IS A SKILLS CLINIC WORTH IT?

AARON GWIN & DAKOTAH NORTON TEACHING AN OLD DOG NEW TRICKS

Words by Drew Rohde | Photos by Cheyenne Norton

Is a mountain bike skills clinic worth it? Can a veteran rider still learn? Absolutely! People tend to think they know all there is to know about a subject if they’ve been doing it long enough. Having just turned 42 years old, I’ve been riding a bike for over three decades now, with my first downhill mountain bike race taking place 27 years ago. The last 15 years I’ve been in the bike industry, professionally testing and riding bikes all over the world. Whether it be media camps; product launches or events like Crankworx, I’ve been fortunate enough to ride with some of the biggest legends of the sport. Heck, I’m lucky enough to even call some of them my friends.

This skills clinic wasn’t my first time riding with Aaron Gwin. In fact, I chased Aaron during his first-ever visit to Whistler, aboard a brand-new Trek Session I’d never ridden. Even though he’d never ridden the trail I knew fairly well, I was at full-on race pace just to keep him in sight, which may not come as a surprise. While I may have pushed some envelopes, I was mostly just holding on for dear life, and certainly not improving my race craft.

This was far from the first time I’ve bitten off as much as I could chew and tried to hold on. Over the years at product launches I’ve raced the sunset on cliffside trails behind Jackson Goldstone and Steve Peat. Ridden Val Di Sole with Sam Hill aboard a brand-new Specialized Demo and even done a Ft. William track walk with Brendan Fairclough as he scouted his race lines. All that to say, I have been exposed to lines, speed and skills that most mortals can not comprehend. Sadly, not much rubbed off on me from these encounters, lost in the moment or my comprehension failing me. That was until this clinic.

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WHY IS A SKILL CLINIC IMPORTANT?

If you’re wondering why a skills clinic is so important, or if you’d learn more than if you just go out and ride with people faster than you, I’ll break it down into some easy chapters. Much the way my instructors Aaron Gwin and Dakotah Norton did.

• Safe, repeatable progression
• Time to absorb, examine and practice
• Experienced and skillful advice
• Supervision and feedback in real time

IN PRACTICE

Something that Aaron and Dakotah were both very passionate about is safety and risk management. We’re obviously well-aware that mountain biking is a dangerous sport, especially downhill racing. For most riders, being hurt is an inconvenience – it sucks and we can’t ride our bikes. For pro athletes, it means they can’t work! So it’s no wonder they want to go as fast as possible while preserving their money makers, so to speak.

As I mentioned above, I’ve ridden with faster riders than me. There’s plenty of them! When it comes to guys like Dakotah and Aaron, I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t safely keep up with them riding at their 60%. This is why riding with someone faster than you is not necessarily the best way to progress. It just forces you outside your comfort zone in terms of speed, without teaching you the important skills: line selection, technique and more.

BRAKING WITH PURPOSE | This is one of the most important lessons I took away. It was also something Dakotah really, really hammered on. Many riders want to keep a finger on the safety blanket and trail-brake the whole way. There are a few reasons (Dak and I discuss them in the video) why this is a problem, but it’s something so many riders are guilty of, myself included. We get scared. We want to keep speeds manageable. However, what I learned is that, we should only brake when we’re ready to brake hard. “You’re either accelerating or your braking, there is nothing in between,” was something we heard Dakotah say countless times during the course.

By getting off the bike, instead of just chasing a fast rider, we were able to examine braking points, places of good traction for slowing down and changing direction to open up corners for maximum exit speed. This concept worked towards the goal of “Building Speed” as Aaron called it.

Having these two coaches set up cones, showing us where to stay off the brakes, where to grab them hard, compress and turn the bike and where to exit and resume our speed building was very useful. It’s something that I had only witnessed fast riders do in front of me up until this point, without understanding how they keep gapping me corner after corner. When you get off the bike, watch a demo in real time and then get to practice it with their watchful eyes giving you points to work on, you can quickly feel speeds and confidence increase while also realizing you’re now going faster, and with less risk.

