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Women's MTB Skills Clinic |
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Written by M. Longhofer
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Tuesday, 02 September 2008 |
Women's Mountain Bike Skills Clinic
I was approached late spring about leading a novice women's skills clinic, initiated by Calvin Weeks from I.M.B.A., sponsored by L.L. Bean, and to be held at Bradbury Mountain State Park. I jumped at the chance since I love to mt. bike and I'm a fan of the idea of getting as many women out on the trail as possible. I also can appreciate and have heard a few women say that they would love to gain more skill on the mt. bike, but many of them have no one other than a boyfriend or spouse to ride with that, no offense fellas, are not always the picture of patience. I'm convinced that more women would be out on the trail if they had patient and willing teachers to help them along. So, with that in mind, I enlisted the help of former teammate, Kathy Durrel, in this venture.
We scheduled only two dates since things were thrown together sort of last minute on this. Kathy and I realized after having a planning meeting that we easily had enough information to cover a several session clinic that could span a handful of weeks over the summer. Since we only had two sessions (or so we thought) we had a lot of information to cover in a short amount of time and picked evening dates in July and August.
Unfortunately, with the end of July came rain, rain and more rain. The trails at Bradbury ended up closing for nearly a month. And the July clinic was canceled due to rain and thunderstorms. So, that brought us down to one final evening to have the clinic. By the time late August roles around here in Maine, the sun has pretty much set at 7:30 and you need to be out of the woods unless you have lights. I wasn't thinking about this when I agreed to the evening time back in May. Oops. So, that meant we would have to saddle up, get into the woods at 6, and do "on the bike instruction" as we rode. Not a lot of time for dilly dallying. Bradbury also closes the park at sunset so there wasn't even the option to add a night riding component to the clinic if we had thought it worthwhile.
The August clinic was scheduled for last Thursday, August 28th. At the start of the week I had around 6 women confirmed which was a perfect number as far as I was concerned. As we all know how life can get in the way of having fun, the numbers dwindled as the week drew on. By Thursday, we were down to one potential woman planning to show. It was a gorgeous day so the worse case scenario meant that Kathy and I would get a decent ride in on our own if our one lone woman stood us up.
Kathy and I were suited up and ready well before the clinic start time. We were about to give up and head out to ride on our own when our one lone pupil arrived. She walked over, pushing her hybrid bike (thankfully with knobby tires at least), brimming with enthusiasm. She was so excited to be there! She said she had been waiting for this clinic and had a new bike on order as she was so excited to get riding! So, with that in mind as well as the dwindling day light, we doled out a few quick pointers and off we rolled to the trail.
I won't go into the details of the ride but let's suffice to say that our novice rider did great and, again, was full of enthusiasm over being there and at the idea of becoming a more skilled rider. By the time we turned around and rode the trail in the other direction toward the parking lot, she was cruising right through the rock gardens, over roots and even the bridges! Kathy and I had no doubt that we had a converted mt. biker in our midst! Unfortunately I don't have any photos to immortalize the smile and enthusiasm of our newly found friend to the trail as I forgot to bring a camera. It was a fun evening to experience and to be a part of knowing that we helped turn someone else on to the love of the trail! Payin' it forward so to speak! Hopefully we can recruit and convert a few more the next time around!
Ride on and ride safe!
Mary
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