Have you ever invested in your riding abilities? 

Minor typo "...Yes, I paid for some fork of skills..." (unless we're talking about eating here?)

Along these same lines, I'd be curious to hear various riders' opinions on paying for organized/structured indoor training in the MTB world. I am on week 2 of my first paid subscription program after years of refusing to pay to ride inside. It came about in preparation for an upcoming event in early 2023 combined with a recent move to a climate that doesn't allow riding outdoors in the winter. Also, my own "training program" for a similar event last year fell short. Am interested to hear which apps/programs/subscriptions people like the best and if they felt the results were worth the investment.

Great question. Ten years ago I did one session with Simon Lawton of Fluidride at lil old Duthie Hill in Seattle, and I think about the lessons Simon Taught me almost every time I ride a bike. Huge impact for me, made me faster, safer, and way more confident, and this coaching session was 4 seasons into racing in the pro category. I cannot recommend good coaching enough. He identified some lingering bad habits that would consistently get me in trouble, and as I'm typing this I'm kicking myself that I haven't been back from more coaching since.

That said, there's a lot of bad advice out there. If you're a beginner, most coaches are going to be able to help you make a big improvement. If you're already very competent, you're going to need a really good coach to help you take the next step, like a Simon Lawton, Gene Hamilton, or a Todd Schumlick-level coach. "Lean back" or "assume the attack position" is only so helpful once you've mastered the basics.

Took one lesson from Gene (Betteride) way back in the day (probably 2003?). I'd say I had similar results at TR. As TR noted, the better you get the better coach you need, but every level can benefit from it. Don't forget, even the best golfers in the world have swing coaches...

Went to a weekend ride camp with Cedric Gracia. Came away with loads more confidence, especially for super steeps and technical sections. Also fun to be death gripping trying to follow him, he takes one hand off, looks back at me and says "Hey! Come on! Hurry up!"

Wasn't an answer on the survey for me to answer, but I picked the yes I paid for a clinic and made me better option thing...truth is, I live with someone that has taught MTB skills for 20 years, my wife. Nearly every ride we do I learn a technique from her. I have also met hundreds of her former clients that talk about the benefits of the classes they've taken.

This is not a sales pitch, just a story, she doesn't do clinics full time anymore. But the point was, the RIGHT coach can expedite a skill that you might otherwise spend 10x the time on OR learn the wrong way.

Not had much experience with coaches, but practicing basic skills can pay off massively.

At one point when I was already a fairly competitive rider, I would do some training drills in the evening, bunny hopping up onto a knee high step, and nose turning around lamp posts. I did this a few nights a week over a few months, since then my nose turns can get me around any switchback in the Alps and I can bunny hop over even quite high fallen branches at speed without flinching. 

The difficulty is finding time as with everything...

I took Gene's camp (Betteride) twice in 2 years like 10 yrs ago and learned a TON.  Completely changed how I ride.  I felt like I got a huge amount out of the first one but knew I missed stuff, thus taking it a 2nd time. 

Like TR, I still think about (and practice) stuff he taught literally every ride.  And I've been thinking about doing maybe just a private session with Gene one of these days when schedules and budget line up.  

I've tried to pass some of that knowledge on to new riders, but a big part of learning is being, uh, willing to learn.  Many are definitely not.  

I have a cycling fitness coach that puts together plans for me. I'll be doing some races next year, plus being 36 now I want to make sure I have another good 20-30 years of riding in me so its also for injury prevention. 

I did a skills clinic in 07 and it was helpful. Basically just yelled at me for not looking out far enough. Still guilty. 

I Absolutely want to go to a skills class or clinic. They're not easily available to someone who lives in Omaha, on a budget or who has limited PTO. But damn l want to go 

First of all, I love that this is a forum topic. The MTB media's ratio of "stuff" vs. "skills" tech is way out of wack in my opinion. 

I took one of Gene Hamilton's BetterRide camps back when I was about 15. That really changed the game for me as it gave me the foundational knowledge from which to build on for the next decade-plus. Gravity-based cycling (enduro, downhill) is basically an exercise in being great at the basics, so knowing those basics is critical to be able to start building on them. 

I haven't had any coaching recently, but its something I'd be interested in doing. 

