It’s a great part of the job to see people progress on a skills day and it’s very satisfying to see people as excited about riding bikes as I am. Often a couple of comments come back after the course by email, Twitter or Facebook. Don’t worry though it’s not compulsory!

Occasionally people go much further and write up their experiences on their blogs, finding this a good way to extend the learning process by reflecting on their riding experience. Recently Shann came along and paid his money to do the Stop Crashing Levels 1 and 2 course at Generic Cialis Gisburn Forest.

He says lots of nice things like the following…..

“By the end of the day I’m riding much more smoothly and feeling more in control of the bike.”

“What caused us some minor discussion was what level we should pitch ourselves at.”

“Even the most minor of tips seems to be a revelation to me when put into practice.”

“The afternoon saw Ed push me and a few others out of our comfort zones.”

……and if you’d like to read the whole blog you can find it here:

http://trailtothetrail.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/tuition-from-ed-oxley-a-review-and-thoughts/

Hurstwood Mountain Bike Trail from Whitenosugar Productions on Vimeo.

Here’s the latest film from Whitenosugar featuring Rowan Sorrel the trail designer, Craig Robertson from Ride On bike shop and me. The trail we’re riding is a new blue grade run not far from Hebden Bridge. It is really fun to ride and makes a great place for running ‘Stop Crashing’ level courses. It’s a great place for learning or revising the basics of body position, cornering, braking and riding with control and flow. There are half day courses at Hurstwood this autumn and winter. Check the ‘Stop Crashing’ tab in the courses menu above.

I’ve just started to offer a new, additional location for the Stop Crashing level 1 course. This combines riding the man made trails at Hurstwood and the natural trails of Hebden Bridge. I’ve been running this course at Gisburn Forest trail centre for over 3 years and will continue to run courses there as well as at the new venue. The new course starts with a morning on the flowy  blue grade trails at Hurstwood near Burnley, which is a 20 minute drive from Hebden Bridge. We start by looking at good body position on the bike, both whilst doing  trackstands as well as when cornering. Hurstwood has lots of rollers and berms and is an excellent place for learning and progressing skills.

We drive over to Hebden Bridge for a cafe lunch and then head out onto rocky natural trails. Here we develop the skills of weighting and unweighting the bike for a smoother, more controlled and faster ride. We also look at good braking technique, line choice and other essentials.

It has been known that we end the day with a pint.

Check the Stop Crashing tab under Courses above for dates.