The 2011 season starts now

On Saturday I enjoyed a self-propelled DH training session with a young pinner. We’re building the skills, fitness and intelligence he needs to rock next season. What are you doing?

Crew: Young pupil Alex, the Mighty Farid and me.

Place: Left Hand Canyon OHV area. Where Jeeps leak oil, machine gunners leave their casings and no one cares how we ride our bikes.

Mission: Haul our carcasses to the top and enjoy some fun downhills. Start building the skills, fitness and intelligence that will elevate Alex to pro DH.

Bikes: After I described the climb — at least an hour at full speed — Alex chose his trail bike instead of his DH sled. Farid and I rocked Enduros. My Enduro had full-on 2.5″ downhill tires. It was sloooooow up and across, but confidence-inspiring down.

Outcome: We all worked hard and pinned it. I identified some details for Alex to work on. Good times.

Next: More training for Alex. He’s been instructed to find his feet and try to ride with zero tension in his arms. Next time he’ll ride his downhill bike. I’ll stick with my Enduro DH.

Apologies for the lame photo representation. We were busy.



The Force is strong with young Skywalker. He cleaned most of the tough climb.


A rare flowy section: Alex takes a wide entrance inspired by 2:15 in the below video.


More Mountain Biking Videos

What are you doing to make 2011 awesome? If you want help reaching your goals, email me.


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5 replies
  1. Simcik says:

    Have you looked into videoing your athletes in training? When I ski raced, we never took a run without video, that was on and off the race course. Let me know if you want to put something together

  2. Eric says:

    For 2011 I’m mainly focused on creating a detailed model of the dynamics of countersteering to look at the influence of gyroscopic forces.

    (And if that doesn’t make me a great rider, I’m doing strength training, putting in some base miles, and working on skills stuff on the hardtail. Just in case.)

  3. JDub says:

    I know Lefthand OHV is “no rules” but I’m still a proponent of keeping it single and on the trail. I’ve just seen so many local rippers who can’t be held up by the masses at Hall Ranch that they just jump off trail, I guess I’m just jaded.

    Like I said, Lefthand is very different than Hall Ranch just sayin….

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