Girls Got Skills

Girls Skillz – Day 2

Posted on by Smoke

Wow, THAT was a rainstorm.   Pretty tough to get motivated after that, especially with how tired I know all the girls feel after yesterday.  Well, we got Smith Creek to play with today, so lets see if the rain will clear off.

It was time to work on the cones.  Sorta like traffic school…with full suspension bikes and short skirts.

Lorraine tries to dress to match her pylons as much as possible.

Silly low speed corners.  Lets go try some slippery stunts.  That sounds like more fun.

If you don’t make it over on the first try, Lorraine spanks you on the bum.  I failed at least 20 times.

Karen just makes it look boring…

The Smith Creek warmup loop is perfect for learning how to deal with stunts.  There’s a ton of small ones, and they’re sort of sketchy.  Makes you really have to be on top of your bike to get ‘em.

After 2 days of this, the message really starts to sink in.

Having Hanna around to set the pace helps though.  She just powered into everything.

Cynthia, with one of my favourite shots ever.  Look there, go there.

OK, that’s how it’s done.

There’s a bit of new stuff around Smith Creek now.  The sun was just coming out for this one.

OK, he’s not a girl.  But it’s a nice jacket.

There’s a girl.  Lorraine shows the girls how to drop a skinny with only one ACL.

The last run of the clinic was on Powers.  Thought that we should try a real world freeride trail. 

Pretty amazing to see the girls going for it in early season conditions.  I even heard some comments about maybe switching over to Freeride from XC.  

Ignore the beard, it’s all about the long hair.  I’m just trying to demo the concept of over the front end for a centered position.

Lorraine’s got it.  Then again, she is kind of rad.  Almost as rad as Barb (sorry ‘Raine, ya gotta have a kid to compete on that level).

Awesome weekend, ladies.  You all really threw me for a loop.

Girls Got Skillz–Day 1

Posted on by Smoke

Was the weather going to co-operate?  Or was it just going to rain?

Yay sun!

Another spring, another bunch of ladies out to secure some new skills.  I couple of returning faces this year (like Chris, a couple shots down), but a lot of new ones too.  The progression is wicked to see.  A few years ago the overall level was way lower. 

The morning was spent doing a bunch of the basics in the park.  Really fundamental stuff.

The president of the NOCS came down too.

Hanna is the youngest rider to come out on one of our clinics.  She’s only 15, and DRIVEN.  Pretty rad.

Big smiles! 

I think we were all smiling after that rad morning, especially with the sunshine.

After lunch we went up to Myra/Bellevue to ride some trail.   There’s still a bit of snow up there.  Good thing we fed the ladies some good food, ‘cause I needed their help to turn the van around…

The weather was a bit sketchier up in the hills, but it was a RAD ride.  Definitely Bush Pilot calibre.

Our lovely crew…

Girls Got Skills – Day 2

Posted on by Smoke

Day 2 of the clinic, and things are getting fabulous.

Yes, it’s silly outfit and hula hoop day.  I think Walmart must have been busy last night.

No, these are just my reading glasses.

OK, on to some more training.  Worked on berms and cornering today.  Having this rad berm all freshly built for us made it easy to progress.  From tentative first turns…

..to all out radness in just a few minutes.

The socks help:

Having Johanna set demos like this may also have something to do with it.

We went up to Powers Creek for the afternoon to get some more advanced riding in, and also to show off some hot fashions on the runway.

Big smiles, that’s a sign of a successful session.

Just try it, if you fall off you’ll be landing on people.  They’re squishy.

A lot of learning went down on this run.  Powers can be very intimidating to new riders, and there was no shortage of fear at the top of the trail, but by half way the girls were killing it at every turn.

Although there’s no guarantee that you’re not going to eat it on a flat section and take a mud bath.  You know that you can pay top dollar for this sort of thing at a spa, and we just include it in the price of the weekend.

Another excellent weekend clinic.  Thanks to Barb, Johanna, and Candace for the excellent coaching, and all the women who came out to ride.  We will be running this camp annually, so see you next year!  Or if you have a few girls who are looking for some instruction, just drop us a line and we can set something up.