Mark's session - Saturday 20th 2010

We arrived at Lotts Wood to a typical chilterns morning of a light rain, but unperterbed we set about the job at hand of running through the basics of body position before taking shelter in the trails as the weather set in.
At the first section to play on of the day, I demonstrated the cornering technique, keeping you weight on the outside foot. Mark instantly picked up on this and took little notice of the root on the apex of the turn.



After a couple of runs round this corner we carry on round the course through a series of s-bends, allowing Mark to put his practice to good use. At one point over a wet root the back end steps out but due to Marks commitment and good technique this does not even cause a moments hesitation... Well done... Easy when you know how eh?

Onto a real test for Mark and at first glance questioned "do we go down there??" Yup we do. A run through of the technique applied and a demonstration, Mark steps up rolls up to the lip and is away. I see Mark coming back up for another run beaming and exclaiming "Wow, it really went then". After each run Marks confidence grew and his lines became more confident and smoother.



Over to the main bombhole for some "pumping" practice to get free speed from the terrain although tough to get the feel due to the squelchy trails, so to build the technique we move over to the other side and along the root run to practice manuals across the roots.



Once mastered Mark looks into the main bombhole and asks if we can ride through the whole loop "of course" I say. So we ride through together first Mark following me, then we swap round for another go.
We focus on the entry to the section which is a technical drop to berm corner trying a few lines to get it right, each time flowing through the rest of the bombhole and out the otherside.



We hit a final long corner that allows some real body position practice as you are holding the corner for a Loooooonnng time. As Mark picks up speed he tells me "I can feel the bike really gripping"

We head back to the cars for some technique practice, and some homework drills - Pumping on the flat, bunneyhops and wheelies. We run through each in turn getting the basics right so that next time I see Mark out on a ride I will make sure he has been doing his homework