Need help with confidence

PB Forum :: Downhill
Need help with confidence
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flag BenSheil
Posted: Oct 20, 2016 at 16:08 Quote
Okay people, I'm stuck in a bit of a sticky situation at the moment.

I've reached the stage where I have completely learned the basics of MTB - take me to a trail center, stick me on blue and red trails and feel like I'll bomb my way down them - and now I need to start moving onto more difficult trails, both in terms of technicality, gradient and size of features (jumps and drop offs). However, I'm not confident at all when it comes to riding that stuff.

I've realised that all my fears on the bike boil down to the fear of going over the bars. It's most noticeable when it comes to riding drop-offs (as much as I feel ashamed to say it, I can barely go over a 2 ft flat drop-off with confidence), but it's also hindering when it comes to riding sections with a steep gradient, and also larger jumps - and almost anything which isn't a tabletop. This is very annoying as I have trouble riding more gnarly trails, yet basic trail center trails can seem pretty boring.

Can anyone give me any advice for improving my confidence? Thanks Smile
flag bigburd
Posted: Oct 21, 2016 at 5:08 Quote
If I was you I would find some doubles and gaps that are on par with blue/red table sizes just to get over the whole gap mental block thing, maybe make your own some where if you can't find any.
Also riding with some one who is comfortable with riding blacks but is the same speed roughly as you on the reds, or maybe slightly faster / more confident than you
flag BenSheil
Posted: Oct 21, 2016 at 7:52 Quote
bigburd wrote:
If I was you I would find some doubles and gaps that are on par with blue/red table sizes just to get over the whole gap mental block thing, maybe make your own some where if you can't find any.
Also riding with some one who is comfortable with riding blacks but is the same speed roughly as you on the reds, or maybe slightly faster / more confident than you

Thanks. I'm actually in the process of designing/building my own mini-bikepark in my back yard. The first thing I'll be building will be a dirt jump so I'll be sure to build a double or a gap instead of a tabletop and then hopefully that will help.

My riding partner is as you described. When it comes to riding blues and reds he's goes around the same speed as me - if anything I'm actually faster than him, but he's MUCH more comfortable at riding blacks to the point that it doesn't really help me out at all and I just slow him down a bit.
flag DrOzone
Posted: Oct 22, 2016 at 9:38 Quote
Why not practice the drops at the bike park at Glentress- there's 3 with increasing height? Also table tops and jumps- sounds like you would get more benefit in that environment than doing the trails. The red trail is more of a blue anyway and the black is about the same as the red at Inners. In fact outside of the bike park you aren't going to find much of what you want- go to Inners and practice on Make or Brake and Caddon Bank but please do not hang about the other side of the drops at Caddon Bank- continue down a bit and then back up the top of the push up track- they are blind until it's too late and people come tanking down with complete commitment.
flag BenSheil
Posted: Oct 24, 2016 at 11:24 Quote
DrOzone wrote:
Why not practice the drops at the bike park at Glentress- there's 3 with increasing height? Also table tops and jumps- sounds like you would get more benefit in that environment than doing the trails. The red trail is more of a blue anyway and the black is about the same as the red at Inners. In fact outside of the bike park you aren't going to find much of what you want- go to Inners and practice on Make or Brake and Caddon Bank but please do not hang about the other side of the drops at Caddon Bank- continue down a bit and then back up the top of the push up track- they are blind until it's too late and people come tanking down with complete commitment.

Thanks. Yeh there's 3 drops at the Glentress freeride park, I could probably do the first one if I really committed (yes, that's how little confidence I have), but there's no way I could do the other two. It's quite a weird thing I have with jumps. I have times when I'm pretty confident - easily being able to clear all the tabletops at glentress, but there's some times were I just completely lack confidence, and my confidence affects my ability so even if I do decide to commit to the jumps when I'm not feeling confident, I'll almost always hit them wrong and almost go OTB.

I have a love/hate relationship with Inners. The whole reason why I'm wanting to improve my confidence and ability is so I can reach a stage were I can ride inners fine. Right now, well, I've not been to inners for a few months because the last two times I went there I ended up in A&E.

