Off Road training day Fri 19th /Sun 21st Jan 2018

[Bonnielad]

I've been toying with this idea for a while now so let me put it out there to gauge your reaction:

When we have our weekend trail riding days it soon becomes obvious that some of us have considerably less ability than others, but all we do is ride the trails and try our best to keep up with the 'big boys'.
It occurred to me that we would benefit from some kind of off road training day to practice the technicalities that we are lacking. Such as:
Hopping over a log.
Successfully riding a rut.
Slow, tight turning circles.
Spinning the back wheel up to turn in a tight space.
Big steps (Uphill and descent).
Wheelies(?)
Whatever other weaknesses we might have.

For this to work we need:
A) A suitable venue on which to ride.
B) A suitable place to eat, meet and sleep.
C) Enough willing teachers.
D) Enough willing students.

Venue first. Some of us have been lucky enough to ride a big hill near Dave Burrow's home LLanfyllin in Powys, Dave is going to ask the landowner if we can use that. It is highly likely he will agree.

Dave's house isn't big enough to accommodate us all but on the outskirts of the village is the LLanfyllin Workhouse. To give you some idea of it's location (distance from home) the postcode is SY22 5LD. Here is the response to my enquiry:

Hi Steve,
The event you're planning sounds like a lot of fun, we'd love to accommodate you and your group.
The bunkhouse has 24 beds in 3 rooms (12 bed: 8 bed and 4 bed), a self catering kitchen/dining room and mixed sex toilet and showers. We also have ample parking away from the main road close to the bunkhouse so there's plenty of room for your bikes. There's also 6.5 acres of gardens and grounds for you to enjoy, including a fire pit and cob oven, which your group may want to make use of?
We can offer you catering options, for example, a recent group enjoyed a full cooked breakfast for £8 per head. There's also 3 pubs in town offering food, a café/take away, fish and chip shop and a rather fine restaurant, so there's plenty of options for food. We normally open only open our bar for larger events as we struggle to cover cost for smaller groups, but the 3 pubs up town will be pleased to see you!
We normally ask £15pppn for the bunkhouse, which includes duvet/pillow and bedding so no need to bring anything with you. If you book the whole bunkhouse I can offer you a 10% group discount, making it just £13.50pppn. We ask £15 per night for live in vehicles and £5 per tent per night based on 2 sharing.
We're now taking bookings for 2018. We normally open in March, but would consider opening earlier for a group booking. The bunkhouse is heated so you'll be cosy warm in there whatever the weather outside!
..................................................................................................................................................................................................
So not to clash with other events in the Calendar, I suggest the weekend of February 10th.
The success of this idea is completely reliant upon the goodwill of our better riders if they are willing to give up their time to help us lesser mortals. riders such as Minter (obviously), possibly a recent 'Silver Medal' winner, and possibly Deadgrass, Oily Rag, maybe Andrew and Arceye? (I'm being careful here not to leave out or offend anyone).
I would also like to suggest that if these lads are prepared to give up their time for us, perhaps the 'students' ought to pay towards the trainers accommodation as a thank you?

OK chaps. Over to you. Give me some feedback.

[mt bandit]

thats the weekend of the Dragon Steve , any chance of rescheduling ? if so count me in

[geoffbarnett]

Great idea. I'll be there.

[Minter]

Yep! Me too Steve.. which ever date you choose..

[Steve M]

I’d love to attend this- I keep meaning to join a meet, but every time I see people’s videos I bottle it as I think I would slow everyone down

[Bonnielad]

At the moment this is just an idea for everyone to chip in with their opinions. Absolutely no problem in changing the date, lets just say the following weekend, so Saturday 17th?
There shouldn't be anything wrong with just practicing all day. No pressure, no deadlines, no trying to keep up. Just practice the skills we need.
If anyone is on road tyres or are frightened of hurting their bike (e.g. because they need it to get home) I have no problem in sharing my bike.

[lardmarc]

No pressure, no deadlines, no trying to keep up. Just practice the skills we need.

If you could guarantee 'NO punch ups' I'd be interested.

[Minter]

We used to do all of this on the bike courses I used to run back in the Army days..

We used to do the following:

Up hills
down hills
recovery on a hill! when you have crashed doing the above!
Obstacle crossing including water, roots, logs.
Body positioning and confidence riding!
But before any of that lot how to prepare your bike for off road riding.. TP's etc etc!

Should be fun, ill bring plenty of levers!

[deadgrass.]

Sound's good Steve count me in,
Not sure l could teach anything (maybe how to land )

Dave.

[Bonnielad]

Dave: I'm already expert enough at that.
Doug: I thought we was all growed up now. Thanks to Bunker being a good parent hopefully that's history.
Judging by the response so far we could be onto a winner. Keep the comments coming.