This month’s trail riding clinic gallery was brought you to courtesy of my new 40mm “pancake” Canon prime lens. Who says you can’t carry an SLR camera with you on the trail and still have fun riding?
For our camera buffs out there, these photos were shot with my backup camera body, a Canon 40D.
Wendy gets the prize for best cornering form in our August Clinic recap. Note her body position in the photo above; she’s got elbows out, her head up with her center of gravity low. She’s looking down the trail, ready for anything, and looking fast!
It can take some time before we begin to adopt new body movements to our repertoire, but with practice it comes to all of us. Wendy here is a former ski instructor and took to it quite quickly- Kudos to Wendy!
We had a nice sized group for July’s mountain bike skills clinic at Tamarancho, and as usual, we all had a great time working to get everyone dialed in. We recorded everyone’s neutral position and looking at our gallery below, it is interesting to see how the different cockpit configurations effect where one’s neutral point would be. Note that these were taken at the beginning of the day, as we often move steerer spacers to dial in the handlebar height of riders on the trail.
Have you heard about our series of clinics at Camp Tamarancho? We’ve been having a great time sharing new skills with some great folks.
There’s nothing better for improving your form and technique than viewing one’s riding, whether it is in video or still form. We often think we’re lower than we actually are, or leaning the bike further based on feel, but the camera doesn’t lie. (other than adding a few pounds here and there at least) Once we’re able to dial in our riding position and associate it with the way it is supposed to feel, the progression truly begins. Because it helps so much to see how we look when we’re riding, we’ve been toting an SLR camera along with us so that riders can view their form as they practice. They also serve as a great bench mark for where one’s currently at, and where you want to end up. (Ideally as low and dialed as our Bikeskills coach Ian Massey, pictured below!)
Did you know that Bikeskills offers clinics for small groups in addition to our regular trail riding clinics? All you need is yourself and three friends in order to get a personalized clinic that caters to the skills you want to focus and hone in on. In fact, this month’s NorCal clinic was limited to ladies only, and these ladies took advantage of the personalized coaching from our team to work on their skills.
We started off checking everyone’s suspension and cockpit set-up to verify sag was set correctly, tire pressures were set, brake lever placement was good, and riding positions optimized for handling on the trail.
We then moved across the street to focus on dialing our riding positions. Mastering the neutral attack position is a key building block for progression!
Moving on, the group worked on some drills that emphasized working their range of motion, and unweighting their front and rear wheels.
We covered a wide range of skills, both on and off the trail including how to climb and descend switchback turns.
All the ladies were climbing and cleaning the numerous technical switchback turns on the climb up after the drill- success is sweet!
Everyone in the group showed remarkable progression over the course of the day. And the most important part is that everyone had a great time improving their riding safely.
Thanks to Inga Beck for taking all the photos and organizing the clinic for the ladies. See you all on the trail soon!
We have a cool new video and a contest to go along with it. Check out world class skier – and dad- Robb Gaffney and his daughter Kate in their most excellent non-skill adventure. Noodle up a name for it and if we choose your title, you could win a set of high-end SUN Charger Pro wheels AND a fiendish set of Smith Pivlock shades or a ripping pair of I/O goggles. Submit your entry in to us via your YouTube account and we’ll announce the winner on Valentine’s Day!
Here’s the catch- you must be subscribed to our YouTube Channel to win!