Jadie got back in touch after doing a guided ride with me earlier in the month. As we’d been riding for a few hours previously I had a pretty good idea of what Jadie was like as a rider and we were able to get on and get stuck in to the session.
First off Jadie was not that confident with her bike ‘mechanically’, so we went over the ‘M check’ to give her the confidence to check her bike over before any ride and hopefully flag up any problems before they become an issue out on the trail. Then we moved on to bike set up and made a few adjustments to the controls for her before discussing pedals and the old ‘clips/flats’ debate. Armed with a bit more knowledge she decided to stick with flats, but to get something that would still be kind to her knee issues, but give her a better foot position on the pedals.
Jadie - blurry cameraphone, sorry!
We started on body positioning and on the first few attempts round ‘the training corner’ it became apparent that looking was going to be the major issue. A few demos later and Jadie was able to get round safely. Then we moved on adding in all the extra elements. We rode a few longer sections with me ‘encouraging’ her to look ahead more and it all started to click into place.
Then we moved on to the bermed sections and also looked at unweighting the front of the bike for trail obstacles. We packed a lot in and the difference in Jadie’s confidence on the trail was noticeable by the time the session drew to a close.
Jimbo
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