What is the real value people get out of MTB coaching?

My view of the MTB population in terms of working on skills is somewhat derogatory due to my bmx background. In BMX you work hard to do things, you work at it, failing over and over again. You’ll break the problem down into stages, then subsequently tick off the stages. Then there are certain things you want to do just require commitment, times where you just need to MTFU, it can and will hurt at times. It’s the culture im used to.

In, MTB, i don’t see much of the above, i see work sitting in the saddle twiddling the pedals, but no real work on problems.

Is coaching just a way just to get people with no self-discipline to be objective and work on the problem and practice, or to build in a bit of MTFU?

yes

it goes under a variety of names

being able to wheelie – i will pay top dollar to learn this…

In, MTB, i don’t see much of the above, i see work sitting in the saddle twiddling the pedals, but no real work on problems.

Have you actually tried any?

FWIW A pal and I did a days’ coaching at Glentress and just based on that day, I’m far faster/safer than I was before (riding 10 years).

Horses for courses I guess. For me it would take the fun out of it to have someone tell me how to do things, but I have always had god natural balance and have an affinity for any sport which involves going fast.
I have a mate who I bike with from time to time though and he doesn’t usually find things natural and is always asking me how I do things, the answer usually being I point downhill and then go as fast as possible and try to get airborne whenever possible – this is not useful to someone who finds things difficult and coaching would be a good idea for him / anyone else who wants things explained a bit more.

Did a coaching session with my wife a few weeks ago. Tbh I only did it so she wouldn’t be ‘on her own’ but I think I got as much as her out of it, just in different ways.
For her as a relative newbie it was the bigger things, the whole concept of some techniques that were new to her or that I’d explained and tried to get her doing but obviously done a crap job of. Has given her the confidence that she can do ‘new’ stuff if she keeps trying and she is loving it.
For me it was little things; a tweak of bar and lever position, an adjustment to my head and wrist position and a few other tiny things. Sounds minor and I wasn’t expecting it but the difference is truly surprising.
I think that it may be easier for my wife to stick to the advice/training than me as I have 20 plus years of bad habits to break but I will definately look at doing more.

£4.67 hth

If I read the op right I think I agree – too many people start mountain biking as a cool thing to do, quickly realise their limits and precurse everything with a disclaimer about their (lack of) ability and then sit in the saddle round a ride. Mtbing is physically tough and does require a level of mtfu, but even a day’s coaching can pay back hugely in new skills.

OP, I learnt to ski when I was a little nipper made of bendy bones and little fear or understanding of consequences. I learnt to ski fast and hard by falling over a lot and my mind and body let me get away with it. I suspect it was the same with you and BMXing.

I’ve been riding a bike off-road for 30 years or more but have never really pushed myself to “do jumps” since it didn’t seem to be anything to do with riding a bike (other than drops offs and the like).

Now I’d like to learn to jump. As a 40 year old with 3 kids who all depend on me going to work and earning some money, the approach I had as a kid to skiing will result in lots of broken bones and recovery time. If coaching helps me avoid that then great.

That said, the most confidence-inspiring jumping session I’ve ever had was last Autumn when me and a mate just spent a couple of hours hammering an 18ft table top until we eventually cleared it. The fear of not clearing it was what made me steer away from stuff like that previously. In this case the “coaching” was my mate egging me on and persuading me that coming up short doesn’t matter 🙂

I guess what i’m getting at is a days coaching is a day working at it, a day of strategic practise, of which isn’t built into most MTBers time on a bike.

If you don’t normally practise, then go and spend a day practising, experimenting, regardless of whether there’s a coach or not, of course you’re going to see progress.

It’s the discipline of spending time on it, this is what a coaching day is giving people rather than anything else.

This is where i was trying to differentiate between the BMX culture i know and the MTB culture i see, practise, experimenting, goals are a fundamental part of it, I dont see the same in MTB, if it was a fundamental part of MTB for most, everyone would see a lot of progress, i believe a days coaching is evidence of this, the day practising rather than actually being taught.

If your looking to “improve” as a rider coaching will certainly help. But most people just want ride their bikes a bit. Not sure where coaching fits into that ?

