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Road To 2012
British Cycling Regional School Of Racing

Posted March 10 2011
Words and Photography By Luke Webber

What makes a World-beating mountain bike racer? According to British Cycling's Olympic Mountain Bike Coach, Phil Dixon, skills count for more than you might imagine; which is why in 2011 Talent Team coaches are focussing their Schools Of Racing on the fundamentals.

With cross country racing now consisting of shorter, more intense laps, margin for error is far less and it's expected that future Olympians will rely more on technical expertise than ever before.

Tasked with developing the champions of tomorrow is British Cycling's Talent Team, who hold a variety of discipline-specific skills days known as Schools Of Racing. Accommodating riders from 13-16 years, Regional and National sessions take young mountain bikers from across the country and provide group coaching sessions aimed at developing every riders' skills.

THE CORE SKILLS
Held at Thornbridge Outdoor Education Centre in Derbyshire, and led by Talent Team Coaches Simon Watts, Tim Buckle and Rob Sharman, the day focussed on introducing the key elements of mountain biking using flat pedals, making cheating impossible when tackling the core skills!

This meant looking at the foundation of body position and the effect of weight shift on bike and rider. Both off the bike and static demonstrations broke down the skills required and forced riders into thinking about how each skill is performed, before tackling it for real.

Exercises started with trackstands, before moving to pumping, manuals and front and rear wheel lifts. Demonstrating each skill using off bike, on bike and static demos taken from British Cycling's Level 2 Mountain Bike Coaching Award, riders worked in a neutral environment to see the progression of learning the skill itself.

Sessions were then taken from the simple environment of a sports field, to the trail, where techniques could be carried out in a more complex environment, ended with a series of races on specially designed courses which highlighted the importance of utilising skill, over brute force to overcome trail obstacles.

Ending the day with a self assessment, Talent Team Coaches left riders with all the tools necessary to optimise their personal skill development - something that come the start of race season could be the difference of progressing to the podium.