There are those days when you feel like you don’t know how to ride anymore: maybe because you have not been riding much lately, maybe because you have recently crashed hard and your confidence is a little shaken. When this happens to me I go back to what I learned during Gene Hamilton’s Better Ride MTB camp: there are three or four points that are easy to remember and help me get back quickly in the zone.
When was the last time somebody taught you something about how to ride a bike?
I asked myself that question in 2006 as I was looking at ways to improve my mountain biking skills. Amazingly the answer to that question was kind of shocking and enlightening at the same time. My dad taught me how to ride my bike and one of the last lessons I got on the subject was how to ride with no training wheels: I think I was four years old at the time, maybe five.
I took Gene’s Better Ride MTB skill camp at the end of summer in 2006. This is a summary of my impressions on Gene’s camp, but more important on the results of that camp after more than two years.
Gene is a really cool guy, a person who seems to have a lot of fun riding and teaching you how to ride, better.
The course (as I attended in 06, program may have changed since then) is broken down in 3 days, for the most part spent on your bike.
It starts from bike setup, riding position and attitude, vision and then proceeding with practical drills, like popping wheelies, manuals and bunny hopping. Gene guides you to discover the secrets of your bike and its handling using his Voodoo Tricks, some really nice ways to show you that you don’t trust your peripheral vision and instincts enough.
The second and then the third day are focusing more on actual riding and less on drills and excercises. but the fundamental message is that we have to practice the fundamentals constantly or we’ll fall back into our ‘bad habits’. Gene teaches a nice routine that we can keep practicing at home, to improve and maintain cornering technique, balance and speed: sometimes I get home late from work and have no time to go for a ride. I throw out 6 orange cones in the driveway and practice my ‘fundamentals’ in the driveway: it works.
In mountain biking, as much as in many other sports like snowboarding and surfing, learning goes in alternate phases: very often we push our limits, with good success, but then we crash, or we have to stay away from the bike for some time, and the result is that our skill regress and loose our skills. That is the point when we need to regain our confidence and start growing again.
What I found very important of Gene’s camp is that you learn few fundamental points that you can use when you are in the valley of learning phases. Position of your hands and arms on the handlebar, where to focus your vision and your mental approach to the trail and with the obstacles is what helps me cope with those bad days when you feel that you don’t know how to ride your bike.
I think I improved a lot my biking skills and riding technique in the past two years and I feel most of the credit goes to what I’ve learned during those 3 intense days, so I definitely recommend Gene’s Better Ride mountain bike clinics to all those who want to improve their riding and enjoyment on their bikes.
