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I scored myself a 4/4 on Steve's chart, the wife a 3/3 and when we went Iona seemed to agree. Unfortunately Steve was on a point to point trip when we were there so didn't get to ride with him.
Just for the record, White Room are bloody fantastic and I'd highly recommend them to anyone looking for some Alps guiding.
Our scale is here if anyone’s interested (I’d actually be quite interested in any feedback on it!)
I'm a 3/4 on that scale, this sentance sums me up: "You'll generally ride most features, but will get off and walk if it's very steep or if you come across big rock/root features."
I'm happy barrelling down a rocky descent at speed but put a blind 3ft drop, or a steep rooty chute in front of me and I'll happily walk it.
I'm not sure I'm target market for guided tours, but thought I'd try steve's rating system. I've been riding for decades, but not really challenged myself. Mostly natural stuff rather than trail centres. I'm comfortable with all-day XC rides but not so much on tech stuff. so Here goes - probably 3. not really up for 4. Oh, fitness wise - 4 going on 5 (maybe the natural stuff helps). Shocked to realise - in passing - I'm in later 50s.
If each individual was honest with them selves on their ability then the ratings will work.
The problem guides have is when someone rates 4-5 and turnout to be 1-2.
I dont think that's a guiding thing, that's just a riding thing in general.
The amount of enduro races I've done where you 'self seed' on entry 1-5 (1 being fast, 5 being slow) & you catch the supposed 1s after a minutes racing gets pretty tedious.
I've only ever done a proper guided holiday once, which I went to after an EWS, they had a point if I was happy to race that, I can go in the fast group. They had a fairly chilled out day the first ride, where people moved around in groups to be more ability matched, which seemed to work well. Never really had to deal with someone totally out of their depth, but I imagine it's not fun for anyone.
Done a couple of guided days at Finale which are a very typically Italian approach - as I'll pretty much ride anything in terms of difficulty it's less daunting for me, but they literally lump you together with a bunch of strangers and the guide sets you off down some trails. There is zero progression/coaching though, which some people want. About as much as you get is "watch out for these key features", if you're lucky 🙂
Interesting scale that.
Gut feeling is I'd be about a 3.5 on both tech and fitness, but it would depend heavily on the terrain and features.
Happy to ride both trails at Fort William (admittedly slowly on the WC course), and comfortable on Snowdon Rangers, Skiddaw/Ullock Pike, Helvellyn natural stuff (bar the odd big feature). Have ridden the walkers path down from the Brevent lift at Chamonix 'blind' with only a couple of short get off and walk sections. BUT, put a blind drop or decent gap in front of me and I'm all over the place. Most BPW and Antur reds are fine (Antur 'single' Black OK too, but the BPW blacks are a 'nope' all day long.
Ideally, if want that sort of detailed self-assessment combined with a description of the trails and example features so I could judge against specific details. Videos help.
I dont think that’s a guiding thing, that’s just a riding thing in general.
And in addition to this, people rate themselves against others they ride with, so without any reference points most people booking bike trips would probably say they're a four our of five.
But the person they think is a five would mark themselves a four against someone else they ride with. And so on.
That's why Stevo's system is an improvement as it gives concrete benchmarks for riders to relate themselves to.
Gut feeling is I’d be about a 3.5 on both tech and fitness, but it would depend heavily on the terrain and features.
I reckon I would be about the same these days, I simply ride MTBs less these days and as I've gotten older my bravery has diminished, I'm still fine with rocks/roots, smallish gaps and drops up to a couple of feet where I can see a landing, but bump up the scale (and risk) or make features a bit too blind and I'll start looking for the chicken line...
My fitness is fine for half a day of pedalling, and I can stretch to a full day off-road but I would be pretty knackered so I would tend to score myself slightly below a 4 for both.
That scale does basically suggest that it's really not worth booking if you don't rate yourself as 3/3 or higher...
I never go on these mixed guided holidays now.
