[Closed] Becoming an MTB guide/working a summer season

I'm also looking at doing something similar next year, keen to hear from people who have done this before.

One thing I do know is you can't just guide in the Alps unqualified, your looking at having your MBL and IML to legally do any guiding and that works out to a couple of years and several £K to do.

if you want to guide abroad then you really should take the qualification applicable to that country.

oh, and be really fit and really fast downhill.

trailAddiction is hiring guides for next Summer (or will be soon, anyway)
Send your CV to ash AT trailaddiction DOT com

We prefer to take on qualified guides, but this can be discussed (e.g. there's time for you to get qualified between now and next Summer)

find as many independent operators as you can and fire off lots of emails saying you'll work for bed and food for the summer as a 'support guide' (i.e. someone who generally rides at the back). this should mean you don't really need the knowledge & qualifications as you're only there to keep an eye on the group/help out when needed etc.

then try and do a bit of training between now & then, such as the mtb leader award.

i'm sure you'll find someone who would bite your arm off.

flange, I've already sorted a guide for next year so the only advice I could give is what I would look for, I'm in the Pyrenees, not the Alps btw. A qualification, (SMbLA or similar) would be needed. Reasonable level of fitness and technical ability. For me the technical ability is more important than the fitness because you'll get fit! Technical ability is only for you to be able to ride the trails, you don't need to be first down (you aren't racing the guests!), in fact I often ride at the back of the group to keep an eye on people and help them out if they need it. The main guides / owner should be fast anyway so if there are any really fast guys out they can always take the front.

The things that people tend not to think of are important. Driving licence. Some language skills. Experience dealing with people would be great, if you're doing your guiding qualification you need to lead rides so maybe finding a club and seeing if you get some guiding experience. If you are approaching places then it needs to be professional, you'd be amazed at the number of "giz a job" mails we get and it's always noticable when you get a proper application.

I will be paying my guide but I'm not sure if other places will just offer bed and board. Maybe places will offer you a set time to try out / learn the trails and then a paid job after if it works out? Apply to lots of places and see what they offer. ^^^Trailaddiction looks ace though so that would be a good place to start!

Thanks for all the replies folks, much appreciated

Ash - have dropped you an email, although having read Dougs reply I probably should have made it a bit more formal, sorry!

Doug - thanks and again, much appreciated.

Nice one Doug - best advice I have seen on here for yrs especially from a potential employer. Maybe do it in a bullet point style for future, this will come up again & again. Possibly a "sticky" on this site or as a feature for the mag? If you and the others who post on here could agree a basic criteria?
Is being able to cook a requirement?
I think you missed mechanical knowledge. I had to work out how to adjust the cable brakes on a hire bike on my 2nd bike holiday. That was after the front wheel had fallen out of the first bike due to worn drop outs!!!! Whereas in Verbier which was my first experience to which the others have been judged is the Rolls Royce of holidays so far.

Trekster, it's true that mechanical knowledge is very important, I should have included that. Trail fixes especially. The number of times I've had to try and fix someone's bike either on the trail or in the evening because the shop who serviced it made a mess of it...

I do quite a bit of 'helping out' on a Saturday for a mate who has a bike shop, and build all my own bikes/wheels and stuff already so I'd like to think I'm fairly handy on that side of things. I'll make sure to put it on my new CV (that I'm now writing!)

How many days a week do you ride Doug? Is it a 6 dayer, 7 dayer or do you get a few days off? And the 64k question, on your days off, do you ride?

flange, I should ride 5 days a week but this year has been really, really busy so rather than turn people away I have been riding on transfer days and the mid-week rest day sometimes making it 6 or sometimes 7 days a week. I personally wouldn't ask a guide to do that because I know how hard it is.

Do I ride on my days off? If I'm riding 5 days a week then sometimes, just to get a blast with mates, especially if I have slower riders. Sometimes a little ride in the evenings. To be honest through the season I'm generally quite tired though... it's hard work! If we have riders who want to ride a lot then often I'm leaving the house at 8:30am and not getting back until 8 or 9pm (with an hour or two on the computer still to do) so on weeks like that I don't ride much! It might be different if you are with someone who does full uplift though, we're very much van assisted AM.

Cool - thanks for the reply. Sounds pretty good to me. I'll get sticking my CV together!

I've done a few weeks here and there for a couple of different companies.

Like all jobs there are pluses and minuses. The pluses are obvious. You get paid to ride yer bike in fantastic locations, all day, every day. When you get a good group, or even one or two guys in the group who are really up for it and are willing to take advice/learn, it's truly rewarding.

