The Slab-Gisburn

That first vid of Dalbeattie slab from Simonralli could serve as a ‘how not to’. Vids are great, they mean you can learn from other peoples lost skin rather than your own!

MTFU can be the best advice there is and the worst. It can lead to those little light coming on moments or it can make you dead.

Working out which is which is the tricky bit.

I thought skywalker was being unreasonably fair TBH

MTFU can be the best advice there is and the worst. It can lead to those little light coming on moments or it can make you dead.

So go and get coaching where someone is on hand to help guide folks to the light.

But then whenever there’s a skill thread hordes of folk come on here saying they “don’t need one” making excuses that they’re “good enough” or can “teach themselves”, or “unlearn bad habits” simply through self awareness.

The evidence would suggest otherwise. The only thing they can do is fool themselves.

The only thing they can do is fool themselves

I would disagree with this. It is totally possible to learn all the skills you need without coaching. It will just take a bit longer. What coaching lets you do is benefit from the coaches experience to take a ‘shortcut’ to a higher level.

I’m self taught and I have loved the process of getting to where I am. Others might look at the time I’ve put in and say I could have saved that time by getting coached. Horses for courses.

It isn’t that hard, rude between the 2 rocks at the top wit a bit if pace and it more or less puts you on the right line. The videos and pictures of it going wrong all have the wrong line, they areall off to right, you just need to run down the centre.

Any of you trying this kind of terrain think before you do it!And wear the right protection as he only had his helmet on

He could have at least put a pair of shorts on!

Joking aside I hope the guy is alright, and recovers quickly

My good friend today,fractured his arm on this technical section with rocks and steepness from hell 😥

On the rock steps at home baked? Again not that bad a section to be fair but I see lots of people chickening out at the last moment, which leads to the accident. Get well soon to your friend.

nick3216 – Member

But then whenever there’s a skill thread hordes of folk come on here saying they “don’t need one” making excuses that they’re “good enough” or can “teach themselves”, or “unlearn bad habits” simply through self awareness.

The evidence would suggest otherwise. The only thing they can do is fool themselves.

If you’ve no bike handling skills and no time or inclination to learn some, then coaching could be useful. Especially if you’ve spent a wad on a fancy bike. I know plenty of good riders (and a couple of world cup racers/Red bull rampage competitors) who’ve never had a days coaching in their puff. In fact i’ve only rode with one guy who received coaching and he admitted it was waste of time/money for him.

I’d never heard of the concept of a skills course until I join this forum and i’ve been on two wheels of various sorts for nearly 40 years. To suggest it not possible to teach yourself how to do something (anything) is complete nonsense. You just need the right attitude and be prepared to put the hours in.

I regard myself above average win regards to riding. I don’t do jumps but rocky and steep is my thing and there isn’t much I can’t ride down but I once broke my hand and lost some confidence so I went on the stop crashing course with ed. he gave me the push I needed and it helped me that way.

Clearly coaching is pointless as it’s unheard of for professional sportspeople to receive it, let alone pay vast salaries to secure the best coaches in their field…

Sarcasm, good one chief. It’s also clear that it’s possible to reach a high standard without coaching, which was the point you missed because you were too busy patting yourself on the back…

philfive – Member

On the rock steps at home baked? Again not that bad a section to be fair but I see lots of people chickening out at the last moment, which leads to the accident. Get well soon to your friend.

on the Slab he broke his arm,and thank you.

Me and my trusty riding colleagues have been pondering over skills courses and think it will be an investment worthwhile,and will pay dividends for future riding excursions.So it’s a yes from our camp.

Euro, I can’t remember learning to ride a bike, I’ve always felt more at home on two wheels than two feet, and since I started MTBing again I’ve spent so much time working on skills, in addition to just going out for rides. MMBSii has been my beverage table book for the last two years and I’m always reading articles, looking at photos and watching videos in the hope of further improvement. I ride with lots of different people, some better than me, some worse, and am forever trying to get as good as the better riders. But one thing I notice is that no-one really critiques each other, apart from the odd “get your weight back!” or “just commit to it!”

