Mountain Bike Coaching Tip – Heavy Feet, Light Hands

Mountain Bike Coaching Tip – Heavy Feet, Light Hands

You may think the best way to improve your riding is a lighter bike… more travel or other fancy up grades. Yes, these may make your bike lighter, more able to soak up bigger impacts etc but they don’t make YOU a better rider.

A simple way to improve your riding is to start looking at your mountain bike technique. Today I wanted to talk to you about your feet and hands. You ride your bike mainly with your feet, standing up on the pedals in the ‘ready’ position, pushing your weight into them during cornering and driving the pedals forward as you pop off a drop off. Making your feet heavy allows you to control the bike and makes the bike work for you.

The other thing to mention is your hands, when we first start out on a bike, if things get a little hairy we tend to over grip clinging on to the handle bars for dear life… this doesn’t help you with your balance and control on the bike. Imagine you have your favourite chocolate bars in your hands if you over grip you will turn them to mush, so be light on those handlebars.

Mountain bikes are very capable, the best way to allow your bike to work is relax, bring your weight down into your heels, keep the ball of your foot on the pedal to create a stable platform and think about pushing yourself forward with your heels. Breathe out when you get to trail sections that worry you or find a good song to sing so your brain goes into autopilot.

It’s a great feeling once you flow effortlessly down the trails, but it takes practise keep at it and let us know how you get on by commenting below.

Shredding in the Surrey Hills

Shredding in the Surrey Hills

Two weeks ago before the British Summer time was swept away by a huge rain cloud we enjoyed a super weekend in the Surrey Hills. Not only was the weather tip top but the biking was pretty mega too!

Over two days our latest group of clients came on leaps and bounds as the honed their trail skills and crafted their flow on some of Surrey’s best known mountain bike trails like Barry Knows Best, Yogurt Pots and Summer Lightning to name but a few!

Here are some action shots from the weekend. If it looks like good fun and you would like to join our next adventure check out our mountain bike weekend page here.

Feedback from Candy:

What a great weekend thank you Hannah for specially helping me. I do feel much more confident now!!! And thanks to Paul who helped to set up my bike and guiding me. What a lovely bunch of people on the course.Thanks for your help and encouragement, guys, when I was flagging! The food was lovely too.Fantastic way to spend a weekend in glorious countryside! 🚴‍♀️

Mountain Bike Camps for Kids

Mountain Bike Camps for Kids

Over the weekend I ran my first instalment of mountain bike camps. These are now a Pedal 2 Pedal tradition and usually book up really quickly! Saturday was no exception; I had 8 in my beginners group ranging from 4 to 9 in age and with a mixture of off-road experience from none at all to already riding the blue trail.

We started our sessions with the usual bike checks before heading up the fire road to the field once there we played some games looking at cornering and the ready position which are two core techniques used in mountain biking.

After a short snack break we used the field again to work on our techniques, talking about our breaks and how many fingers we should have covering them. Then it was time to put what they had learnt into practice, with a volunteer helper from my academy at the front and a volunteer mum at the back and me in the middle we made our way as a group down the blue trail, stopping at a switch back corner to have another go at our cornering technique before ending our adventure back near the car park.

Each rider received a certificate and I have had some great feedback with six out of the eight who wanting to come back for more.

“Thank you so much for the kids’ course on Saturday – they thoroughly enjoyed it. We did the blue route down after the course and came back on Sunday to do the whole blue route 1 & 1/2 times. The kids are keen and I am going get them out as much as possible.” Guy, Evie and Tristan’s Dad.

Next up was my academy group these riders come to coaching every week and I have coached some of them for four years. There is real team competitiveness between them and the Tuesday beforehand I had set them a front wheel lift challenge which many had already started to grasp. It’s great to see youngsters so keen to improve themselves in their sport and makes me feel very proud to coach such a great cycling club.

Our session looked at group riding using a game called jail break. I like this game because all riders have to communicate and work as a team to keep the ‘prisoner’ in jail so it adds something to a mountain bike session which can end up being all about your own skills, it brings the group together and makes them concentrate on being a team, a great life lesson as well as bike skill!

Afterwards we worked on our front wheel lifts and manuals. A lot of the riders can manual now using their upper body and momentum but a front wheel lift requires just a little more fineness and practise to master.

Once everyone had a good practise we hit the red trail with a volunteer Dad on the front and another in the middle I rode at the back so I could watch their riding style and give a few tips along the way, usually about heel position.

We have started riding ‘snake bites’ at Queen Elizabeth Country Park (QE Park) which is a series of switch back corners which take you down to the fire road, as it had rained they were a little slippery so we did half and then peeled off onto the blue descent to finish.