The downsides:-
You have to ride yer bike all day, everyday. You might be knackered, have a cold, niggling injury. Tough. Days off, you need to spend time exporing, or you might be doing transfers.

You're there to show the clients a good time. Not to ride for yourself. If you're up for it, but they want to pootle, you have to pootle too. If you want to chill out, and you've got a bunch of thrashers, you need to thrash too. You also need to adjust the trail choice to the kind of riders you have, so you might well end up not riding what you would consider to be "the good stuff" all summer.

You're on duty from breakfast time to the end of the evening meal. So 0800, to maybe 2130, 2200. That's a bloody long day, especially if it's not been a good one. you've always got to be polite and smiley. help them fix their POS bikes for the umpteenth time, socialise, even if you just want to go to bed. Great if you've got a bunch you really click with. Hard work if you don't.

You absolutely, positively, cannot afford to be injured. That means you've always got to ride within yourself, even if you're being heckled by the guests for being too slow. Been there. Screwed the pooch, felt like a complete tit, had to take it very easy the next week, but still ride big days, every day.

On a similar vein, it's truly hideous seeing one of your guests broken on (or off!) the trail, and knowing that it's all down to you to make the world right again. Bad enough when it's a mate, but an extra level of pressure when it's a paying punter. And some weeks you'll get a bunch of lemmings who'll crash and hurt themselves constantly, and who won't back down "because we're on holiday, innit".

Expect to end up sharing a tiny room with a bunch of other smelly, unshaven, farting, belching, guides in a communal apartment. If you're used to a fairly civilsed domestic life, it's quite a shock to the system. No personal space whatsoever. That said, if you get on with the other guides, you can have a damn fine craic together. Partners in adversity etc...

Pay? You should get some, but extra food, bike parts etc.will leave you in the red over a season. A pair of tyres could be most of a week's wages, but only last a fortnight. Trash a wheel or destroy a pair of forks and you'll be well out of pocket. Do your job right though and you'll never have to buy beer or coffee though.

If I was 15 years younger (I'm 37) I'd love to do a full season of it. As it is, over the last couple of years I've really enjoyed the time I've spent filling in the gaps for various companies when they've been really busy (a week or 2 at a time), but I don't think I could hack a full season of it.

The only way to find out if you can do it is to try though, so best of luck!

Everything JonEdwards said... plus have enough money to replace your frame when it breaks if the company arent one of these that has a fleet sponsored by a bike manufacturer. No ride, no job was the case when i did a season 11 years ago.

Find out where you will be living... we lived in the abovementioned smelly room/cupboard in the basement which was the main walkthrough to the bike storage... its 11.30pm and some numbnut is hammering away at their POS bike that needed a good service before they arrived. The only way to get them to shut up hammering so you can sleep is to fix it for the next 2 hours so they can ride tomorrow. And they WILL expect this of you. Every evening.

Plus side is that i met some of the best people who i am still friends with but with hindsight i'd just save a couple grand and go do a month holiday wherever you fancy with no pressure to ride when knackered/ill/injured.

Couldn't you just organise your own biking holidays anyway. I haven't seen that many organised on the web, but I know there's lots of people out there who organise walking holidays, so I don't see why you couldn't do the same with mountain-biking.

You'd just need to have a list of accommodation providers you could book people into, and then you'd organise their riding itineraries for the day and add your own costs on to all that. So you'd need to recce some routes yourself and then off you go. You might need to think about bike hire for those that don't want to bring their own bikes. But if you charged people say 150 to 200 for between 5-6 days riding and got a minimum of 10 people for a holiday, thats £2000 a week turnover (accomm costs and food costs etc excluded). Not bad if all goes well.

Perhaps you could have several different types of holiday aimed at beginners, and then the more advanced or singles, over 50s whatever. And you might need to get some other friends involved as guides depending on demand. I don't know that you need a formal qualification, but you might want to learn some basic first aid, and find out about any insurance issues. I'm talking about the UK really, not the Alps or Canada.

^^^ That's about the most simplistic view of anything I've ever read! Sorry mtb2020 but I don't agree with much about your post, especially this bit: [i]don't know that you need a formal qualification, but you might want to learn some basic first aid[/i]

I started out myself and it took a lot of work (and I mean a lot!) to start being relatively full. Even searching out trails is a big task. I was lucky that I had someone who paid the bills while I set it up, I just don't know how I would have managed without that. To start something for a season just isn't practical. If it was a longer term venture then it is feasilbe and if you were thinking of that then I would happily give anyone my advice, based on my experience, for what it's worth! It is ultimately one of the most enjoyable and rewarding (mentally, not financially) things I have ever done, but it has also been one of the hardest.