It’s a more efficient was of breaking it down and practicing. After all, practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect.

People don’t think twice about golf or tennis lessons but they assume they can ride ac bike. The funny thing is, when you know what you’re looking for, you can see that most people could walk a lot better with a little guidance.

People don’t think twice about golf or tennis lessons but they assume they can ride a bike

This is so true. I coach Road Race and TT#, and have had numerous experienced racers who “could handle a bike”. Until you see their cornering technique, ability to hold position, reach for a bottle, etc…

Typically you won’t get to practice by “just doing it”. You need to break things down, slow them down and practice them. Then put it all back together until it becomes second nature. Progression is the name of the game in coaching. Small steps to big improvements.

#COI: BC Level 3 and thinking about Level 2 mtb skills next

How about you ****off, and stop sneering at people out enjoying themselves.

If you can ride a bike, you can have a crack a mountainbiking, that’s one of the attractions.

Standing up for the bumpy bits, and a half-arsed front wheel lift will see you around/over most if not all obstacles you’re likely to find in the real world.

Anything more is little better than show-pony gittery.

Don’t worry I’m cutting down on coffee, it’s going really well.

most people could walk a lot better with a little guidance

Walking Coach? Sign me up 😀

I’m with Dean (bmx background with a bit of skating for good measure) and first discovered the culture of skills coaching when i joined here. I perhaps made a few members angry when i first entered the coaching debate (it still is a very strange thing to me) but i’m coming round to the idea of it now, and can see why some choose it. If it helps people get more out of riding their bike then that’s money well spent. Still prefer to work things out for myself and am a firm believer that you can learn a lot by doing things the ‘wrong’ way.

I also agree that if people actively practice ‘skills’ on their own or with mates they will get them. There’s a whole generation (in bikes, boards, tennis, golf, winter sports etc) who never had any coaching and do very well indeed (some are probably coaches themselves now).

Edit: Speaking of angry ^^ 😀 . He’s not sneering, he’s making an observation.

He’s not sneering, he’s making an observation.

My view of the MTB population in terms of working on skills is somewhat derogatory

?

It depends on your entry point to mountain bikes doesn’t it? many people come from a “messing about in the woods as kids on bikes” and can do the jumpy thing, lots of folk come from a “family cycling, touring holiday” background, and a lot of folk come to bikes later on or from road riding.

Coaching really helps some folks, who have no real start point to what’s Good or bad technique, or learning HOW to break stuff down and look at it logically.

no need for the sneering derision though, that just makes you look like a tit

I do certainly think im sneering a bit, but it is the culture i started this stuff in. It’s irrational and petty, I know it is, but it’s just there and the way i feel about it.

If the default for MTB culture was “this is going to be hard work, but i’m committing to it, i’m going to learn and invest time and effort, i’m going to get it wrong, but it’s ok, if i invest enough in it, i’m going to get it” rather than “if i take 2 days out of the year for coaching, that’ll be the magic pill i need (or the i’ll get the latest carbon enduro bike attitude)”, maybe in the most black and white terms, but see what i’m getting at?

Plus there’s the diminishing returns aspect, spend one day out of the year practising, you’ll learn more in that one day than the whole year, practise 10x as much, you’re not going be anywhere near 10x better, that plateau people experience, but in reality they’re always improving, but at a much slower rate when they first started.

In, MTB, i don’t see much of the above, i see work sitting in the saddle twiddling the pedals, but no real work on problems.

Depends where you ride and who you ride with. I session stuff all the time, and know lots of people that do.

It’s a fair comment to say *most* riders don’t bother to session stuff, and just ride. That’s down to just enjoying riding, not caring about getting better at riding, or not having time to session stuff as well as ride.

I’d also wager that most people don’t understand that sessioning stuff is a really effective way to ride better. Coaching does that, but also allows someone to point out what you’re not doing right, and based on lots of experience they can tell you how to do it right, using different techniques learned from coaching lots of other riders.

I got various things from it, tbh I didn’t implement some of the lessons well enough so it didn’t stick, I still suck at jumping frinstance. But I think possibly the biggest improvement I got was basically confidence, it was almost like a scorecard- learning informally it’s easy to have holes in skills or bad habits or just doubt yourself when there’s no need.