I dislike too much wet nursing, hate the stubborn old guy on the hardtail and cringe at watching those out of their depth.
Shame as I'm grumpy but social.
But when I go on a riding holiday I like to ride.
Difficult for the guides and guests... and I know that I have been one of the less adept in my time.
Thanks for the feedback all, glad the scale makes sense for people. It's been working pretty well for us.
Someone asked what most people rate themselves. Without looking at any real stats, I would guesstimate that about 50% of people rate themselves 4, 30% rate themselves 3 and 20% rate themselves 5 on ability. Fitness ratings would be similar, maybe a few less 5's and a few 2's in chairlift season.
That scale does basically suggest that it’s really not worth booking if you don’t rate yourself as 3/3 or higher…
That is pretty-much the point. Anyone with an ability level less than 3 is not likely to enjoy a singletrack-focussed holiday in the Alps and should get in touch with us to discuss things before booking. Less than 3 on fitness is fine on chairlift weeks, but again is likely to lead to a lack of enjoyment on a more pedally week. We can and do make special arrangements for people with lower ability levels, but it's a lot easier to do so if we know about it well in advance!
Is it easy to post the Whiteroom ratings? Only on a mobile device here so can’t see it.
@scuttler:
(The sixes are not meant entirely seriously....)
Riding levels
Technical Ability:
1 - You're a new or very nervous mountain biker. You're happiest on wide, smooth trails like forest roads. At this level, riding in the Alps would be very tough, but we can potentially run beginners coaching weeks for groups if you're keen to learn mountain bike skills on easy trails with some help from the chairlifts.
UK Trail Example: Any forest road / landrover track which isn't too steep.
2 - You have some mountain biking experience and are happy on steeper, looser, forest-road type trails and you also enjoy riding easy singletrack, such as blue-grade or easy red-grade trail centre trails or scenic rides in the Lakes or Peak District. You generally get off and walk if there are big rocks or roots in the trail or if it gets steep. Singletrack trails at this level are generally smooth, but may have banked corners, rollers and small steps. At this level, your choice of terrain in the Alps would be limited, but get in touch with us and we may be able to arrange a group for you where it's more about scenic riding and enjoying the mountains than riding the steepest trails all day long.
UK Trail Example: Berm Baby Berm or Spooky Wood at Glentress, Llandegla red trail in Wales, Glenlivet red
3 - You're a regular rider at trail centres and you're happy on most red-grade trails. You may also enjoy riding natural trails with roots and rocks. You'll generally ride most features, but will get off and walk if it's very steep or if you come across big rock/root features. You might enjoy small jumps and drops. This is generally the minimum level to be able to enjoy our Alpine riding, but get in touch with us if you're not sure.
UK Trail Example: Most red and some easy blacks - e.g. Pennel's Vennel, The Pie Run at Glentress, Innerleithen Red, Coed y Brenin, BikePark Wales reds
4 - You've done a lot of mountain biking and are happy to tackle almost anything. You're happy on rocky/rooty trails and on moderate jumps/drops. You might draw the line at very steep and technical features with serious consequences if you crash or on bigger jumps and drops.
UK Trail Example: "Proper" blacks such as Laggan or Stainburn or Bike Park Wales. Steep and technical natural trails like Ben Lomond or The Golfie at Innerleithen.
5 - You're a very skilled and experienced rider. You know what to expect from Alpine terrain and you expect to be able to ride almost anything we can throw at you. You want to ride the steepest trails, the most technical features and the tightest switchbacks. If we ride the bikepark, you'll tackle most drops, doubles and gaps.
UK Trail Example: Not much! The steepest and nastiest trails at The Golfie, steep and technical sections on big mountains in the Lakes, Wales or Scotland.
6 - You make a successful living from riding bikes as a pro, racer, guide or coach. You'll be very surprised if the guides manage to keep up. Alex will be grumpy all week.
