well.

Mad as a box of frogs (but in a nice way)

That sounds intriguing enough to warrant booking a course!

I did a day with Pro Ride Guides at Gisburn back in Feb, here’s a blog post I wrote about it…
http://unduro.co.uk/riding/pro-ride-guides-airtime-course/

Would recommend them.

Go see Jedi, worth the extra effort travelling

Another BIG + for Great Rock (Ed).
Was bought a his Stop Crashing 1 course as a present last year.
Headed up to Gisburn to cash it in on the Saturday and had such a good experience I was back there on the Sunday for some Stop Crashing 2!

Really nice bloke, encouraging and with a good sense of humour.
The chap is insanely quick when he lets go as well. I was behind him (pedalling) on a section of trail back to the carpark and he was getting SO much more speed by pumping what to me appeared to be almost a flat section. Clearly I must try harder!

I have yet to book a Jedi day though so can’t really claim to be independent.

Really unimpressed with my great rock course. Aline seem to get good reviews and pro ride were really helpful but we had to cancel as the guide broke their arm

I would recommend mountainbikeskills based out of the Howgills but also does courses in the Lakes.

Second at not been that impressed by Great Rock.

i actually like Ed’s style of teaching which is very laid back and partly working stuff out for yourself.

However no what do you want to get out of the course, or this is what you need to concentrate on when you leave.

I haven’t used any other coaches in the area so can’t be overly subjective, but I will certainly be trying someone else next.

Andrew Mee is your man!

Ride with Mee

Another vote for Pro Ride Guides, we had the other Joe (Rafferty). very good and actually went away with stuff that has improved my basics. completely different approach than other courses I’d been on. For this reason it’s very much worthwhile doing their basics course first. To their credit, one guy was a total beginner, so Joe got someone else to come along and ‘one to one’ with him, so Joe could do more advanced basics with the rest of us.
One example was I actually went away fully understanding the mechanics of a bunny hop (he taught us two methods) and was doing pretty decent ones within about 20mins.

Ive done a couple of skills courses. Nothing in the lakes though. However I recently did one with a chap called Chris in Hebden bridge whos setting up a guiding / skills company at the moment. Tbh it was brilliant. Admittedly I had a 1:1 day but it was not much more than a group day with some others and worth it. The best thing was he didn’t keep me doing the same thing over and over again instead gave me some tips and enough time to “get it” and then we left for more riding(ive done some days where we lifted the front wheel over a twig for 2-3 hours while everyone got it!). So you got some great riding with some skills in it. If that makes sense.

unfortunately hes not got a website going yet but if you’d like his details let me know.

I’ve noticed that the magazine articles done by the Rafferty brothers make a lot of sense whilst Neil Donoghue’s articles/videos are full of weird inaccuracies (watch how he demos how to ride a drop – then watch any other video of him riding and he does it completely differently!)

My wife had a (group) skills session with Pro-Ride Guides and got a lot out of it, I had a group day with Ed Oxley and got a decent amount from it.

Different coaches have different approaches to how they impart their knowledge: Ed Oxley is one who talks it through, does a demo then you have a couple of goes at it but it’s then up to you to continue “having a go at it” after the day is done. Others do more drill like sessions. Is one better than the other? It depends on how you as an individual learn.

Ed Oxley mad as a box of frogs? Pretty sane when compared to my mates! 😀 I found him easy going and affable and not full of “I did XXXX the other day”

I did a Pro Ride Guides one at Hamsterley, it was ace fun. I’ve forgotten most of it now though 😆

There’s Cyclewise at Whinlatter as well.
http://www.cyclewise.co.uk/index.php/mountain-bike-qualification-courses-and-awards/mountain-bike-skills-courses