Everyone meet Will. Will’s the dude that you all just watched careen off the Steps on Prospector. Will’s a bad ass. This video was his make up class for Beginning Mountain Biking this past semester. When we rode this as a class he gave the same obstacle a go with similar results. Dude just keeps trying. It was also the second time he has taken this class from me.
(Un)Fortunately for him, depending on your perspective, it will be the last time he takes the class from me. The Mooseknuckler Cycling Alliance Youth Outreach program has been discontinued.
As a final raised glass to what was a good time, let me share with you what I learned as an instructor for Beginning Mountain Biking.
1. Girls do not like to stand up. Of course, they are exceptions to this rule but I have found that most of my female students would rather bounce down the trail with their butt on the saddle than stand up. I don’t get it. I tried often to teach the skill of “standing up” but some would just have nothing to do with it. Go figure.
Lesson to be gleaned – Stand up! It gives you the ability to control your center of gravity. If you are bouncing around, the bike is in control not you.
2. Boys will be boys, and boys aren’t very smart. As this class was taught to mostly teenage and early 20s kids, the boys would unsuccessfully try to impress the girls. Hilarious to watch, but out of the gate the boys would be competitive with each other to get the female’s attention. Through eight semesters, I only had one student that instead of taking off with the guys, rode with the girls. Not because he couldn’t keep up but rather that he wanted to ride with the girls. Pure genius.
Lesson to be learned – if you want to hook up with girls, don’t ride away from them.
3. College kids will do just about anything for extra credit. I learned this quickly and used it for my amusement. Extra credit was giving for cleaning sections of trail. I hand picked sections that had potential for failure. Climbing up the Acid Drops without stopping, for example. Or cleaning the entire tech section at the top of the Barrel Roll. The latter of course was so I could watch students wreck and/or Flintstone down moves.
Lesson here – not sure that there is one other than if you teach, extra credit should be used for amusement.
4. Watching college kids wreck is hilarious. One of my favorite wrecks of all times was coming back down Anasazi. The rocky section has some moves that have the potential for flight to be inflicted. I was leading the class and bombed this section so I could watch. There were about four students that were just behind me. I stopped and turned around just in time to watch a girl begin the launch over the bars. Her eyes were looking for anything that would help her and you could see the fear in her face as she went right over the bars. It’s of course funny because as college-aged kids, they bounce and get back up. Unless of course their name is PJ.
Lesson – ride with college kids and watch…
5. Flintstoning is a bad idea. You’ve all seen riders do this and many of you have probably done it too. College kids love the Flintstone. It’s their second favorite move. Second only to the “not standing up” trick. This move is done when a rider does not feel comfortable riding down something, but instead of dismounting they get in front of their saddle and try to walk down. Inevitably they catch a pedal or the bike takes off and they fall down. I’m not sure where this comes from, but it’s pretty awesome to watch.
Lesson – If you’re gonna walk, walk. If you’re gonna ride, ride. Don’t try and mix the two.
6. College kids are anything but self-reliant adults. Tell them to bring helmets, bike and water. They will show up with the bike. Send them an email with exact directions on how to get to a trailhead, they will not read it and assume they know where they are going and then take half the class with them to the wrong place. They have no idea how to use a computer or even their phone, which is surprising because they are always on it. I don’t use Apple products but based on my students emails, there is absolutely no way to attach multiple photos to one email from an iPhone or iPad. Try to explain to them that they can have their school email forwarded to their personal email. Then try to explain how to do it and watch their faces melt.
Lesson – make them learn to change a flat, if anything else they learned how to change a flat.
7. People are scared to be outside. Every semester, without exception, I had multiple students concerned about doing make up classes because they were scared to go biking alone. I had long, in-depth conversations about this with several of them and it’s just a fear of the outdoors. I didn’t even know that existed.
Lesson – this is kind of like dub step, I didn’t know it existed and now I do, but I still don’t understand it.
Anyway, I’m bummed that I will not be teaching mountain biking any more because I enjoyed doing it. I’m also stoked because I will now have two full days off work instead of one day off and one day teaching. I doubt that any one learned anything from me, but I learned a lot from trying to teach.
P. L. and R.