Fitness:
1 - You're not very fit, ride a big bike that doesn't go uphill or you flat out don't want to do ANY pedalling at all on your holiday. No worries, we can accommodate you on our chairlift-assisted Classic Singletrack weeks, but be aware that riding down 4000m+ in a day is pretty tiring in itself and that it can sometimes be necessary to do short pedals or pushes to access the best trails.
2 - You're fit enough to go out and ride your bike in hilly UK terrain for a couple of hours. You're prepared to pedal or push for a few minutes if it means accessing a great descent but you don't want to do any long climbs.
3 - You're fit enough to do half-day rides on a regular basis in hilly UK terrain. You'd be prepared to climb for up to an hour to access a great descent, but would prefer to use as much uplift as possible. This is generally the minimum fitness level for our Backcountry Enduro weeks.
4 - You're fit enough for big, all-day rides in the UK and you're happy to do some climbing on your holiday to get to the best, least-used trails. You don't mind if you end-up climbing for an hour or two most days, as long as there's more down than up!
5 - You're very fit and enjoy the climbs as much as the descents. You'd be really into tackling some big backcountry days with a lot of pedalling into remote terrain and you love the idea of our Summits Week.
6 - You're exceptionally fit, into long road rides, 24hr racing or endurance challenges. You expect the guides to be labouring in a sweaty mess behind you. Except Pat. Pat will be cruising alongside having a chat. Pat's weird.
Mbnut - it's kind of the whole point of this thread that mixed groups suck. The point is to find a holiday where you will only be put in a group with like-minded riders at a similar level. Not a trip where everyone who books that week rides together regardless of ability or fitness.
That scale is good, I am a 4/5. The 5 is solid/realistic the 4, well I am beyond a 3 but there are some bits of laggan black I just cant ride. Comfy on some golfie, not waterworld though. So maybe more a 3.6?
Good to know as planning a potential alps trip.
I struggled with the White Room system, because whilst I've ridden BPW, Llandegla and Coed-y-brenin I hadn't, at the time, ridden any of the Scottish stuff. So it's hard to know if you're a 2 or a 3.
As it happened the scores were moot because we got lumped in with a bunch who'd booked on a 4/5 week that got cancelled, so we were in the dunce class of a mixed ability group anyway.
I did a season guiding in Whistler in 2007 and it was an experience. Loads of people knew that Whistler was a great MTB destination but not everyone did the research to find out why! I mainly did 'XC' guiding so had guests going flat out uphill to try and put one down on the guide and show everyone how awesome they were. Only to suck on anything remotely technical on the descents (which is pretty well everything in Whistler). Those guests could be frustrating.
Others had hardly any technical skill. After the initial internal eye rolling and thinking 'why the **** are you here?!' they'd often end up being some of the better guests ironically enough. They couldn't care about beating down anyone else, and with some creative route planning which generally involved finding somewhere with an amazing view for lunch they really enjoyed themselves. On the way down we'd do something like 27 Switchbacks which is technically a climb trail but fine and low consequence for taking lesser skilled riders down. The riders didn't care that the rad do0ds probably thought it was lame, they were just enjoying a day out in the mountains. So yes, I generally enjoyed the slow or quirky riders the best!
Skills testing is a tricky one. I can ride plenty of double black trails in Squamish because they are 5 mins away from my door and I am used to the terrain and the grip. Put me on a wet rooty DH trail in Hopton Woods and I'd probably be all over the place these days. I also suck at jumping.
It's a good scale, although the inclusion of jumps/drops complicates it for me. I'm pretty sure I'd be a 4 if I'm allowed to keep my wheels on the ground, but I probably wouldn't touch a jump or drop that you'd class as "moderate".
Including actual trails as reference points is a very helpful, as without it, terms like "big feature" and "very steep" are hard to gauge. I know that my definition of these terms has changed significantly over the years as I've gained experience. Unfortunately, I've not ridden any of the trails listed under 4.
