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Coach Virginia had a blast with Taylor, who was in town for a dental conference.
“Awesome group! Erica got me set up with a lesson super fast, picked an awesome area to practice skills I wanted to improve, and recommended a great bike shop for a rental. Virginia was an awesome coach who really knows their stuff! Highly recommend to anyone who wants to improve their skills in the Park City area.”
“A great experience being coached by Erica. My personal coaching session covered drills, skills and plenty of one-on-one evaluation. I can't say enough about how much I learned and how highly I recommend trying a clinic or personal session with one of their coaches. Invest in yourself and feel more confident on the trails!!”
This mother daughter duo ride together frequently (how rad is that?!). Diane & Tessa wanted to work on front and rear wheel lifts, manuals, and bunny hops, and then drops. They had a successful first session and they are returning for a second session with @vsolomon36 in 2 weeks! So stoked to see where they take these skills.
Amber wanted to learn how to ride drops with skill (not just luck) as well as learn to ride UP steep rocks (preparing for desert riding). We rode UP and DOWN everything! She is such a strong rider with thousands of miles and many years of riding under her belt. She is super stoked to have a whole new set of skills to smooth out her mountain AND desert riding!
Jené &Brad are some of our favorite local residents. Jené recently got into mountain biking and she has taken it on in a very real way. Last year she took a group clinic with Women in the Mountains and later in the summer she raced the Park City Point to Point! She and her rad fiancé have been doing some local racing and they were ready to be faster though the corners and switchbacks. Coach Virginia worked with them on braking, vision and other ways to get them in and out of corners efficiently. So if they win any prizes at these upcoming races, Virginia gets first dibs! (J/K)
Today we had such incredible flow at our clinic. Everyone was eager to learn and had very positive mindsets. We covered a lot of material and the women handled it all smoothly.
We love days like today!!! Coaches: Kristen & Erica
Kristen, Rebekah, Georgia, Stephanie, Erica, Laura, Lydia, LaRobyn
Janet (grandmother of 5!) had a private session and absolutely rocked it! She has been riding mountain bikes (quite well) for a few years and was ready to add some skills to her quiver. She was quick to respond to the new skills and was surprised how dynamic she could be on the trail!
Such a blast with the @backcountry 2019 interns and their brand new, beautiful bikes! 2 of them had ridden mountain bikes before and the others never had. @wedgeshelly & @ericatingey enjoyed teaching them how to ride safely and skillfully as well as how to take care of their demo bikes. We are hoping they are inspired to buy bikes and continue to ride when they return to school (and work) in the fall! Hooray for bikes and the people we get to meet while riding them!
Our returning client and super-star endurance athlete, Lauren, had a private session with Virginia this week. Lauren races mountain bikes and compete in trail running races.
Virginia and Lauren had an awesome time, and saw some great improvement in Lauren's cornering, particularly her downhill switchbacks! She got a lot more confident cornering at speed, and could feel when she was doing things right vs using her old habits, which is what we really care about!
Lauren said her biggest take aways were learning about the brake zone, being smooth and consistent with feathered rear braking, looking ahead, and turning her hips when she turns.
Here is a quick recap of her athletic successes:
Mountain biking -Finished 5th in 30-39 CAT 1 (first CAT 1 race) at Sea Otter Classic 2019
-4th place podium finish at 2019 Intermountain Cup Cactus Hugger in women’s elite division
-Finished 6th in age group at MTB Nationals in 2018
-Finished 4th overall at 2018 MidWeek MTB race series in pro/expert category (first time racing in that category)
Trail Running:
-Finished 18th at 2019 USATF Trail Run 1/2 Marathon National Championships -Finished 3rd open woman at USATF sanctioned Sandy City 4th of July 5k and improved my 5k time by 10 seconds! (18:44)
-1st Female and 2nd overall at 2019 Arches 9k trail run
-Finished 19th at 2018 XTERRA Trail Run World Championships
This weekend we had another fantastic group! There was a huge variety of skill levels: some very experienced riders ready to take it up a notch and a couple of never-evers! Our coaches worked with the clients to develop the skills right where they needed it. In the afternoon, we split into 3 groups and taught each one appropriate (and fun!) skills. Later this week we’ll share more details about each group.
Private session report from coach Shelly: “It was really exciting to get another chance to coach and ride with Somai today. She attended one of our clinics last year and has really put in some time practicing and getting comfortable on her bike.
Today we were able to build her confidence on steeper climbs and descents and her ability to roll through rock gardens!
Way to go Somai, keep up the great work.”
Coach Shelly had a great morning with Charmaine and Lisa! They had a lot of practice working on slow speed switchbacks; breaking down the steps to be more efficient with braking and line choice. Then they took to the trail to test out their new skills! It is so much fun seeing how much these women improved over the past two sessions. Keep up the great riding!
Coaches Virginia and Shelly had a great time coaching the advance riders in their second session! They were more than ready to take their new skills of getting their wheels off the ground from the bike park to the trail!They practiced several of the drops on the Bobs Basin trails, and even got in some good high speed cornering and switchbacks. So much fun to watch the confidence and high skill levels improve even more.
Cornering clinic and we found the most gorgeous scenery possible! It was a small group of very strong and experienced riders. They were challenged on varying shapes of corners. So fun to watch them gain skill while flowing smoothly.
Yvonne traveled from Cody, Wyoming to take two private sessions with us this week. She is a rad mountain biker who has signed up for her first Enduro Race this summer. The first day she worked with Shelly, who challenged her to maximize her bike and body separationso she could flow smoother and faster over really technical terrain. The second day she worked with Erica on cornering and switchbacks. Her skills were already great, we just fine tuned them to help her gain speed and confidence as she begins her racing. As a side note, Yvonne is a budding stand up comedian with mountain bike related material (very funny, we got small previews)!
On Wednesday we had a great clinic with some women who brought some different skill sets and experience levels to our week day cornering clinic.It was really exciting to see our newer riders learn to separate their body from their bike and not only roll up and over rocks and curbs, but lean the bike to start taking corners at faster speeds.In addition, our more experienced rider was learning to incorporate better pressure control, timing with braking, and line choice throughout the corners. Super Cool. We are anxious for next week to see how their practice is coming along!
Our drop clinic this week was such a blast! This group of women already had excellent timing and balance. We just developed the the specific timing of when to get the wheels off the ground. We started with small drops and progressed to the larger drop by the end of the night! They sent it so confidently and safely! Can’t wait to watch them fly again next week.
First time on dirt for these women! Shelly coached the Intro to mountain biking and these women were thrilled to find out what their bikes can do! They were all very surprised that they could ride over curbs and small rock gardens on their first day! Smiles all around and another session next week!
We started our 2019 clinic season with a wonderful group session last Saturday.
Check out the beautiful riding the women did over the weekend. We had a wonderful group of women and we covered a lot of skills. So happy to know they can ride safely and now have more fun on their bikes!
