What I learned at Better Ride’s Mini Mountain Bike Camp
Last weekend I attended a two day Better Ride Mini Mountain Bike Camp in Los Penasquitos Canyon Preserve. Earlier this week when I wrote about my experience getting to Los Penasquitos by bus I explained that Better Ride was founded by Gene Hamilton who developed his own curriculum of teaching core mountain biking skills, and that Better ride offers mountain bike instruction here in San Diego.
At the end of the two day camp our instructor Dylan asked us to go around and share what we had taken away from the last two days. My answer was that it had broken down the core riding skills into smaller challenges that I could work on. After having a week to think back on what I learned, I’ve realized that the class revolutionized the way I approach mountain biking. I am being more intentional about riding with purpose, awareness, confidence, and balance, and I know proper body position, and can practice it in my everyday riding. I also realized that the core skills of mountain biking relate to what I have been learning as a kayaker, runner, and yoga student, so my mountain bike training is flowing over into all areas of my life.
Our class had a divers range of participants with riding experience ranging from 20 years to those who had just started riding in the last couple months, and included all levels of fitness. Even with such a great range of skill and ability we were all equally awkward as we practiced drills in the parking lot. We were learning to ride in a new way, and it leveled the playing field. Our instructor broke down each skill into components, and asked us to focus on practicing them one at a time. If you tried to take them all in at once it was easy to get overwhelmed. I have ridden for years, but at times during the class I found myself getting overwhelmed just practicing cornering around parking lot cones. Focusing on one skill at time prevents getting overwhelmed and helps to build it into our muscle memory thus, making these skills intuitive.
After class I caught a ride back with one of the other participants. As we drove back he told me about some of his expectations that he had had going into the class. He said that when he filled out the pre-class evaluation form, he had stated that he wanted to learn how to ride drops and jumps, and that looking back it was laughable how naive he had been. Instead of drops and jumps he was learning how to balance his weight over the bike and where to direct his vision. This class definitely takes its students back to the basics, and no matter what your riding level is, it will help refine your ride, and to quote our instructor Dylan “If you can learn to manual off this curb, you can manual off that building.”
Update: Better Ride will be offering a 3 day clinic in San Diego September 23-25th. For more details visit their website or e-mail info@betterride.net.