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

But if you spend time sessioning a particular corner you will get round it faster in a way that suits you. I have in the past sessioned lines where I thought I couldn’t get enough speed up, tried different ways and eventually found the fastest line for myself.
The same technique won’t suit everyone, its an art not an exact science.

But if you spend time sessioning a particular corner…

Probably been said already (and probably more than once) but time is not a luxury all of us have. If it takes me £50 and a morning to learn a new technique as opposed to no coaching and half a dozen mornings sessioning something, that’s money well spent. It’s not that I don’t like spending time sessioning stuff on a bike, it’s simply that my time is more thinly spread amongst other things I want to do these days.

I sort of get what the OP is getting at though. Few of our club riders went on a skills course and I got the feeling they expected to be riding the same stuff as the better riders immediately but none have practised what they were taught since the skills course. Seems like they wanted a quick fix. In contrast a few of us have opted to session / practice certain trail features and jumps rather than ride them once in a 25km loop. Our riding have definitely seen a major improvement since we started doing this and a lot of the time all it needs is a bit of time, patience and commitment although I suppose it may depend what you’re trying to improve- for me it was psychological / confidence when trying to do bigger jumps. I’ve been on a skills course- didn’t really get to grips with what I went on it for but other, more basic, aspects improved a lot.
Skills courses do have their place but they’re not always the quick fix many think it is. The real learning starts afterwards

Some people just want to sit down and pedal along a route, if that’s their goal, then fine. Others want to improve, go faster, hit bigger lines etc. If this is the case then practice / coaching is needed. As someone who used to ride DH, aside from having massive balls, a surefire way of getting better down a track was to break it into sections, walk it and session it. Its only when you actually look properly at the sections that new, faster/better possibilities crop up. You could ride a track again and again and not pick something up that 30 seconds standing and looking will throw up. I still like to do this.

Personally I am going to invest at some point in some jumping/drops coaching. I think with me a lot of it is psychological (fear of getting hurt), and running through this with a coach I feel will really help me.

I’ve done a skills session, with a fella called Andy at Swinley forest.
It was quite XC focused, but the stuff I learned in 3 hours regarding body position is useful on every ride i’ve done since.
He was really good, and made me think about things very differently.

I don’t do much MTB at the moment due to road biking getting in the way, but if/when I start doing more of it, i’ll probably have some more tuition.

As others have said, people have coaching/tuition for every sport, so why would MTB be any different???

I really enjoy being coached and have done a few sessions with various coaches. I find I prefer the one to one type as although more expensive I get alot more out of them and the session is all about what I want / need to learn and practice.

As to the cost I dont think they are expensive. The way I look at is that a days private coaching might cost about the same as a new carbon bar for the bike. Yes thats a chunk of money, but which is going to make me ride better and have more fun on my bike?

hrismac

As to the cost I dont think they are expensive. The way I look at is that a days private coaching might cost about the same as a new carbon bar for the bike. Yes thats a chunk of money, but which is going to make me ride better and have more fun on my bike?

Reminds me of a debate I had with a customer in the shop maybe 18 months ago. Parents were trying to weigh up the pros and cons of a new lower spec, Nuke Proof Mega AM comp with 650b wheels vs a massively discounted 26″ Mega AM pro for their teenage son, who it has to said, was pretty fat. I think the price difference was something like £1000.

I told them the difference in the bigger wheels would be negligible (despite chunk contradicting me) and that they would be better off buying the cheaper, higher spec bike, full TLD race kit + D3 and still have £4-500 left to spend on tuition, which I said would definitley make him go faster.

Guess what they bought.

I think it is a nonsensical argument! We happily accept that if you want to learn how to write or read you probably need someone to teach you, and no matter how much you session a book and ‘mtfu’ you still wont be able to read at the end of it!

Why should learning a physical skill be different?

I’ve been riding my for well over 20 years, I was ok and got through most stuff fine.

I have always had a few mental and physical issues with some elements of mountain biking. Coaching has helped me with these more than a book or mtfu!

Why should learning a physical skill be different?

You mean like walking? Catching a ball? that sort of thing?

I was kind of sceptical about coaching.
I’ve ridden MX and Moto Enduro in the past and been mountainbiking from the late 80’s so though no one would be able to teach me anything.
Not because i know it all, more because you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Or so i thought…
Anyway Mrsstu wanted to go on a course so I said I’d go with her to keep her company.
All I can say is that it was great to have someone watch you and point things out to you that you can’t see yourself. Some small things have made a big difference to me.
I found it very usefull and would go back again if Mrsstu wanted to do another.
So it does seem like you can teach an old dog new tricks after all.

But if you spend time sessioning a particular corner you will get round it faster in a way that suits you. I have in the past sessioned lines where I thought I couldn’t get enough speed up, tried different ways and eventually found the fastest line for myself.
The same technique won’t suit everyone, its an art not an exact science.

