Mountain Biking Health Benefits

Ten Reasons to take a Mountain Bike Skills Clinic/Camp (from a qualified coach/es)
Gene Hamilton

1. A mountain bike camp is fun! Wheelies are fun! Beating your friends is fun! 2. A mountain bike clinic will improve your confidence making riding more fun. 3. As your confidence increases so will your desire to ride. After the camp you may find yourself riding more and getting into even better shape. 4. A mountain bike camp is a fun way to learn the correct techniques for riding a mountain bike. 5. Mountain biking is fun and relatively safe when done with the proper body position, skills and vision techniques. It can be scary and dangerous without the correct techniques. 6. Like skiing and golf mountain biking is not intuitive. Riding a bike is easy, riding a bike on dirt over rocks, roots and steep inclines is more difficult. Trying to teach yourself will lead to bad habits, fear and possible injury. 7. Learning the core skills sooner rather than later will keep you from ingraining bad habits. Unlearning bad habits is a lot harder takes longer than simply learning the correct way to do something early on. 8. A mountain bike camp provides a fun and safe way to improve. You will learn the correct techniques in a safe environment, then apply these techniques on the trail. 9. There is a lot of mis-information on riding technique that is repeated by well meaning people that often steers you the wrong way. Taking a camp will teach the correct techniques and explain why a lot of common advice is wrong. 10. A mountain bike skills camp is a great way to meet other fun people who share your passion for riding. How to tell if they are qualified: 1. Check their coaching background, pro athletes often make poor coaches, a racing background means very little. How long have they been coaching? Do they more than one or two references? 2. Do they teach the core skills of riding? In a safe, non-threatening environment? It is nearly impossible to learn with even the slightest bit of fear making trails a good place to apply skills but a had place to learn them. 3. Is their camp structured are do you simply follow them on the trail and receive skills tips as they go? 4. Who have they coached? Have they coached pro racers as well as beginners? If they just teach beginners are they teaching the true core skills? Are they confident in their coaching? If so why haven't pros taken lessons/camps from them? 5. Is the camp over on the last day or do they provide you with skills and drills to practice these skills long after the camp? Gene Hamilton is a licensed USA Cycling Expert Coach and has over 18 years of coaching experience including 11 years coaching mountain biking. Please click here: http://www.betterride.net for Gene's free course on the top ten riding mistakes and how to correct them. Gene's coaching highlights include coaching many top pro racers (Chris Van Dine, Eli Krahenbuhl, Andrew Pierce,..) and top junior experts (Ben Hulse, Naish Ulmer, Parker Worthington,...) as well as thousands of recreational riders. Gene is a pretty good racer too, in 13 seasons as a pro downhill racer he has won a Silver (2002) and two Bronze Medals (2006, 1999) at the UCI World Masters Championships.