VIDAmtb: Long Live Ladyshred!

It's both a blessing and a curse to be a lady mountain biker: on the one hand, you have an automatic sisterhood with every other girl on a bike, because you've probably had a lot of the same challenges and experiences. On the other hand, if your parents weren't cyclists or if you didn't start out riding motos, it's likely that you were taught to ride by a significant male presence in your life, such as a boyfriend, and many times it does not go well. My personal history started off a little rocky, with the requisite clipless pedal slow side fall and a trail not at all suitable for beginners, but fortunately my boyfriend-now-husband was patient and encouraging.  I persevered, and since then I have heard many variations on the same theme of traumatizing introduction to the sport.  Boys tend to push us too far too fast and neglect the foundations of good form and technique, preferring to shoot ahead of us on the trail and take a nice long break at the top as we puff our way up, while we're either pretending to have a super time or getting ready to pitch a major fit.  And then on the downhill, they are off again, leaving us to navigate any number of obstacles with incorrect body position and too many fingers on the brake levers (see Step 8 of How to be a Mountain Biker). It's a wonder that those of us who have this experience ever get on a bike again.  Luckily, even if bad habits have been ingrained over years of riding with boys or, indeed, for any other reason, there are mountain bike skills clinics that can help wipe the slate clean. The VIDAmtb clinics, in particular, focus on mastering the basics and building up to achieve confidence and competence in all situations on the trail.  VIDA also has the benefit of being for women, by women, and is the brainchild of two awesome lady shredders who have spent years in the industry and know that having more women on bikes is good for everyone.

(EJ Dilley Photography)

Last weekend I was lucky enough to participate in a VIDA clinic held at the Valmont Bike Park in Boulder, CO, as an ambassador and general helper-outer for the coach of one group of five women who wanted to up their on-trail game.  The coach, Lauren (aka Professor Shred), had a gold helmet festooned with stickers and a brilliant green dirt jumper with bright blue Spank wheels.  I knew we were in for a good time when she said she was from Seattle: those PNW folks really know what they're doing.

The organizers, Sarah and Elena, had used questionnaires to group the women together by skill level and preferences of things to work on during the clinic, but Lauren still had each of the five women give a quick personal background and specific aspirations for the day.  All of them had been riding for a few years, but they wanted to get more comfortable in sketchy trail situations like drops, jumps, and corners.  But instead of getting straight into the more advanced techniques, Lauren wanted to make sure everyone had the basics down, mainly body position, cornering and braking.  There are two reasons for this: first, most women (and guys, for that matter) never got proper instruction on the basics; and second, everything more advanced that we wanted to tackle later would build on having good starting technique.  So many people are shocked to find that they've been doing things wrong for years, and the concept of changing is both daunting and freeing. At VIDA, the correct way is clearly explained and demonstrated, and all that is left to do is practice until it becomes second nature.

Anyway, we started off with a powerful demonstration of why the one-finger (read: pointer) braking plan is best, then moved on to attack position, which allows maximum adaptability in trail situations (body low, weight on feet, elbows and knees loose and bent). Quick note from a previously guilty party: DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, GRIP YOUR SADDLE WITH YOUR THIGHS.  On to cornering: this proved a bit more challenging.  A surprisingly large percentage of riders have a great deal of trouble with bike-body separation, which is critical to good cornering.  Plainly said, it means leaning your bike, not your body.
This is correct cornering form:

(EJ Dilley Photography)

This is incorrect:

And this is just completely nuts:

But that last one is Matt Hunter and he can do pretty much whatever the hell he wants.

During this segment I benefited from Lauren's coaching as well, as she pointed out that I was moving my knees all wrong and then showed me how to do it correctly.  Score!

Next, we moved on to rolling up, over, and off obstacles (in this case, a big wooden box). The first drill focused on preloading the front of the bike to pop up over curb-sized things instead of just bashing into them, which suspension forks make possible but is still not ideal.