(Andy Barlow said I’m “competent”. I felt like getting that in writing and framing it, like a gold disc)

It’s a pretty different approach to BMX, fundamentally we want to go and ride 50 different things, rather than riding the same thing 50 times.

In, MTB, i don’t see much of the above, i see work sitting in the saddle twiddling the pedals, but no real work on problems.

Horses for courses to a large extent though. Spending 10 hours a week improving jumps skills is only going to makes sense over spending 10 hours steady state riding and intervals if your rides consist mostly of jumps.

The difference in BMX and skating is the culture is to session stuff as there is normally a good set of stairs in one place, a nice ledge in an other, or you are in a skate-park.

The culture of mtb for a long time was to get out and ride for miles, so is less conducive to session ing something, unless you go to some dirt jumps. I’ve pretty disciplined on fitness training but I never think to session things to improve my technical skills, I probably should though.

If someone wants to do a skills course good on them. Better that than call the air ambulance.

I know I’m tempting fate but I’m certain it allows me to progress without hurting myself. I’m a 44 yr old, self employed dad who doesn’t get sick pay. In my eyes they are worth every penny and I am still improving year on year.
I am also one those people who is not a natural at any sport so I need all the help I can get. Plus, if Tiger Woods needs a coach, then I really need one..

A day’s (or even a week’s) coaching isn’t going to improve you massively from before you went on the course. What it does do is provide pointers as to where you are going wrong and how to improve. Is it a short cut? Yes, but what you are cutting out is a lot of time potentially reinforcing poor technique and bad habits.

Ultimately you’ve still got to put the hours in practicing but at least it will, or should be, the right practice.

It’s a bit like going to see a physio: it’s not the manipulation done by the physio during your appointment but the exercises you get given to do before the next appointment that gives the benefit. You are being shown the right way to heal yourself.

Looking at BMX: even someone like Shanaze Reade has a coach. Most top sportsmen and women have a coach.

OP: my main sport used to be climbing. It came naturally to me, to the point where I could solo hard routes on rock, on ice and in the Alps without any qualms. On a bike I worry if I get airborne, it just doesn’t feel right to me.

A good mate of mine is out in Morzine at the moment; I’ve seen a few videos of him doing nac nacs over a big table top, and today a pic of him jumping a road gap somewhere in Switzerland. All in a piss pot helmet and on a 140mm travel bike. He’s only been mountain biking 18 months……..

He’s spent the 20 years prior riding bmx though.

Dean, I think the main thing that this thread shows is you have a huge amount of immaturity and a lack of understanding of other people. I’ve been on a few coaching days. Both before and after those days I’ve regularly worked on skills, corners, manuals, hops, jumps, drops. I take diversions to ride urban bits on my way to and from work, and pop out at lunchtime to play on the bike.

And throughout the summer my local riding group adds another weekly ride in addition to the usual fast XC and more social singletrack rides, where we get together and work on skills stuff, sessioning things together and coaching each other. So it’s not just me who works on stuff. And personally I’ve taken to doing things like yoga and weights to make me better on the bike.

Are me and my mates the only MTBers in the country that disprove your theory? I doubt it.

Grow the **** up.

I spend a lot of time doing the things I struggle with to improve my overall riding but come to think I have a bmx background too but it’s a long time ago

What ferrals says.

If you like mountain biking because it gets you from A to B then it might only occur to you at some point that learning specific skills will help you do that better. I’ve had a couple of coaching days which have helped me work out how to do things and got me to ride stuff I thought I couldn’t. It was fantastic – I really enjoy learning and I don’t have the kind of background from which to work out how to do that kind of stuff on my own.

Conversely I tried BMXing at 42… I loved it but every session feels like a skills session, going over the same track over and over again. Yes it’s great and good to practice but it’s a winter thing for me… in the summer I want to be heading over the hills.

Grow the **** up.

Says the man who plays in the woods on his bike 😛

deanfbm – Member

If the default for MTB culture was “this is going to be hard work, but i’m committing to it, i’m going to learn and invest time and effort, i’m going to get it wrong,

This is a bridleway (a really nice one, most aren’t this interesting):

for most ‘mountain biking’ there really isn’t that much to learn. Changing an innertube* is a more useful skill than counter-steering.