So you get one particular corner nailed. Great. What about the next corner?

The same basics do suit everyone. The basics, that most people are sniffy about and assume they have mastered, are exactly the same and are applied well by those at the top of the sport. If you don’t think that having your pedals flat and more weight on your feet than your hands is a universal basic technique, then perhaps we’re all wrong.

TooTall – Member

So you get one particular corner nailed. Great. What about the next corner?

There’s not many skills that’ll only be useful in this one corner.

Oh God that’s a question OP.

MTBing can be done ‘naturally’ you ride about learning by doing, or by mistake – most people fall off a lot when they make the leap from ‘riding a Mountain Bike’ to ‘Mountain Biking’ – but there’s a dozen ways to do most things, and most of them are ‘wrong’ or at least not the best way, a big difference of course between BMX and MTB is it’s easier to ‘Buy Ability’ with MTB, you can get yourself a massive travel FS, huge grippy tyres and excellent brakes and ride a lot of stuff ugly as **** and let the bike sort it, do it for a couple of years and you can refine your wrong technique to the point where it looks graceful and seems fast, unless you race someone else you’ll never know if you’re any good really – and most of us only ‘compete’ with our mates – the same people you started out with and learned everything with.

A skills course gives you the opportunity to learn how to tackle various things the most efficient/correct way in an interactive fashion. It’s not about taking the time to do it, it’s learning to do it well and really is just the starting point you need to keep practising from then on, or ‘bad habits’ will come back.

I did the Jumps and Drops Course at Llandegla a few years back, I retained about 60% of it as a guess – I’m trying to take on the rest of it now using the videos they gave me.

You can of course learn correct technique using YouTube videos – GMBN has a couple of short ones which are quite good.

OP – It’s the same for those of us that come from a Trials background, the concept of working through a problem/obstacle/feature/trick bit by bit repetitively with many many failures until you nail it, and then spend just as long trying to get to the point where its repeatable on command and becomes second nature.

It is ‘missing’ for a lot of people who mountain bike, but I think the bit you might be having trouble with is that it’s not ‘required’, people ride bikes for very different reasons, and have very different goals.

I know some guys who can’t ride technical trails for toffee, but can ride for days on end at speed, they’re not interested in sessioning or learning to jump because it’s not why they ride, you might live for the thrill of a new line or a new move, but they don’t, they’re not wrong, and don’t need to MTFU, they just have different tastes.

Hours spent on a bike for enjoyment are hours spent on a bike for enjoyment, regardless of whether they are spent over and over again on a single drop or spent over many miles of ‘just twiddling the pedals’

I enjoy helping people improve their skills, *when* they ask, and I love finding new stuff to try and improve on, even after riding for 20 years, but that’s me, not them, coaching is a valid and useful way for people to have their eyes opened to new ideas and new techniques and to aid learning, it’s nothing to be sneered at and works in tandem with self learning and discipline, it is not a substitute for it.

🙂

I’m not making allegations that coaching is bad, making the allegation of “i’ll pay someone to sort out my technique, but i have no intention in putting work in beyond that coaching session” is hardly productive, that maybe all they’re really getting out of a coaching day is structured practice, of which they’re paying someone to motivate them to do it for that day.

Fundamentally how you get better is through hard work and practice, if you’re not going to do this, why bother with a coaching day?

Chief – my MTFU comment, MTB is inherently dangerous, there’s no way of getting around that, you will also come across unknowns, unknowns where you have to deal with the stress of being scared in order to do it and not fall off. If you never do anything you’re not 100% sure of, how do you expect to have the mental strength to overcome the nerves when you are scared? I see the mental side as another thing that needs constant hard work, or maybe that’s just me. Just as you’ve got to practise technique, i feel that you also have to practice being scared. Plus the more you fall off, the more you realise you’re not made of glass, i need crashes occasionally to remind myself of it, the more you crash too, the more you relax with it, preventing more severe injuries.

If you need to ask what people get out of coaching, you are either ignorant or not as good as you think you are. I remember a while back some muppet on here saying he didn’t think he could learn anything from greg minnaar and could probably teach greg some things.

Whether you ride with someone better than you and get some pointers and watch their technique, or go on a skills day you are getting some sort of coaching.

To get beyond a certain point in any sport you will need coaching. Progession doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

I got bored reading all this, but aren’t there two things going on with skills coaching:

1. Someone tell you roughly how to improve your riding.

2. Practicing it with someone helping and correcting you.

Practice or seasoning or whatever is fine, but if you don’t know what your practicing is good technique, then all you’re doing is learning bad habits more thoroughly.

Are mountain bikers lazy? I guess it’s down to individuals. I know people who’ll re-ride the same bit of trail repeatedly till they get it wired, equally I know folk who’ll not give a damn if they get off and walk something because it doesn’t matter to them.