Others had hardly any technical skill. After the initial internal eye rolling and thinking ‘why the **** are you here?!’
There was a guy, on his own, in our group riding in Spain in 2011, he was fairly terrible tbh, was on a bike that was far too big for him, and not very fit either. We'd spend ages waiting for him on every descent, but the flat wee road blast back to the van at the end of each day, he'd absolutely pin it back like his hair was on fire, bizarre.
Anyway, he says to me at the top of a lovely techy descent - 'I really hate rocky descents'.
He'd been on holiday with that company 5 times. Mindboggling.
Nice way of assessing it. I'd say I'm 3/5, even if the 5 bit was a wee bit slower than some. At almost 61, I reckon that's a good excuse.
I'm sure there is a market out there for folk with level 2 or 3 skills who just want some interesting riding in a different sort of location too.
I’m sure there is a market out there for folk with level 2 or 3 skills who just want some interesting riding in a different sort of location too.
The 1 / 2 end does seem to be massively under catered, I'm a 3/4 I'd think on that whiteroom list, a few years ago I'd have gone with 4/4 but my comfort zone definitely shrunk following a few bumps top the point I now pull up short on things I'd used to have ridden blindfold. I'm a very accomplished downhill-carrier these days mind.
Certainly though I'd be happy with a good level 2 holiday but it seems as soon as you drop off the "crazy tech"* end of the scale it all turns into 5km bimbles on a flat fire road with no view.
As is I'm trying to sort a holiday for me but struggling to find something interesting but where I won't be in the way. I'm guessing I'll end up booking a room somewhere and just disappearing out the door, just be nice to be pointed in the right direction rather than ending up spending days missing all the interesting stuff.
The riders didn’t care that the rad do0ds probably thought it was lame, they were just enjoying a day out in the mountains.
Sounds pretty good to me!
I think its a good rating system, using UK trails as reference is a good idea. For the purpose of a guided holiday anywhere I'd rate myself as a 3. I'm happy riding fairly technical stuff here - Top Chief at Fort Bill, off piste round Glentress etc. But I'm shit at riding stuff blind.
On a holiday I'd probably rather ride stuff a bit below my limit and enjoy myself. You can always look for a daft line here and there without riding out your depth for a week and holding everyone in the group back.
Seems like a good system but hard to know how accurately you've gauged yourself until you get out there. I'd probably rate myself at a 4/4 BUT I was not fully confident at BPW riding the red big jump flow lines, but was happy enough on the red tech lines. Equally as happy at Laggan black, that trail was ace, as was the Black at Comrie Croft too.
I've only booked guided trips with friends before so we know each others levels and are happy to ride together, both times were with Basque MTB and I was happy with what we rode.
How has this turned into a succession of STWers humble-bragging about how awesome they are? I'd rate myself as 6 / 6 on that scale btw, but I do baulk at drops over 20 metres to flat ridden on sight 🙂
The only subtlety here is tech doesn’t necessarily equate to jumps. Lots of riders I know are very wheels on the ground, more than happy to face steep, rocky, loose but less so on jumps. Still, a decent grading system assuming a holiday is marketed as bike park oriented.
That's really a rather good scale. I suspect a lot of older riders are 3/5 because of the wheels in the air thing but have been riding natural stuff forever. I got got out on a skills day where I was just fine on difficult climbs/descents but bloused the jumps because I had not experience nor idea of how to tackle them. This scale would have helped place me much better
FYI Pennel's Vennel has been permanently closed for a while now.
You know, someone could probably develop a Strava app that took somebody's profile and looked for a variety of segments and have a rating based on times or speed through particular sections. You could cross reference the results against those of a bunch of riders of known competence in order to verify them.
timangus
You know, someone could probably develop a Strava app that took somebody’s profile and looked for a variety of segments and have a rating based on times or speed through particular sections. You could cross reference the results against those of a bunch of riders of known competence in order to verify them.
