Teaching your mates to mountain bike? We know its as easy as riding a bike but we’ve got 10 easy steps to help you out!
Firstly, kudos to you for signing up another future dirt addict to your mountain bike posse. We love getting people stoked on riding bikes too. We know just getting your friend/boyfriend/girlfriend/third-cousin-twice-removed to give mountain biking a go is a huge achievement, so thanks in advance for hooking them this far…
Now we’re done with the thank yous, it’s time to get a little bit less serious. If you’re thinking of taking on the actual teaching of said friend/love of your life/relative, then we’ve got some handy steps for you to follow:
- Don’t teach your mates to ride. Just don’t do it.
- Remind them that you were a beginner once, and it was easy for you to just work it out. Proceed to take them down your favourite steep tracks so they can see how much fun they are.
- Ignore any and all complaints, including “That’s too steep”, “It’s slippery” and “I’m tired”.
- If your complicated explanations are confusing them, just use bigger words. The more jargon the better!
- Use motivational lines like “We’ve pretty much done the hardest bits but you might want to walk just a couple more things”.
- Refer back to point #1, then:
- Book them in for a private lesson with a qualified mountain bike instructor.
- Go rip a few, glorious laps without them.
- Come back to find them still in one piece, and a whole lot more confident.
- Grab a cheeky beverage together at the bar to celebrate everyone having a good time out on their bike!
Repeat steps 7-10 as many times as your friend needs to get them riding the whole forest with confidence.
We’re all about saving friendships and relationships here at New Zealand Mountain Biking. We also specialise in teaching mountain biking – we’ll see you at the bottom of Dodzy Skills Park sometime soon!
You can either book for your mate/significant other/family member who wants to ride a lesson below or get them a voucher as a gift.