(EJ Dilley Photography)

After that, and at the request of the ladies, we stacked a second wooden box on top of the first and attached a ramp to the front end to create about a 12-inch edge for them to roll off of.  It was obviously a perfectly rollable distance,but it provided plenty of height to practice shifting weight properly and also "sending" a small drop, or "lunging" as Lauren called it. It took a few laps, but eventually everyone had it down, and we raised the box by another 6 inches.  At that height, rolling the edge at slow speed would be iffy, and only two of the five in the group wanted to try hucking off of it.  They played on it until lunchtime, and then we quickly stuffed our faces with great food provided by Real Athlete Diets so that we could get back out there before it started storming on us.

Lauren took us on a quick lap around the south part of The Glades, which has a few small rock ledge drops with similar heights to what we were working on with the boxes, and then we joined another group that was learning to pump the rollers in the north section of The Glades. Lauren gave a quick tutorial on the anatomy of a roller and what your bike and body should be doing in each part. I rode through while they watched to show how it looks, and apparently the demonstration was well received because they made me do it again while both groups watched, which, even though I've done it a million times, made me unaccountably anxious.  I managed not to pull an endo or get my shorts caught on my saddle or anything, and then I joined Lauren in fussing at the ladies as they did laps around the track. I also demonstrated my utter ineptitude at taking action photos:

Afterward we moved up t the large pump track at the top of the park, which proved more challenging due to the tight berms.  I was struck by how hard it is to explain the motion of pumping; when I learned to do it, I had trouble getting the timing right, but once I did it was easy to tell that I'd gotten it.  A couple of the women had the same experience, and I was impressed by the improvement I saw.

Then, it was on to the dirt jumps, where we practiced rear-wheel lifts and level lifts (bunny hops are hard to master on clipless pedals, which most of us were using that day...oops) as helmetless male youths provided aerial distraction nearby:

We took the hopping to the XS and S dirt jump lines with the daunting goal of using parabolic motion to clear the small, friendly table jumps.  Lauren showed us how much more fun dirt jump bikes are on dirt jumps:

Braaap! (EJ Dilley Photography)

With ominous black clouds looming over the Flatirons, we used our last hour to play around on the small slopestyle line. I finally got our group to tackle a small drop at the top of the line, which, not being entirely rollable but only needing moderate speed to clear safely, was fairly intimidating to begin with.  I remembered feeling squirrelly about it when I finally got back on my bike after a nasty spinal injury at Keystone in 2011, so I totally related to their trepidation.  Lauren and I clowned around on the drop first:

"Magnum! Dear God, it's beautiful!"

Tongue-out jumping: don't try this at home.

Yes, it's a small drop.  But a drop is a drop, and drops can seem really sketchy until you get the hang of them.  This one is 99% mental, which you can see from the concentration on the faces of these two:

But they totally rocked it, and once it struck home that they really just did need a little speed, it was all rainbows and butterflies!

Watching other women shred is one of my favorite things.

The participants reconvened at 4:30 for wrap-up, a raffle, and tech talk, while the coaches and ambassadors took advantage of the continuing lack of rain to play in the park a little longer.  We finally had to retreat to food and beers when the storm began at 6, almost as if it had been waiting all day for us to have a successful clinic.

I've taken several clinics in my seven years of being a mountain biker, and each time I've had my mind blown in one way or another by the difference between doing something the right way and the wrong way.  More than once, one of the women in our group expressed amazement at the ease with which Lauren or I performed a skill that has become natural to us.  This is not to say that I'm a pro or anything; I'm just lucky that I was taught by people who really know what they're doing.  Good clinics and coaching are critical to those of us who didn't grow up with a pump track in the backyard, and in addition to giving women a supportive and fun environment to practice skills right alongside other motivated and rad women, they are an investment in a future of better riding.  It's also an opportunity to network and find other folks to ride with in your area.  The ladies in our group were excited by their own progression and kept saying their friends would never believe what they had managed to do during the clinic, and they are going to take that enthusiasm out on the trail with them and hopefully inspire more women and girls to go out and ride.  I can't wait to see what happens next!


*Thanks to EJ Dilley Photography and Sarah Rawley for providing the good photos.  The terrible ones are, obviously, mine. Also, thanks to Real Athlete Diets for providing the delicious breakfast, lunch and afternoon snacks. And much thanks to Professor Lauren Shred for having a great sense of humor and being generally rad.*