[Closed] Bike Park Wales or FOD skills course?

I did a bpw jumps course a couple of years back. My jumping is much better now.

Objectively speaking, it's really hard to gauge how much of this was down to the bpw course, vs another day's coaching I had elsewhere, vs watching lots of youtube, vs lots of thinking about the mechanics of how jumping works, vs lots of practice.

From an 'audit' type perspective BPW ticked all the boxes, they did video analysis and had a standard method of teaching, and the coach answered my questions by email afterwards. We only used the uplift once or twice in the morning. How good you would find it would be would depend on you and the individual coach I guess. Coaching is a funny thing, it's a very different skill to doing things, and I've yet to meet anyone who has figured out how to perfectly coach MTB (though Jedi who I haven't met is highly regarded in this). I may yet book more coaching with somebody else one day - I think if you're going down this road be prepared to try a few different people; I don't mean ill of any coach by saying this, more that I don't think coaching is the silver bullet that some claim it to be!

In terms of venues, I was at BPW for the first time in over a year yesterday and with Popty Ping plus the resculpted Insufficient Funds and A470 they have far better progression from small to big jumps than they used to (if that's what you're after). FOD likewise have a short new jumpy skills loop with about 8 tables and a mini road gap that's ace for practice. Both require push ups after hitting jumps though which is a downer for getting the mileage up. For repeated practice I would prefer the two sets of 3 jumps at the top of Afan Bikepark as it takes minimal effort to get to the top again.

I've done a course at BPW. The format is very good with coaching in the morning then the afternoon to practice with an uplift to stop you getting too tired. That's the good. The bad is the organisation side. One of our party couldn't make it. Plenty of notice but no refund available but an offer to reschedule which was fair enough, except they wouldn't reply to emails regarding rescheduling so we just had to write one booking off in the end. When I did do the course the coach didn't show up so we sat around for half an hour or so until the junior coach, who I suspect was there to shadow the proper coach, took us round instead. He was OK but obviously a bit out of his depth. We did 5 exercises IIRC, one was great, 2 were OK, 2 were a waste of time.

The afternoon of uplift to practice and reinforce on a range of trails was great. I've done coaching a few times and often you hit the same corner over and over until you get the measure of it then move on. I come away feeling I've got it but the reality is I've got it for that one corner and its almost back to square one on other trails.

Thank you both for the in depth replies, I particulatly like the idea of half day coaching and practice, I just switch off after too long.

I did the Steep & Natural course with PedalABikeaway in FoD last year (so before they opened the new skills section which might affect the format of the course now).
They split the 6 of us between 2 different instructors/leaders. One group did the trails in the morning and instruction in the afternoon, the other the reverse.

They used video and demonstrations while we sessioned a few different sections including linking corners a jump and a drop and they seemed ok with targeting the skill level and requirements of the groups albeit we were out of my comfort zone quite a bit (that's why I went). The drop in particular had all 3 in my group stacking it and after 3 attempts with progressively worse falls (because I was tensing up) eventually lead to me calling time and the other 2 agreeing so we moved onto some other stuff which the instructor was good about.

If you'd asked me immediately after the course I would have said it actually hurt my confidence and set me back a bit (probably because I had thought I was better than I am), but it did lead to me making the decision to actively go and find more off-piste trails and progressively trickier stuff while giving me a greater tendency to (try to) analyse and think about what I'm doing (although I'm still slow).
Also helps that I'm now riding regularly with a friend who seems to know hundreds of trails spread all over the area and as he's a lot more capable (and braver) than me it's pushing me to do more stuff.

I'm now rather pissed off that I still can't find the ruddy drop that we were doing as I'm sure I could do it now. I've also booked for a 1-2-1 with proride in the FoD because there's plenty that I would like to work on still so it didn't put me off the coaching experience entirely.

Another BPW 'graduate'.

I've completed 2 courses over the years.

The first was "Jumps and Drops with Neil Donoghue" that's actually what it was called at Llandegla - this was a full day course including some classroom time (although way I've no idea) it was fairly good, but really a full day is too long and although they're linked - it would have been better to do a half day on each on different days. My Jumping came on a lot, my dropping skills not so much and with lack of non-rollable drops near to me, I lost them.

The second was Drop Zone at BPW - this was better, it's only a few hours long all told and it's completed over maybe 200m of trail in the park, you ride the some drop maybe 4-5 time until you get the theory right - the drop is perfect for the course, it's fairly easy, but looks bigger than it is, so it looks like you have to ride it, when in actual fact you can roll it. After that there's a line of drops - 4 or 5 of them, they're all slightly different and there's a slightly differnt technique for each, if you get it right you'll be riding the section twice as fast with half the effort by the end of the morning.

The afternoon practice (with uplift pass) makes all the difference, some of my class-mates had a long lunch and called it a day (it was a bitterly cold and wet day in Feb) but I think that was a mistake - getting the chance to proactive your skills without having to wait your turn and getting too cold each really sealed them in my mind.

The course was a huge thing for me, I've been riding 12 years, dabbled with DH, been the the Alps so many times, Whistler etc, but in recent years I grew a fear of drops and it was a nightmare at BPW (which is 20 mins from my house) it meant I was almost limited to Blues because all the reds from the top start with a massive (in my mind) quali drop at the start, now I can ride most things at a speed / level I'm happy with.

I've done 3 courses and as mentioned above, you learn how to ride the bit of trail on the course.

The real hard bit is taking that and being able to use it for other bits of trail you didn't do the course on.

Pick the location you could easily go back to. Bearing in mind FoD is free. Id go there as there is also lots of other stuff to session.

FOD has way more variety, I wouldn't want to do an allrounder skills day at BPW. But if it's a specific skill that suits the venue, like a jumps day, then it'd be great.

BPW is also more weatherproof, which could be a consideration since you usually have to book these things way in advance then turn up regardless.

It is cornering I really want to focus on, so BPW is great for that. I agree that transferring the learning to other trails is the hard part. I'm fairly confident on jumps and drops and if I improve my cornering skills jumps and drops will often be easier as I should find it easier to carry speed.

Did 'Rhythm & Flow at BPW a few years ago.
Was quite informative, no massive "oh my God, why have I never done that" type moments but lots of little suggestions that helped me get better at cornering, line choice etc. Biggest boost to my riding was his advice on bike setup & body position.
Was good having the afternoon there too, helped to cement some of the techniques a little more practicing then for longer.

Did the jump course at BPW earlier this year - I thought it was excellent.