Pro Ride Guides – Gisburn (30 April 2011)

Pro Ride Guides took four of us on a skills course a couple of weeks ago at Gisburn Forest. What was it like? Are they worth the cash?

Read on to find out.

Gear is Great but Knowledge is King

Pro Ride Guides are a mountain bike coaching and guiding company set up by brothers Joe and Alex Rafferty, based in Harrogate but operating all over the UK, including local spots such as Stainburn, Gisburn and Hamsterley.

 Joe and Alex of Pro Ride Guides on the Boulder Drop, Descent Line @ Stainburn

They’ve been out riding (a lot) and helping the build (sometimes) at Stainburn. They like what we do so much they’ve offered SingletrAction members a fantastic 15% discount off their courses. But being generous and setting yourself up as a coaching firm is all very well, but can they ride? Check out this recent mini-movie (featured on PinkBike as well) to see Alex and Joe in action.

Oh. My. Word.

But all that riding ability isn’t much use if they can’t tell their punters what to do. Luckily, they can’t half teach as well.

Without wanting to gush, the day was awesome. Six hours riding Gisburn’s trails, in pretty splendid weather, sessioning, honing and refining. To be honest, I pretty quickly learned (more like reminded) that I ain’t got that much skill or fitness but it didn’t matter. The guys asked us what we wanted to do, then they rode with us and found out what we needed to learn as well. Then they started the coaching – no arrogance, no bullshit, no “balls-bigger-than-yours-look-at-me” bravado just clear explanations, breaking it down, drilling components of technique and then putting it all together.

To boot they’re great guys; friendly, enthusiastic, patient plus more than happy and able to demonstrate that manual you can’t quite get again and again and again and again. Maybe because they’re damn good riders and coaches they made it look easy and because they’re nice guys we managed not to hate them for it

We came away knackered but having had a great time. Thanks to the quality of the coaching the things to concentrate on are still with me, simple and clear. In a way it’s like being told the blindingly obvious. But then, if it was that obvious why aren’t we all riding like Joe and Alex? Maybe if I practice hard enough I might, one day, maybe ….

And there you go, gear is great but knowledge is king. Spend some time learning how to ride that push iron with some genuinely nice guys who'll do their damnedest to make you a better rider, I guarantee it’ll be worth it!

 Knacker and his new best friend on the day.

 Alex of Pro Ride Guides showing how to take a flat corner

We were too busy to take lots of pictures but at least Nick managed to look good for this one

We're the tired but happy mugs in the middle