And here was I, naively thinking that we did all this riding stuff for fun. At least now I know why I’ve never been remotely attracted to organised mtb “holidays”. A few days away somewhere different with some mates, fine, but once it gets into all this “rating” bullshit then forget it as far as I’m concerned.
Or have I just become all old and curmudgeonly, in some way longing to be able to return to the good old, pre trail centre days? Soon we’ll all be given handicaps, like in golf...
I’m quite happy with the fact that there will always be people who can ride stuff better than I can, just as I can ride stuff better than a lot of other people. Same as everything else in life then.
And here was I, naively thinking that we did all this riding stuff for fun.
I think the entire point of being able to identify your riding ability is to maximise the fun for everybody involved.
I had similar on a Bike Skills day in the UK.
It was billed as a advanced skills days.
To be fair it was probably pretty simple for most people here but Im more of an XC rider.
You could go if you thought you were 'advanced' or if you had done the beginners course.
Anyway one of the guys had done the beginners course came, but he was also fairly old.
His level of skill was similar to the OP's description,
ie often still sitting down going downhill.
The rider did not seem aware of the this. Even for some quite simple rolls in, I didn't want to see him go down.
He was struggling with even starting far enough back to roll in comfortably.
Anyway I was starting to relax a bit more as he just seemed to be able to bumble through stuff.
But we got to a slightly steeper looser section and eventually he came off and I believe he broke his collar bone, it certainly looked that way. We walked him back to the car park to wait for the ambulance.
Maybe it was the company's fault to some extent, but Im not really sure why he came. He didnt even live far away he just needed to practice bimbling about a bit on his own, or in a small group.
The guide had said it earlier. Apparently they get alot of people who come along on the course's time and time again, even though what they need to do is just practice.
I'm sure it's been mentioned already, but the obvious answer is only go on a guided holiday with people you know and are comfortable riding with. Otherwise accept it's a lottery, understand that realistically it's not going to have a serious impact on the volume or intensity of your riding.
Did a holiday that would probably class as a 3 on these scales in that it was not really a singletrack with features type of holiday but more an xc point to point with some technical bits. It would suit the 1/2 but we picked a higher scale for this kind of trip and it featured a lot more climbing and distance but also had some fairly technical rocky descents. Just no gaps and drops. Compared to UK it would be black trail centre grading. Compared to alpine bike parks it's blue and fireroady even. Though epic scenery stuff.
So don't know what I'm saying really other than this was higher end of the scale offered for this trip but then it wasn't aimed at uplift downhill singletrack gnar, so to others it would seem tame but it's a different kind of riding. And group size 12ish I think with no need to split the group regardless of technical abilities so long as everyone can cope with long climbs.
You’ve done a lot of mountain biking and are happy to tackle almost anything. You’re happy on rocky/rooty trails and on moderate jumps/drops. You might draw the line at very steep and technical features with serious consequences if you crash or on bigger jumps and drops.
I liked it except for this part what's a moderate drop? Thats depends a lot on the preson you ask and their home terrain. 10cm or 1ft? what's large 1ft ot 3ft?
Have some riding buddy's you barrel down(20mph) a narrow track and there is a 1ft step up with a wet root at the edge that you approach at an angle(if you miss it its at least a 5ft drop down onto the tar road. I pointed it out as they where trailing me quite close. My mate, said sorry? as he didn't hear correctly and hadn't seen a feature anywhere(whilst half the days crowd walked the bit apparently).
Would say for me 3.5 quite confident but a wheels close to the ground rider, not a fan of jumping and certainly not gaps(hence my question higher)? Fitness 5 at least I'd probably quite like PAT
A few days away somewhere different with some mates, fine, but once it gets into all this “rating” bullshit then forget it as far as I’m concerned.
You're only saying that because you're a sub-3 rider and wouldn't be allowed on a STW group holiday 😉
You’re only saying that because you’re a sub-3 rider and wouldn’t be allowed on a STW group holiday 😉
True, nobody would invite me to go...
