If you’re going to go out during the week to fill the long gap between weekend rides, then chances are it’ll be Wednesday night that’s your weekday ride night. With that in mind we’re going to be bringing you a small gem of wisdom (on training or technique) to take out on the trail with you, so that even if you only work at it for ten minutes you’ll come back from the ride a better rider than you went out.

Our first nugget from the skill mine is a very simple piece of homework, but one that’ll tell you a whole lot about your riding and prepare you to make massive gains very quickly.

Concentrate on your weaknesses, your strengths will look after themselves.
Quite simply, we want you to think about what aspects of riding you always try and avoid, or see as your weakest link. Work out what is really holding you back and resolve yourself to targetting those weaknesses.

Ignore them and they’ll become even harder to beat, but start working on them now and you’ll have them licked by the time the clocks go back to summer time.
As Yoda said “there is no try, only do” so a positive attitude is essential to achieving the seemingly impossible. We’re not suggesting you try and drag you Clydesdale mate and his budget full suspension bike out of the swamp purely through mind power while standing on your head, but if you know what your weakness is already, then spend the rest of today working through how you can manage it. Try and see what it will look like, and feel like, whether it’s getting the balance point of a wheelie, rolling over the edge of a drop off or powering up a technical climb. You know what to do right and probably what to do wrong, so start switching your wrong moves for right moves in your head before you even get out there and it’ll be a whole lot easier.

Obviously everyone will have different strengths and weaknesses but if there’s anything that really troubles you slip into our confessional and we’ll do our best to enlighten you as soon as we can.

Now stop staring out the window aimlessly, and start staring out the window with real purpose!

Coach P