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Has anyone been on one of their courses (private or group), and what was it like?
Any other recommendations for skills courses in Tweed Valley?
Been off the bike for a year due to illness and thought it best to start off again properly and try and rid all the bad habits!
I rode with SPD's for nearly 20yrs on rigid and hardtails, then in 2011 invested in a full suss to help with the back pains etc. With the new found ability to tackle anything without having to carefully pick a decent line, the spd's got me into quite a few nasty spills!! So I changed to flats just before I took ill and it seemed like a whole different ball game to me - hence the reason to start from scratch with flats and proper instruction.
Any recommendations will be appreciated - cheers 🙂
Excellent - good value too. Andy is a lovely knowledgable guy. His courses are a very enjoyable chilled afair - you can't go wrong
Double post
+1 for Ridelines,
They offer great local knowledge and the courses are really analytical to improving skills. Andy and the team have a relaxed teaching technique as well as great skills on 2 wheels!
well worthwhile.
Yeah do it. Andy is a great bloke and knows his stuff. You won't regret it.
I'm going to be lazy and C & P the review I left for Ridelines on Tripadvisor...
Just spent the weekend with Ridelines on a 2 day intermediate course after my brother recommended it to me.
Been mountain biking for about 3 years now and I felt my riding had plateaued to the point where I wanted to try the more difficult stuff but I was "surviving" each ride rather than enjoying it. My more experienced riding buddies were leaving me behind and the worst thing was I had no idea how to improve.
I booked the two day course and I cant recommend it highly enough if you really want to improve your skills on a mountain bike. Andy who owns the company has a great instructing style that others could learn a lot from (I say this from the postion of a qualified waterski instructor) He breaks down riding techniques and skills into bite sized chunks that are easy to understand and achieve on a step by step basis. Over the two days he pinpointed where I was going wrong, identified the bad habits (or poor techniques) that I had acquired and gave me the tools to progress in my riding.
This isnt a quick fix and I'm still no Danny Hart but I know now where I was going wrong but by practising the new techniques I was taught i know my riding will progress and I will enjoy tearing down the side of ountains with a grin rather than a grimace!
Thanks guys - sounds like they are worth a shot
I've been out with Ridelines (a short course courtest of the Bike Chain) and Dirtschool (a "trail highschool" and a half-day solo). Both get my recommendation tbh...
I reckon Andy Weir at Dirtschool is the better teacher- he managed the class better, but also he's got an excellent conversational, relaxed manner. I suppose I'd say he had the better curriculum and taught through it extremely well.
On the other hand, I reckon Andy Barlow's possibly the better [i]coach[/i]- especially working solo with him. More performance-oriented. Going to him with your own goals would get good results. But I didn't feel their class structure was as good, it seemed to wander off-target a bit and he didn't deal very well with the mixed skills levels (one person was just on the wrong course, but instead of resolving that, he let them soak up much more coaching time, and changed the course to suit that one person- at the cost of the other 5- not brilliant. A difficult situation to be fair- Ridelines didn't have to deal with that but I'd bet money Andy W would handle it well)
However the quality of the coaching was still excellent despite that, and still very worthwhile, and the solo course I did was superb (but absolutely knackering, we never stopped!)
So I guess it depends what you want. I'd choose Ridelines over Dirtschool for what you describe I think, if you're doing a class. If you're doing solo, I can't really comment on Ridelines but Dirtschool really shone at that. If I really wanted to get faster for races, I'd go to Dirtschool I reckon.
But either one will do you right, I'd happily recommend either and will go again to one of them this year I think, haven't decided who.
That's great, thanks for your input Northwind 🙂
I think Northwind meant [b]Andy Weir at Ridelines[/b] instead of Andy Weir at Dirtschool.
Can't comment on Dirtschool but reviews are very good. I did a course with Andy (Ridelines, former Mb7) and was great.