(*or map-reading, or effective layering, or making really good flapjack, or etc.)

Local BMX club has a coach, so I’d assume it helps you improve your skill more quickly.

Did you learn to drive by just getting in a car a crashing lots, or did you pay someone to give you some skills and coaching.

Then there are certain things you want to do just require commitment, times where you just need to MTFU, it can and will hurt at times.

It’s this statement that particularly annoys me. Sometimes getting hurt is permanent. From a bike accident I have an ankle with a restricted range of movement – that’s causing knee problems which I have to spend regular time working on keeping at bay. Sometimes getting hurt is both permanent and life-changing – I almost broke my neck a couple of years ago but got away with it. One of my colleagues hit his head (not MTBing but an open-face helmet won’t save you from a big impact), has suffered a severe brain injury and is now trying to re-learn how to use one whole side of his body. Sometimes you’re lucky, sometimes you’re unlucky – I don’t want my riding to be a game of Russian roulette…

I have a responsibility to my family and my business and employees. The consequences of breaking myself are bigger than just affecting my life and it would be selfish to ignore that. I’ve seen MTFU turn into a trip to A&E often enough.

Personally I want to get bigger drops and gap jumps sorted but I have a hole in my technique in that my bunny-hopping is inconsistent and not that powerful. So rather than MTFU and hit the bigger stuff I’m going to work on that. I don’t want to crash badly when learning.

+1
Practising the wrong technique because you have no idea what you are doing is a pretty slow and painful way to learn.

I’d bet that most folk who go to skills courses do so because they wouldn’t know what to practice or how to do it properly in the first place. Never been to one myself but I see the value in them. Get someone who knows what they’re talking about to tell you what you suck at and how to suck less at it. What’s the point in MTFU and practicing if you’re practicing the wrong thing, or doing it incorrectly? That doesn’t make you a man, it makes you a muppet.

makes a change from the usual allegation that folk just throw money at bikes to make themselves better riders i suppose.

Never done one. Bet it’s a good day out though. That enough justification?

I see them as bit like an MOT. I’m pretty analytical about my riding, but I still fall into bad habits. As I tend to ride on my own, there’s no one to measure myself against or to comment on my style, so the occasional skills course is a good way to just get a refresh.

I also came into mountainbiking from hiking. As such, the idea of sessioning something is a bit alien to me. I know it would make be a better rider, I really do; but I still struggle to actually do it, when I could be just riding more different trails. After maybe 3 or 4 runs, I’m just bored of it, especially the universally dull push/ride back up again.

I don’t know anyone from my circle of riding buddies who doesn’t/hasn’t/wouldn’t session things regularly. I’ve been mountainbiking on and off for 30 years now. Started off racing down lanes, tractor trails, fields, forests, quarries etc as a boy and even then we were “sessioning” things without realising. After a break of a few years for uni and getting back into it, sessioning and practicing has been a constant.

I definitely do less now than I did 15 years ago, but I still see value in it.

I’ve never had any formal skills coaching but if I was only starting mountainbiking today aged 37 I don’t think I’d ever get to my current skill level(meager though it is) without coaching and a lot more practice than I have time for so there’s no way I could criticise anyone for getting coaching. It’s the norm in virtually every other sport. It’s not essential to pay a pro, but it can invaluable to have an experienced eye critique you, your friends may not be best qualified to do this.

As said above, coaching is how you progress in pretty much any activity. Be that driving a car, riding a bike, playing rugby, tennis, golf etc. BMX racers get coached.
Very few people can achieve their potential without the occasional external view of what they do, and that is life in general.

I’ve done a coaching day, I could do with another.

The main benefit, as someone said above, is that because of the nature of mountain biking I didn’t know I was doing things wrong. Going round a corner feels roughly correct, and if it feels right you carry on. It’s not like in BMX where if your jumping is poor it’s obvious. My cornering was mediocre but I could keep up and it felt OK. Coaching pointed out I was doing it wrong, showed me how to do it right then I spent 3 months practicing before it was permanent.

There’s no point practicing something that feels right but is actually incorrect, then you’ll just be more wrong.