It’s just people messing about on bikes, everyone’s different no?

Chief – my MTFU comment, MTB is inherently dangerous, there’s no way of getting around that

It isn’t, it can be, but it doesn’t have to be.

What you ride may incorporate unknown sections, and tricky, even dangerous stuff, but for someone else it might be perfectly easy fire-road, gentle forest tracks, and long distance moorland romping with nothing more tricky than having to deal with a few muddy puddles.

Those people are not doing it wrong, they’re doing it different, and trying to impose your interpretation of how they should be riding and what they should be doing about it is a bit short sighted.

“i’ll pay someone to sort out my technique, but i have no intention in putting work in beyond that coaching session” is hardly productive, that maybe all they’re really getting out of a coaching day is structured practice, of which they’re paying someone to motivate them to do it for that day.

I also think this is pretty wide of the mark, most people who go to a coach do so for a specific reason, they have *something* they want to improve, it’s not a case of expecting a coach to ‘fix’ it on the day, but having someone else analyse their issues, and help them develop a plan to improve and tackle some bad habits they might not realise they have, or offer them a new approach they hadn’t considered.

Motivation afterwards is entirely in their hands, sure, but they could also be full of motivation but needing someone to help them realise what to work on and how.

I think you’re letting your preconceptions guide your comments. What makes you think ‘they’ (who? everyone who goes to a coah?) “have no intention in putting work in beyond that coaching session” ?

I’ll wade in with my bit as a qualified British Cycling MTB coach:Go get some! – Coaching works but it is not a science and as mentioned above (and in my own personal experience as a rider) sessioning and repeating body position exercises are where the best gains can be found. Muscles and Muscle memory are only honed through repetitive riding exercises, if you want to become better or just more confident get someone to coach you through technical terrain repeatedly. I have just started a series of session with adults at my club ( I coach juniors and Youth week to week) and even experienced riders were coming back saying they had learned something and would go and work on it and these were the simplest of exercises in the local park! You never stop learning but you have to have the desire to improve first of all! I’ve recently had a mate coach me through a tight switchback corner which was my Nemesis. You may be aware or even knowledgeable on the technique but the skill is in applying it at the right time. Sometimes you get it right and sometimes you don’t.
The BMX attitude mentioned above of practice practice practice is very good but I disagree with the MTFU part as this can be quite detrimental to people who are simply out to enjoy themselves. It’s not all about Gap Jumps and trail shredding in the same way horse riding is not all about Eventing or Steeplechase. Just for the record Horses are nice to look at it, but that’s it.

MTB is inherently dangerous, there’s no way of getting around that,

Yes there is. You get off and walk the bits you can’t do. Or ride comfortably within your limits. Mountain biking isn’t all about the gnarr.

‘mountain biking’. Perhaps the problem is that what you see as mountain biking isn’t the same as what other people see.

EDIT: TBH, the OP sounds a bit like my wife. Thanks to a Scottish Calvinist background she thinks everything in life has to be hard work & self-sacrifice. Even when you are meant to be having fun. 😕

If the person comes away from a coaching session feeling more confident or with a sense or where they can improve then surely that is good enough, it’s up to them how they use that advice.

Riding a bike is about having fun and if you’re too fixated on practise all the time you may lose sight of that.

For some just being able to go out and ride their bike is enough.

@OP

The current world BMX champion is Sam Willoughby who, guess what?, has a coach! Presumably the coach does some coaching. As far as I can tell he (Sam) has had a coach since he began competitive races.

Now I’m certainly not confusing his situation with that of many mountain bikers or even other BMX riders, unlike professional sportspeople most of us are short on time in which to practice skills. If you start riding when a kid you’ve got all the time from school to your mum having your tea ready to play or practice, you just don’t get that free time as an adult. Having a coaching lesson/skills course or whatever you want to call it isn’t a short cut, it’s a considered means to an end.

my current skill level(meager though it is)

I can confirm that is utter b******s.

Anyway, 2 weekends ago I took my first ever coaching day. For jumping, primarily. I learnt a lot from the day. My jumping confidence is zero. Do I think it was worth it? For me, yes. Have I improved since then? No. I need to practice, and practice lots. OP, you’ve come across to me as a bit of a bellend, but fair play in sparking a reasonably sensible set of replies. Interesting to see what people think.

I’m not making allegations that coaching is bad

I think your Edinburgh Defence needs some coaching 😉

Fundamentally how you get better is through hard work and practice

That will get you so far. Then you need a coach to help you with the bits you have been practicing that were wrong in the first place.

In answer to the original question – confidence in my ability. This has taken me over gaps I previously only looked at and thought ‘**** that’. To me it’s been priceless.

No MTFU involved, that’s just BS FFS! Its about knowing you have the skill to do something safely.

st colin – Member

my current skill level(meager though it is)

I can confirm that is utter b******s.