In a perfect world, I'll eventually sell my house and have a chalet somewhere where I can run something similar. I've thought about having something in the UK rather than Europe, maybe Wales or Scotland based. But it would be more 'somewhere for me to live that I could run trips from' rather than 'this is my business and it pays the mortgage' sort of thing. I've got a lot of respect for someone that makes it their full time job

@doug basqueMTB - OK maybe I am being too simplistic. But anything is as hard as you want to make it. Yeah maybe for just one season it's not a great idea, and granted a business can take a time to take off. But how difficult is to recce a trail. You just look a map, see what you like the look of, and then ride it and make detailed notes of where to go, with some pix. Then you write it all up, plot on OS getamap and then put your package out on the web (loads of web-builder sites), use all manner of internet PR/ad stuff to drum up business/ and or offer your services through holiday cottages/B&Bs.

If you want to succeed and get business, you'll get it - if you offer the right package at the right price. I've seen lots of this done for ramblers/walkers. If they can do it, why it can work for mountain-bikers aswell. (PS I'm hoping to set up my own walks website and recceing a route is easy, and have done over 70 so far in 2 years. I could obviously have ridden some of them, but I'm going to concentrate on walking. You just make things too complicated. And it may lead to walking days or holidays. And if I was required to get a walking leader qualification by law I'd get one. But I already know how to walk and am quite confident I could guide people around walks I'd recced before with ease.

^ Absolute balls

And no regard for red tape - especially somewhere like Spain

Definitely I agree it is possible for a long term view but for one season it just isn't practical. I hope I didn't come across as saying setting something up isn't a good idea, it's just that flange was talking about 1 season and it's not going to work for that.

That's not my experience of trail finding but then we don't have OS maps here and what maps there are are very poor. I agree though, it's as hard as you want to make it. I was advised I would only need 5 easy routes and 5 hard routes... I didn't go that way.

It sounds like you are confident in your own abilities, good on you and I wish you the very best luck. My advice would be to get the walking qualification, you might be surprised at what you learn and it's not going to do any harm is it? First aid as well. the more the better. Trust me, when someone you are responsible for is broken on a hillside you will never regret doing too much first aid!

If you are going to be guiding you need the qualifications and first aid.

Its about taking reasonable precautions and if yo want to be paid as a guide you must be professional. You can beheld accountable for your actions.

I agree with JonEdwards post. One cannot emphasize enough the long hours (fixing trucks, mowing the lawns etc on top of what one would normally think of), and lack of money. Try living in Whistler on 60 bucks a week, or whatever it was, and keep your bike running, plus go out for a second evening meal because you just got a couple of pieces of shitty pizza while the guest were stuffing their faces.

Also, if you are guiding anywhere remotely technical, be prepared to have guests taking their bike for a 3 hour walk....even if they are on the easiest trails in the area. Some people are stupid and don't think to research where they are going and find they are totally out of their depth.

If I was 20 and loaded I'd maybe do it again, but have you ever wondered why you tend to get a British guide when you go abroad? One who has quite possibly just nipped behind a tree for a pee, when in reality he is checking the map because he is guiding a route that he's never actually ridden before (really....)? Mmmmmm cheap labour..... 😀

I was talking about the UK in my post, and it seems clear that you do need qualifications to be a mountain-biking guide. However, there is no legal requirement to be qualified as a walking leader unless taking out under 18s.

But I don't see why setting up on your own part-time or full-time for either walking or mountain-biking is such a bad idea. These people certainly seem to be making a success of it: http://www.chasingtrails.com/about-us/

mtb2020 - Are you sure about that? I thought that as soon as some-one is paying you need some form of qualification.

http://www.mltuk.org/wgl.php

It's all fairly fuzzy though for me as I tried (and gave up on) my ML many moons ago. Not sure how chase trails works as an example either as they are SMBLA

mtb2020

there may be no legal requirement ( but IIRC t depends on the terrain) but if you are being paid to do something you will be expected to do it professionally and if something goes wrong its nice to be able to say " I have been trained to the highest standards"

taking their bike for a 3 hour walk

btw I do not mind a hike if there is a reward at the end.

One cannot emphasize enough the long hours (fixing trucks, mowing the lawns etc on top of what one would normally think of), and lack of money. Try living in Whistler on 60 bucks a week, or whatever it was, and keep your bike running, plus go out for a second evening meal because you just got a couple of pieces of shitty pizza while the guest were stuffing their faces.

FWIW, we don't treat our guides like this. Our guides get paid properly (not saying they're minted, but they get a living wage) and when the riding is over, their day is done. We also do our best to get them access to trade prices on bike gear, etc.

