TEAM headstrong gets it done in the dirt!

This past Sunday was Team Headstrong’s first (and definitely not last!) mountainbike skills clinic, held atGateway Park, behind Sunrift Adventures in TR. What a blast! We’re sorry that more members of the team weren’t able to make it., but we’ll do it again.

Deb, Jon and I met at the park at just after 8am, to set up the obstacles borrowed from Upstate SORBA. It’s amazing what you can carry in one hand when you just can’t let go of your coffee mug.

At 9am, Headstrong team members began to arrive and set up their bikes. Kristi borrowed a bike that Deb managed to score for her, Randall and Christina were on their own bikes (though Christina had bike envy by the end of the day. There are worse afflictions to have, we decided!), Perry showed up on a snazzy Specialized Epic, Bird on a ‘niner (you can climb trees on those things), Emily on something yellow and heavy which did not slow her down a bit (sorry Em, I don't remember what it was!) Deb on her very fast, very flashy Trek, and Steve and I on our Giant Anthems; a real motley crew of bikes.

Sam gets the fun started while Deb is fixing Kristi's pedals

We started working on basic balance on the bike, learned the skill of “ratcheting” which you don’t really use on a road bike, but is essential to staying upright in tight spaces on the trail. We had a “slow race” where we had to keep moving, towards the same end of the field, and the last one to get there was the winner.

From there we moved to wheelie-lifts, learning how to un-weight the front wheel to clear obstacles, and we practiced lifting our front wheels onto a box about 3 inches tall and then progressed to one about 6 inches tall. When everyone had mastered that, we moved onto the bunny hop, which is a lot of fun on a bike with some kind of suspension.

Emily crushes the Teeter-Totter first time around

The “teeter-totter” seemed to be the most intimidating of all the obstacles, but after two or three times, everyone was ready for a much bigger one. Piece of cake!

We spent some time moving through each obstacle on the field, teaching the correct way to shift body position for maximum traction and a smooth ride. Without exception, everyone mastered every obstacle there – it was great to see the confidence levels rising, and the “aha!” moments.

After every obstacle was checked off the list, we set up a continuous course, the idea being not to touch a foot to the ground, even if we had to wait for the person in front of us to keep moving. Everyone did a fantastic job, and made it look like they’d been doing it for years.

Teenie doing the shimmy on the skinny (real mountainbikers really talk like that.)

At about noon, we packed up and had some lunch, and then headed off to Paris Mountain State Park to put our newly-learned skills to practical use, and to learn some more that aren’t really teachable until you get to real situations. In the trails we learned skills like correct gearing and body position on short, steep, rooty power climbs, body position on tight descending switch-backs, and correct position for steep descents with some obstacles. It was great fun encouraging each other, and everyone did really well.

Perry getting his "dirt" on

It was a fun day, and I think, without exception, every one of us learned something new. The skills used in mountainbiking translates over to road cycling, and will help us all become better skilled road cyclists.

Powerbar : Power To Push

Thank you to Powerbar for providing nutrition for our event.