The Flow

DATES:

Saturday/Sunday 21-22nd August at Lee Quarry & Cragg Quarry (SOLD OUT)

Saturday/Sunday 16-17 October at Gisburn Forest (4 places left)

COST: £120 per person (in a group of 6 maximum)

To book please contact ed@great-rock.co.uk or 07545 228209

The Dog and Partridge provides all the facilities that we need at Gisburn Forest for the day including parking, cafe and pub as well as being able to accommodate you if you are traveling from further afield and need to stay the night.

Lee Quarry is DIY lunch, but I will bring a stove for making tea/coffee

photo www.matthew-hunt.com

This course is the next level up from the fundamentals of the ‘Stop Crashing’ mountain bike skills days. You could consider it ‘intermediate’ and it is aimed at confident mountain bikers who are looking to progress with a major weekend of skills upgrading.

The Flow is all about riding smoother and faster on technical Red and Black graded trails and includes:

Riding berms and rollers

Cornering

Weighting and unweighting the bike

Pumping the trail for speed

When to brake, when to get off the brakes

Active body position and timing

Singletrack

Bunny Hop technique

Riding Black graded sections

Steep slopes

Rock sections

Drop Offs

Riding with flow is about being relaxed and in control of your bike as you go fast on the trail. We will look at putting together the techniques of effective body position and good timing to pump the trail and carry speed. The aim will be to make the trail come alive and allow your bike to do what it has been designed for. With flow you will be riding smoother, having fun and getting more out of your mountain biking wherever you ride.

The Slab at Gisburn. Photo - Matthew Hunt

Gisburn Forest and Lee Quarry have several sets of fantastic berms and we will spend time on these during the day. Line choice, braking, looking ahead, body position and timing all need to come together to ride berms well. There is an advantage in learning this stuff on a purpose built trail because dips, rollers and berms are smoother and more exaggerated. This allows you to really feel the technique working. When you ride natural trails you will be able to apply your flowing skills much more intuitively.

Black Line at Gisburn. Photo - Matthew Hunt

“I went up to fine tune my riding and build confidence in my own ability rather than learn new things… and ended up riding smoother and faster on tricky sections than i thought possible.. as well as riding a few sections I would have otherwise not ridden..” Spacehopper

“Drop offs. That was the unanimous interest within the group when it came to the Black Magic. At the end of the day, drop offs were no longer “hit and hope” as Ed had instilled the principles of altitude control. After the event, I’ve found it useful to review the course video footage which allows you to see the result of applying different take off techniques. Those big downhill drops are still for another day, but they look less other worldly now. Maybe that is the magic.” Ben

Get in touch if you want to know more, or if you want to book a private one to one or group mountain bike skills day ed@great-rock.co.uk or 07545 228209

By greatbigrock November 17, 2009

3 Comments to “The Flow”

By Ben Waterfall, March 4, 2010 @ 9:30 pm

I signed up for “The Flow” because I wanted to progress from battering along the trail. Before I attended the course, I would have described myself as a pretty competent wheels on the ground rider. Following a good day of coaching with Ed, it was apparent that even wheels on the ground is not about riding in just 2 dimensions. I’ve seen the wonder of 3D and it is the future!

Those smiles on the pictures haven’t been Photoshopped in. Highly recommended.
By Iain, May 10, 2010 @ 12:00 pm

I went to do ‘The Flow’ and flew.

Ed upgraded my MTB operating system to the latest and greatest version, then after a reboot the trail looked and felt different, now it’s smoother, faster, easier and makes perfect, flowing sense.

Ed’s a great teacher …if you’re willing to challenge what you think you know and want to improve your riding massively, do this course; you’ll reap the rewards on the singletrack, the steep, the tech and the gnar!
By Steve De'Ath, August 24, 2010 @ 11:51 am

Having just had a weekend on the flow course at lee and cragg quarry i’ve come away from it with so much more than i ever thought i could. From the first minute Ed was getting the measure of us and pitched the course at the right level for the group in a really laid back and non patronising manner. His style of teaching helped keep a great atmosphere within the group and everyone seemed to take on board his methods quite quickly as the way he explained and demonstrated was spot on.
I was hoping more than anything to improve my cornering from this course but that was only a small part of what i learnt, adjustments to pretty much every aspect of my riding have taken place over the two days making me faster, smoother and more confident, the course has been my best riding investment for quite some time and has made more difference to my riding than any component upgrade could ever do.
Cheers Ed, thanks for a very rewarding weekend.