This coaching and dissection of both lines and technique happened numerous times as we rode down a couple of tracks at Windrock Bike Park. Each section was unique and presented riders with options. Some good, many less than good. These are the lines the majority of riders end up in, and are likely the ones we’d naturally find as gravity and a lack of discipline would funnel us, away from the checkered flag. Discipline to slow down, brake forcefully and realize that it’s the fastest rider out of the turn, not into the turn are things some students struggled with a lot more than others. We have the tendency to enjoy speed and going fast and then, we realize halfway through a corner that we’re going to fast and either need to skid, drop a foot or slam the rear end into a berm to scrub speed. All of which mean we totally blew our exit speed and at least a few tenths of a second.

This is where having the time to casually repeat sections multiple times with instant feedback from the coaches helped us. We could experiment with lines, braking power and feeling the exit speed build after we learned to be patient and disciplined. This is also not something you get by just following a fast rider down a trail.

SHOULD YOU INVEST IN A SKILLS CLINIC?

I have wanted to attend a clinic like this for years now, and all I can say is, I wish I did it sooner! The knowledge I gained, the memories made and good times are invaluable, and I can’t wait to attend another camp, preferably with Aaron and Dakotah again. I’ve been home for a couple of weeks now, and even on the local trails that I know well, I’ve been able to pick up seconds and exit corners faster than I ever have. The discipline they taught me is still there, and I have new mantras as I attack the trails ahead. “Brake with purpose,” “Am I slowing down or accelerating?” and “Build speed for the exit,” are on repeat as the trail moves in front of me.

There are just too many valuable lessons that I took away from this class to share, but one lesson that seemed like a light bulb moment took place at a rock garden left-turn that we spent a lot of time at. Aaron’s lesson here will likely change my riding for the better in the future.

While staring at a critical left-hand turn with the option of a rideable but chunkier inside line that ended into a sharp corner, or a less exciting longer outside line that was 20 feet longer, I asked Aaron what to do. Aaron and Dakotah hiked up to their bikes and dropped in to show us the difference. We all agreed the inside line looked cooler and was more fun to ride, but Aaron on the longer line exited the turn into a long straightaway with way more speed. This meant he gapped the rider on the “cooler” line.

Even after that example I still struggled with which line I wanted to work on. Aaron sealed the deal when he asked, “If you absolutely nail the inside line, how much faster do you think it will be? Not more than 2/10ths of a second,” he quickly stated. He continued, “Now, if you were to drop into this corner at race pace, how many times out of five would you absolutely nail that inside line without a flat, damaging your rim, or blowing all your exit speed? Next, ask yourself how many times you could hit that outside line without an error. The answer to which line you should race is which line can you hit most repeatably and safely. And let’s not forget you’re only talking about the difference being 1 or 2/10ths of a second between a riskier line or an easier line. Trust that you can make that up in a straightaway or a lower-consequence part of the track. Riders can easily get hung up staring at this section for way too long and forget there’s only 1 or 2/10ths of a second here! We should pick a repeatable line and move to another part of a track where we can gain more time, safely. That’s how we focus on winning races.”

BIGGEST LESSONS LEARNED

I drove away from my two-day clinic with so much newfound knowledge, skills and great memories, that it’s hard to trim them up. But the above lesson about repeatability and not focusing too much time on one small, consequential bit of track is near the top of my list. The other major lessons I keep repeating to myself are exit speed is everything, and brake with purpose. I’m finding myself braking much harder now, and in better spots before the corner. This is allowing me to navigate and hold my desired lines much easier than I had before. It’s also allowing me to gap or reel in riders on the trail with me. Seeing the benefits on home trails was as exciting as trying them out on foreign terrain at Windrock, if not more!

To take a quote from a very different world but one that I find applies very much in mountain biking, “Slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.” By having discipline, using my brakes aggressively and thinking more about exiting the corner than entering it, my riding will only improve until I have the chance to attend Part 2 of the Aaron Gwin and Dakotah Norton Race Clinic.

If you’d like to experience a camp for yourself, check out the calendar of events at windrockbikepark.com