It would cause all sorts of data protection problems if not cautiously approached, but possibly a way round might be giving riders booking the same week the chance to contact each other and arrange to ride (well) before they leave with options to move booking as appropriate if they discovered they weren’t going to be at similar levels.
I can understand why this would be a huge headache for any holiday business as it’s rapidly heading for being a second business (a kind of ‘lonely rides’ club) but other than simply only going with people you already know it’s probably the best idea. The White Room grading scale above is probably the best compromise. While jumps and drops are divisive, it’s definitely useful for riders who prefer wheels on the ground to know ahead of booking if they are letting themselves in for mandatory and non rollable features- even if it does bruise egos. Better than finding out how good your extreme sports insurance is when you need to cover helicopter extraction and foreign medical systems...
TBH variable ability on jumps and drops is not a problem for holiday groups, you shouldn't really be paying for guiding to go to a bike park anyway IMO. And if you are, there will be alternative trails without those features.
Any jumps or drops on natural trails will be isolated features which can be chicken-lined or walked.
It's when riders can't deal with steep and/or rough trails - which make up a good portion of the riding - that skill differences become an issue.
And disparities in fitness can be even more of an issue, if the group's getting held up for ages by one or two very unfit members.
Good providers handle this well and I can vouch that Stevo and his team did exactly what he said above when me and a pal were lumped in with some lads who wanted less technical trails - so we got a guide just for the two of us to go and ride La Varda, Double Header etc. Win-win.
I've ridden in the Alps for a fair few years now and i have gone from a "not quite 3" on stevo's scale to solid 5-and-a-bit over those years! What a lot of people underestimate with big mountain riding is the exposure and duration of the trails, rather than the actual severity. I mean, i can happily nose endo my bike round an "impossible" 180deg turn in my local woods, but there if (when) i get it wrong, the worst i end up with is a trip into some nettles. In the Alps, there is a good chance that mess the same turn up, and you'll have time to ring the air ambulance before you hit the bottom. And of course, most UK trails are relatively short duration, in the Alps, you can be descending most of the day, and it's therefore significantly more physically tiring in addition to the extra mental fatigue!
With White Room, the first few years i was a "towards the back of the group" rider, but they had small groups and at least two guides, so the fast boys could get on with harassing the on-point guide, and the rest of the group would rapidly sort out it's own pecking order, tumbling down the mountain before the sweeper guide in a sort of "i'm a bit faster than you but i'm a bit slower than you" kind of way. As Stevo says, they always ran the first day as a "qualifier" (i think i crashed 3 times on Veni-vidi-vici that first year.... 😉 enabling them to sort out the wanna-be's (me back then) from the really decent riders, and to then reformat the group as necessary.
During those trips i would often see long chains of riders with other guiding companies, with something like 15 or 20 riders strung out following a single guide, and always though that looked, well, a bit pot-luck, (not to mention a bit risky should any intervention (medical or technical) be required by the guide.
BTW i think it's really important to not cofuse the ability to ride a bike park with riding natural terrain! Today, more and more of our bike parks are moving to flow trails with air time, but these trails are explicitly designed to flow at their natural speed, with well proportioned ramps, landings, gaps and step ups/downs that work at the speed of the trail. In general, it actually doesn't take that much skill to hit what would be considered a pretty large jump at a bike park. There's plenty of people i know that can hit and clear everything on say the A470 line at BPW, and yet, can't get their wheels even off the ground on a natural jump at say Afan, where it's bumpy, the lip is spikey and short, the landing invisible, and right before the jump theres a corner without a berm!
I can immagine a lot of riders who are right at home at BPW, but would be unable to even get down say La Varda, Double Header or Axe Wound in Les Arcs! Very, very different terrain and risk profile between what sounds a similar skill set...
On reflection, I think I may actually be a 7 on that scale.