Unless you’re a complete natural or you regularly video yourself you will have flawed technique and a coach can quickly spot the flaws and set you on the path to correcting them. It isn’t a magic bullet and if you don’t practise what you’ve learnt you won’t reap the true benefits. If you re-read your post you’ll see that you stated that coaching was only worthwhile for those lacking in ability and/or inclination towards self-improvement, which is frankly idiotic.

fairhurst, I hope the break isn’t too complicated and when he’s fixed he goes back with the skills and mindset to own the slab!

Totally agree with Euro

I’ve ridden most of the other “slabs” Dalbaettie, mabie etc. over the years from getting back into riding about 7 years ago until quite recently. my confidence and skill levels are much highr than they were back in ’05, but I’d usually give these things a go with a bit of egging on.

However the run in in the Gisburn videos looks pretty hinky, and I have crap low speed skills. Unless it’s not as bad as it looks I’d happily give this a miss. There’s no shame in knowing what you’re not good at.

However the run in in the Gisburn videos looks pretty hinky

Do you listen to Stuff You Should Know podcast? Never heard the word ‘hinky’ apart from on there. 🙂

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

Yes you can get to Red Bull Rampage level self taught but that’s an exception. Look up non sequitur sometime.

The evidence is, and it’s clear if you ride a trail centre, that most people could do with some help. But won’t admit this to themselves, and instead of spending an hour with a coach or on a skills session would rather spend an hour behind the keyboard writing “what bike/tyre/wide handlebar to compensate for my lack of ability” threads.

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

No, but i’m Irish, so it comes naturally.

I can only speak from my own experiences, and as i’ve never met anyone who’s had effective training, my evidence suggests that you don’t need coaching to ride a bike up and down a hill. Your experience is different? Cool. We don’t have much of a trail centre scene over here. We build our own trails and we teach ourselves how to ride (lets be honest – there’s not a lot to it really) and we get on just fine.

I’ve never had coaching as such but I think it’s a good thing. I went riding in Chamonix a few yrs ago and on the first day the guide took on some short techy trails to see how we would fare for the week. We did fine, he seemed happy to take us on the ‘good stuff’ after that.

But as he watched me ride a tight/steep RH switchback for the 2nd / 3rd time and not make a smooth job of it, he said “just think ‘inside foot back'” not outside down, or always one foot forward, or whatever my habit was then (right forward I expect).

Best bit of riding advice I’ve had in a long time, since then I started to think about how my foot position dictated my whole body position on the bike (road, MTB, all cornering situations). If that had been the only result of a £100 coaching day I’d still say if was worth it in hindsight. (thanks John @ MBMB 2007)
So being in a position where someone can watch you ride stuff that’s outside your norm and spot your errors is a good thing. It looks like it’d help a lot of people ride something as basically simple as ‘the slab’ anyway.

Saw a bloke pushing a five inch travel full susser at Woburn yesterday. By “saw” I mean “rode past on my hardtail”.

I think he could benefit from some riding lessons.

He’s not unusual.

It also appears someone has tagged some of the more interesting downhill sessions at Woburn on Strava. I have no hope if ever catching the top riders, but there are lots of slower ones, even accounting for the fact I stopped to take pictures. Now unless they were all stopping to take pictures too that’s a lot of people who could do with some gentle help.

And wrenches.

Some people feel the need for coaching, as it gives them more confidence.

Whether they’re pootling around a trail centre, or throwing themselves off a a Redbull Rampage cliff.

Not for me though – I can get round that switchback just fine thanks. I may have learned some bad habits (inevitable, being self-taught), but it it gets me over/under/round the obstacle at the same speed as ‘a coach’ (or quicker 😉 ), then where’s the problem?

Just my £0.02

If you think you have nothing to gain from coaching, you’d better be World Champion.

Actually, forget that, even Danny Hart has a coach.

If you are happy with your current riding level and have no desire to ride faster or ride more difficult features that’s absolutely fine, but it’s not an argument for coaching being of no benefit.