I seem to remember you were literally riding circles round me last time we were out.

I think it’s easier to practice with bmx. I never got into dirt jumping bmx but rode ramps a lot and street a fair amount and we / i would have an entire day seasoning different ramps ledges etc. On a MTB I tend to have route planned and so just follow it. On top of that I usually don’ t have time to redo sections. If I lived near a bike park I would probably session sections as my jumping is very out of pratice but my riding tends to be on row and any small cheeky trains I stumble upon hence more of a route.

Add to that lot of people come to MTB later in life and hence are going to be more nervous!

At the end of the day as long as the person is enjoying it who cares! Bigger problem in MTB to my mind is people using the excuses that they can’t do x until they have bought y

TheBrick
Bigger problem in MTB to my mind is people using the excuses that they can’t do x until they have bought y

That’s not really your problem though, it’s their problem, and with experience people generally figure out that it’s the rider, not the bike. Doesn’t stop you from wanting a new bike and creating reasons in your head for needing it.

I think some are getting confused as i believe the type BMX the OP is talking about is not racing (where fitness, diet and mental skills coaching is common – not physical skills so much) but the fun stuff where coaching doesn’t really exist at the top level (or didn’t – the likes of the Woodward summer camps seem to cover that sort of thing now-a-days if that’s how you want to go forward). I’ve mentioned this before but someone like Danny Hart probably has a coach, but it’s not on how to ride a bike – it’s the other aspects he gets help with.

To get beyond a certain point in any sport you will need coaching.

In some sports the athletes are inventing and progressing the sport so who teaches them? Who is going to coach Travis Pastrana on how to pull a 720 on a MX bike? Who coached Mat Hoffman to do the dozens of tricks he invented? Tony Hawk? Rodney Mullan? Bob Haro? (showing my age here 😀 ) Trial error and MTFU are the order of the day in some sports.

I’m not against coaching btw, just saying.

P.s. David mentioned his mate pulling a Nac Nac earlier in the thread. My mate invented that trick 😀

Euro

I’ve mentioned this before but someone like Danny Hart probably has a coach, but it’s not on how to ride a bike – it’s the other aspects he gets help with.

That’s not to say he’s never had coaching, or lots of it to ride his bike though. Don’t know enough about Danny Hart but take someone like Josh Bryceland and look at his relationship with Steve Peat. Doubtless Ratboy’s got talent, but how much of his success is down to guidance from Peaty? (or any number of other riders for that matter).

People don’t develop in a vacuum.

For me, I think the whole BMX ‘argument’ about practice simply goes away, when you think about how big a bmx track is and how ‘big’ the actual mountains are. BMX is more or less (as I see it, and please correct me if I’m wrong) ‘sessioning’ the same jumps and stuff over and over again.. So riding around in small circles… Whereas MTB-ing is actually much more based on cycling round in wider circles (or at least for me), and coming across a more varied and different terrain.
Therefore the opporuntity to session things in a controlled environment under coaching is something most MTB-ers don’t normally experience, unlike those from the BMX background…

And yes, I’ve been Jedi’d and it helped…

People don’t develop in a vacuum.

I could use Mat Hoffman as an example, there was him and Steve Swoop – two buddies riding in middle of Oklahoma, practically oblivious to everything else that was going on around them in the BMX world. Going bigger than anyone thought possible, inventing tricks and doing insane stuff just to see if it was possible. Not exactly a vacuum, but as near as.

That’s not really your problem though, it’s their problem,

True. I still get bike longings too but I know it will not make me any better!

It isn’t a vacuum when there’s two of you!

Something I’ve noticed is that the more time work and family life takes up, the less time I can spend just messing about on a bike, and the less of that there is, the less sessioning gets done. If I want to enjoy the riding I do to have to balance time working on skills with time turning the pedals enough to stay bike fit.

Not exactly a vacuum

says I

It isn’t a vacuum when there’s two of you!

says you.

I heart the internet 😀

I bet you five whole pounds that neither Hoffmann nor Swoop would have done anything like they did if they’d been on their own. Just because they’re mates doesn’t mean they didn’t effectively act as each other’s coach.

I’m not saying that at all chief, that’s the way it should be imo. I was trying to point out that it’s very possible to be good/great/bestest eva at something without formal coaching << I’ve added formal in there as i mistakenly thought that’s what this thread about 😛 Mate coaching can be a bit hit and miss.

I admit I only used Danny Hart as an example as i knew most would know of him. I’ve no idea if he’s had riding tuition or not (but his riding style suggests no). I could have picked other riders (who i think are really very good at riding a bike – i don’t mean fast, i’m talking skillful) who absolutely never had coaching (again the formal variety) and that’s just in this sport. Maybe because i don’t follow golf, tennis or the like skews my opinion somewhat.

Interesting discussion.