Wednesday 14 March 2012

The re return of cakerider Ian





Having coached Ian twice before he wanted to develop his skill set further and that meant applying his mental skill set. I began with the skills check as always to make sure no skills were dropping away and then moved onto the pump and jump trail where I worked on advanced pumping, jumping and also manualing tabletops and doubles.


Ian was shocked at how easy it was and he rode the whole trail end to end a few times to cement it.
We moved from there to the woodwork so that I could work on his mental skills and began on a very low ladder and I showed him how to control balance errors and before long Ian rode a 7ft high ladder to advanced drop (gap) landing.

I added in a wooden berm and later a step up and step down too which he rode easily and the smile just grew and grew.
I moved us onto the alpine switchbacks and also a natural drop and once again, after a demonstration, Ian rode both with control and confidence.

We moved onto another singletrack line we have at Herts and I broke it down and demonstrated each section before Ian then rode it. He was getting smoother and smoother as he used his footwork, looking and body positioning to great effect.

I showed how and why to drop in to very steep stuff sideways too and he loved it as he rode the trail end to end a few times and jumping the roll-able double on the way too.


Our final technique was the beginning of dirt jumping and dealing with steeper take offs and landings, this proved no problem and Ian even linked a 12ft hipped gap jump into it too!
Great session dude!

2 comments:

  1. Now that looks like a lot of fun! looking forward to the session in april!

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  2. Tony

    Thanks for a great session, cannot believe how much we covered...superb. Still smiling about it the morning after a couple of beers last night :)

    Quick report here - http://www.cakeriders.info/return-to-ukbikeskills/

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