This costs us a lot of money, but in return we get guides who are professionaly qualified, who know the area well and are properly rested and fit to ride. This is important to us as the guiding is a crucial part of the guest experience.

As I run the business, it's me who does the chasing around, fixing people's bikes, etc! And guiding.

@ TandemJeremy: According to this mountain leader course, you don't need formal qualifications to be a walks leader - http://www.expeditionguide.com/Mountain%20Quals.htm - but obviously they would heartily recommend it. And essentially if you're going to be wild camping, taking people out on difficult terrain then it's advisable, but not an absolute must so the site says. But any walks I would do will, if I ever get round to it, put the hill in to hill walking, and there won't be any need for crampons, ropes, or tents for wild camping courses. I'm thinking a nice circular walk say on the Long Mynd 2-3 hours, maybe some more difficult treks up the Cader, but you definitely don't need ropes to go up the easy tracks. I'm not talking Tryfan in December or anything. But obviously there will be those that want those walks and there's plenty of people out there to offer that. But you know most people know how to walk. I think it would be wise to get a first aid certificate,and maybe insurance. But you know if you're not doing really difficult stuff it should be OK.

Re. necessary qualifications - in the UK, no formal qualifications are required unless you plan to lead unaccompanied children in remote areas.

However, without a qualification, you will find it very difficult to obtain insurance which means that if it does all go wrong, you're screwed. Even defending a case you might consider frivolous could bankrupt you before it reached a conclusion.

@stevomcd. Point taken.

Having done a ski season as a 'ski host' I agree with all the views treating the staff right. Job was advertised as: skiing with the guests as a companion and to advise on conditions and catering establishments. Food, equipment, lift pass and accomodation included with a monthly salary for beer etc.

Actual job: lift pass, equipment and accomodation was indeed included. Food had to be scrounged and/or paid for. The hosting part was actually closer to guiding but called hosting to avoid red tape/qualifications. Various other duties including covering for chalet hosts on their days off (2 a week accross 2 chalets), refilling hot tubs on friday nights, transer driving on saturdays and generally being the scum of the staff.

What money we did get was wiped out by the odd beer and afformentioned food.

Would I do it again? probably not. Would I look for a better company to work if I did decide to do it again? ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!

Good skiing though 🙂

There was a thread "A shambolic week with Sierra Cycling" skip to page 9 or 10 and there was a post by "kiwiDave" and his honest opinion of his experiences of being a bike guide. It was so well written it was as if he'd written a long article for The Guardian or something. Highly entertaining and educating well worth a read.

I have worked under the Smbla remit since 2004 as a bike guide. It has taken me around Europe and worked for a great company in France called [url= http://www.endlessride.com ]Endlessride[/url]. I was looked after well, paid well also as they are a professional outfit. We worked from the moment we touched resort in France until you leave at the end of the season, as you are an ambassador for the brand and company. The role is varied from eating out with guests during the evening, have beers in the town. The other extreme is bit of housekeeping, painting, gardening if needed, but I didnt think was a great problem. I met some fantastic people had great people to work with who were experienced riders guides and travelling companions. The rule is that you dont fall off, you have to be comfortable riding all day on all terrain.
I came from an outdoor background where I had worked with groups which helps with management and also mountain first aid. Luckily I didnt have have any injuries in my groups out in the alps.
I still dont have an injury list except the odd scrape here and there, and have been guiding/coaching with groups since.
I now run [url= http://www.trailkings.co.uk ]www.trailkings.co.uk[/url]and its fantastic. Dont expect to be purchasing a ferrari! More Transit Van. But really rewarding riding your bike, showing people trails and helping them develop there skills. The thankyou's that you recieve really are great.

Enjoy your journey

If you are looking for longer than a short season guiding then Spain is probably your best shot. We run Sierra Cycling for 10 months a year except July & August when we have a well deserved break.
We pay our guides over 1000 Euros per month plus they have their own room each plus breakfasts, I suspect a lot more than most companies according to other posts on this thread. Not bad for guiding some of the best singletrack in Spain.
For that we expect full qualifications in guiding (SMbLA or similar), first aid certificates and good mechanical skills. plus full driving licence and aged 25 or over.

Hours are from 8:30 to help with breakfasts and then guiding until the end of the ride (sometimes just morning rides sometimes until late afternoon depending on what the clients are looking for). After that it´s up to the guides to socialize with the clients or not as their time is their own then. One day a week off.

We get lots of offers to work free in exchange for B&B, tempting, but unqualified guides will be a liability in the long run.

I used to be a scummy IT contractor myself and 20 years ago felt the urge to do something new. I´ve never regretted it so good luck.
[url] http://www.sierracycling.com [/url] fantastic biking since 1992.