Although speaking of Inners, I did have a little plan. Do you think I could find a really quiet trail at Inners or the golfie or somewhere and then just repeatedly go up and down that, or even sections of that trail? I think if I spent a day doing repetitive practice on something I'm not overly comfortable at, it would really help me - I've not really had a chance to do that type of practice before.
flag DrOzone
Posted: Oct 24, 2016 at 15:53 Quote
It's quite funny- I was speaking with someone today about confidence and saying that I will make moves in climbing where someone could objectively look at it and think death whereas for me it's fine and I know I will make it but yet I will slow down on a bike thinking ooh, might break my leg off that tree lol. A lot of that comes from experience- I've only been riding a couple of years myself whereas I've climbed all my life so I think that has a lot to do with your issue. You need to experience enough deviations of jumping/ drops until those engrams are second nature.

One thing you could do is pay for some tuition- may seem expensive but a better investment than say carbon bars. Sessioning is ok if your technique is sorted but it's hard to say if yours is or if it's just a mental thing.

I've not ridden all the trails at the Golfie yet but i don't think it is as controlled an environment as Inners.

Where did you injure yourself at Inners? Sounds like you shouldn't be anywhere near the Matador unless you want to end up in traction for 6 months ;-).
The top section of Make or Break is not that popular and has a couple of gap jumps that are roll-able then jump-able as you gain more confidence.
The middle section would also be good to work too as has some smaller gap jumps and two larger ones that you can work up to- they either need to be hit at speed or rolled pretty slowly- in between speed is asking for trouble due to the depth and angle (on the larger ones).
If you can get down on a weekday it can be very quiet- maybe not Fridays but I really recommend the top and middle section of Make or Brake although you will have to remain vigilant for others

Also, you could do the first drop on Caddon bank then ride the chicken line on the other two if you aren't confident on them but I think Make or Brake top and middle would be better to session given what you say.

You aren't too far from Kinnoull as well which is another area where you can work skills- it has a decent bike park with 4 drops and 4 table tops and some of the trails have decent drops. It's local enough for me these days so if you want a guide let me know.
flag BenSheil
Posted: Oct 28, 2016 at 12:14 Quote
Thank you. One thing I keep telling myself is that my confidence will come with time because I've only been riding for a couple of years, but I also keep telling myself to stop using that as an excuse. I have also hypothesized that a possible reason for my lack of confidence could be the size of my bike. I have an XL frame, but because I'm still just an average sized teenager I don't know if a medium sized frame would be better for me, I can only just place my feet on the ground when I'm mounted on my bike. Tuition is also something which I'm considering, I'm thinking about Dirt School but I'll need to look further into what specific course I should do.

My first crash at Inners was on Make or Brake. I tried hopelessly to hit a double jump, but I didn't quite clear it, bounced off the second bump and was launched OTB down the other side of the jump, fracturing both my radial head and my confidence in the process. I couldn't quite say where my second accident was, but it was at the end of a trail coming onto a fire road - the trail ended with a drop off, and obviously due to my extreme lack of confidence I made the rookiest of rookie mistakes that is possible on a bike and I slowed down too much at the top of the drop, and then went OTB down it.

Make or Break did seem good until I ended up in the dirt. I'll try to have a few sessions on Make or Break at Inners over the next few weeks, I'll see how that goes for me. Another location I recently discovered this week which seemed pretty decent was Cambusbarron. There were quite a lot of jumps there, ranging from sizes and types. I didn't get a chance to experience all the trails there, but a couple of the trails I did try seemed pretty decent and it's definitely a location I could return to for practice.

I also had a look at Kinnoull and it seems like it would be pretty good, I'll have to get myself up there sometime soon and check it out. As well as that, I'm hopefully looking at Dundee Uni next year, and Kinnoull seems like it would be a very good location for me if I went there, so I'll need to see what it's all about because it could be quite a frequent riding location for me this time next year. Also thanks for offering to guide me, I'll let you know if I need that Smile
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