There’s probably more to it than just confidence though, technique first then confidence follows. I’m happy with my riding level but I did some things better after that tip and applied it to more of my riding, that’s all. There’s something nice about riding things smoothly and feeling yourself flowing better, even when it is no faster. Control will naturally lead to more speed anyway, if that’s what you want.

Maybe simple, measured ‘can I ride down that?’ improvement counts more to others.

stevomcd – Member

If you are happy with your current riding level and have no desire to ride faster or ride more difficult features that’s absolutely fine, but it’s not an argument for coaching being of no benefit.

Maybe i’m picking you up wrong on this, but you seem to be suggesting that it’s not possible to improve without coaching.

Euro. None of us are saying you can’t. We’re saying that some of the people out there – see video of mincer* on 4″ travel bike dicking about at the top of the slab earlier in this thread – definitely would. Not only does he mince the slab but his position on the rest of the run could do with help.

* Next time I’m back in the northwest I will happily meet him and help him out not just slate him from behind my keyboard.

xiphon – Member
I may have learned some bad habits (inevitable, being self-taught), but it it gets me over/under/round the obstacle at the same speed as ‘a coach’ (or quicker ), then where’s the problem?

What you call ‘bad habits’ I call individual riding style :D. There’s generally more than one way to skin the mtb cat.

I think what some people are forgetting is the environment this particular slab is in. Its at the top of a pretty much constantly windswept hill and the slab itself is raised up slightly compared to the ground around it. Stray off the quite narrow in places rock and bad things will happen. I know from a lot of experience that riding steep stuff in the trees with a nice loamy landing if things go wrong feels a lot easier to me than riding a slab of stone thats not as steep but on an exposed hillside where the consequences of failure are far worse.

Its not the slab itself that people are afraid of, its what happens if something goes wrong. If the sides were padded with mattresses, everyone would be launching themselves down it.

As for coaching, I think for some people its worth it. I had went on a course which I think was right for my ability but realistically I don’t think I learnt anywhere near as much as I thought I would. I think telling myself I was going to go out for a day and just session loads of little bits would have been a better idea. Wasn’t a bad course, just not 100% right for me…

Maybe i’m picking you up wrong on this, but you seem to be suggesting that it’s not possible to improve without coaching.

Not at all, just that the right coaching will improve any rider.

Most people will eventually hit a plateau in any sport without some form of external input, coaching is a very effective way of providing this.

Other sources of input are also out there – books, videos, riding with more-skilled mates, etc., but coaching is likely to be the most effective option.

So who would Nico vouilloz turn to for coaching? bearing in mind he’s the best bike handler I’ve ever seen!

So who would Nico vouilloz turn to for coaching? bearing in mind he’s the best bike handler I’ve ever seen!

perhaps someone who is the best coach he has ever seen??

Football coaches weren’t (generally) great footballers.

quite often the case that the coaches aren’t or weren’t the best at the sport that they coach or played, as they are the ones who have to work that little bit harder at technique opposed to those that are supernatural.

Saw a bloke pushing a five inch travel full susser at Woburn yesterday. By “saw” I mean “rode past on my hardtail”.

I push my Bullit to the top of the woburn dh trails, can’t be arsed with riding it back up 😛 I also push my hardtail up when I ride that. It’s laziness rather than a lack of skills.

@ _tom_ there’s a difference between pushing a burly DH bike back to the top of a run and mincing 😉

Oh was the rider pushing down the runs? Never seen that at Woburn, most people there are pretty good riders!

I’m generally not on my bike at woburn, although that’s usually because i have just face planted over the bars and am lying in front of it………. 😉

The biggest mistake i see a lot is the “stop completely, just before the obstacle, then wobble slowly into it” one. Absolutely guarantees you are unbalanced before even starting for the average rider!

Believe you can do it and you can do anything, within reason.

So who would Nico vouilloz turn to for coaching? bearing in mind he’s the best bike handler I’ve ever seen!

yeah cos you’re always bumping into Nico at the top of red runs dithering about.

That’s a different discussion altogether.

Raising the example of top riders who may or may not need coaching is not relevant to the discussion of mincers who don’t have the self awareness or humility to admit they could do with a little help.