The team at QE Park have done an excellent job on working the trails and have created a great blue which the kids enjoy challenging themselves on.

The day came to an end with a few riders opting to race the Go Ride race at the QE Cycle Fest, a twisty course had been set up by British Cycling and I think my riders where still going round long after the racing was over!

 

If you would like your kids to join a mountain bike camp or would like to join an adults camp please get in touch.

 

Hiring a coach – my thoughts as a coach.

Hiring a coach – my thoughts as a coach.

Should you hire a coach?

Last year I raced the Bike Trans Alp a stage race from Austria to Italy over 7 days, climbing 19,000 metres. I had never raced anything like this before. I had never ridden the distances required on multiple days let alone raced it! Climbing alpine mountains was also a new challenge, but I was excited about pushing my limits and seeing what I was capable of.

One of the key factors in getting me ‘race’ fit was hiring Mark at Velo Coaching. As a cycling coach myself I understood the basic principles of training and the sorts of sessions I should be putting together, to increase my endurance and also my ability to climb economically, however I had no real idea in how to put this together as a training plan that would allow for recovery and the adaptation in my physiology that I needed.

Mark and I worked together to look at my daily commitments like working hours, my own cycling coaching sessions and time to spend with my family. From there we plotted what type of training I could do around this and added in some important recovery time.

Having a plan made it easy for me to focus on a day at a time and not get overwhelmed with the task ahead.

I am a self-motivated person and if I want something I am prepared to make sacrifices to make it happen, having said this, having a coach there to motivate me and analyse my progress was one of the most helpful tools. Every week Mark would look at my training and we would discuss over Training Peaks what was going well and what wasn’t. As a cycling coach myself I didn’t need hand holding through my sessions I just needed the structure to work within.

The Trans Alp bike race came round in July 2016 quicker than ever and as my Dad and I drove to Austria I felt prepared, safe in the knowledge I had put in as much training as I could manage and was as ready as I could be.

It was in the Autumn after returning from the alps I had an email from someone about coaching, they weren’t sure if they were ‘good enough’ to have a coach.

My experience is that having a coach can make a difference to the small things like, for example as I have a lot going on in my work it made the task of planning and analysing my training a weight off my mind, I new Mark was there working that out so all I had to do is put on my kit and go cycling and not put too much thought into the planning stage it was all laid out for me. I think also from a confidence point of view having a coach to say it’s okay if it doesn’t go well every race or you need to work harder on hill climbing.

My thoughts are if you want to get better at something then it takes practise and patients. Getting expert advice whether you’re looking to just feel more confident when you’re out riding with your family or you are aiming for a challenge, anyone can grow as a rider and become better with the guidance of a good cycling coach.

If you would be interested in me helping you, please get in touch.

Cycling bad habits you could give up for lent

Cycling bad habits you could give up for lent

I have never given / taken anything up for lent but this year my challenge is to ride to and from work at least once a week, so far so good!

For those of you who started out triumphantly giving up chocolate or bread this week and feel like 40 days is going to be a lot to bear, why not give up a cycling bad habit instead?

Here are my top four bad habits you could have ago at breaking.

  1. Not cleaning your bike after riding
    Regularly cleaning and maintaining your bike reduces the impact of standard wear and tear and can lessen the chances of mechanical failures down the line. It also gives you an opportunity to check your bike over for any issues that may stop you riding next time you head to the shed.
  2. Going out unprepared for punctures
    We’ve all been guilty of this one. About as far from home as your route allows and you suddenly feel like your dragging a dead weight, that awful feeling when you realise you have no puncture repair kit or pump… Even if your going out with friends who are usually ‘prepared’ you should be able to look after yourself. This leads nicely onto my next bad habit…
  3. Not knowing how to change an inner tube
    I was rather shocked to find out my Mum, who is a budding road cyclist, has no idea how to change an inner tube. It is a simple skill and a vital one if you want to be independent when your cycling. I will do a video on this soon so watch this space and let me know if there are any other skills you would like to learn?
  4. Braking in a corner
    The first rule of cornering is to scrub off all excess speed before you arrive at the corner, braking in the corner disrupts your flow and on the road can make your tyre grip less effective. My top tips to improve your technique are, scrub off all your speed before the corner, take the corner wide and head in towards the apex, when choosing your line take the straightest one possible. As you begin to exit the corner, keep looking ahead up the road to ensure you spot and anticipate any obstacles or hazards.

Thanks for reading, I hope you have enjoyed my blog post.