While this is moving slightly away from the topic of coaching, one of the best things I've done to invest in my riding abilities is buy a dirt jump bike (Yes, I know I just complained about the focus on buying stuff...). Having a bike where I can ride skateparks, pumptracks, BMX tracks and dirt jumps has been fantastic. Riding terrain like that, you are almost forced to "session" features, so you get a lot of repetition which I've found really aids in learning. Having primarily ridden downhill and enduro bikes, I never really developed the finesse and bike control you can get from riding a smaller bike, so being able to develop more of that in recent years has been really beneficial and a huge amount of fun. 

Yes, I paid money to get coached. Did it work? F*** YEAH. I came to mountain biking from the roadie side in the early '90s. I learned every bad riding habit you could possibly learn, and reinforced those bad habits for about 20 years. Getting some instruction from people who know what they're doing changed everything about my riding for the better. 

If you can, take lessons somewhere with lift access or a shuttle program. You'll be fresher for the stuff that matters, and learn more per session. Try to find somebody with a PMBIA cert or some sort of real teaching experience. If you can afford a private session, do that, and talk to your instructor a few days before the session to explain what you want out of it. Ask for help on cornering, or drops or braking or being more fasterer or whatever. 

I was fortunate enough to have an ex-pro DH guy in my area who was doing training and took a couple lessons from him. I also did a one-on-one session at Northstar.  The biggest take-a-way I had is that you think you doing it right until someone can see you, explain what your doing wrong, and immediately feel the difference.  It's actually quite tiring if you doing it right.  When I've just watched a video and gone out riding, I'll just fall right back into old habits quickly or fall victim to Strava-cide.

Great topic - I have benefited massively from coaching. Literally changed me as a rider from far below average to above avg over the course of 8-10yrs. I would also recommend a PMBIA certified coach. The 3 that I have encountered over the years with that training have been head and shoulders above the rest. 

I can also suggest either doing a multi day camp format in a group or saving/planning in advance for multi day private once you have the right coach/coaching group. I find that working on a skill or technique 2-3 days in a row over varying terrain really burns it in. Fatigue is a key factor to make sure you can still demonstrate the new skills when you're not fresh. That tends to build up during the longer days/ camps and you can get your unconscious reflexes to really upgrade like that. That type of immersion has proven to work very well for me 1x per year. Burn in it in and then let it develop with you riding for the rest of the season.

I felt like I had plateaued and couldnt get any faster back in 2012, so I ended up taking a Better Rides course.   I went from thinking I knew everything to realizing I didnt know anything.   Its 10 years later and I'm STILL working on skills I was taught back then, lol.    I realized I needed much more coaching, so I ended up joining Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance as a coach (so I could get coaching!) and 8 years later I have taken every course I can, I am Fluidride Instructor Level 2 certified, and was in charge of our little Evergreen sector for 2 years.   I still feel like I need to learn more...

I am currently in Texas and have offered my coaching services many times to friends (for free), but it seems they would rather ride to try to get better instead of spending the 2 hours on some instruction to actually get better?  They will eventually get into the plateau I did of their only ability to get faster is to pedal faster, which brings it full circle

Y'all are making me want to get some coaching...

Does anyone have any experience with online coaching? I struggle to wrap my little brain around how effective that would be.

It is pretty interesting to me, we all 'learned' to ride a bike when we were young. Once we can pedal on two wheels, it seems like there was not much drive to encourage people to learn to ride better or more safely.

Meanwhile when you learn to ski, it is often dozens of lessons before you are a competent skier. Then those who move to racing utilize a coach, everything from peewee skiing to the Olympics. Growing up ski racing, we also did a lot of work with watching film of ourselves riding. 

Hopefully cycling instruction continues to grow and take lessons from other industries like skiing/snowboarding which do have expansive education programs.

Early in my riding career I took a lot of tips from Lee of LeeLikesBikes. Everything from body position to cornering to pumping really made aggressive riding more tangible than just letting go of the brakes. It made riding safer, faster, and certainly more fun. 

Somebody out there is likely doing online coaching. I think the only way to make it work would be through video. You would need to set up a phone/dadcam or have somebody video you performing the skill that you wanted help with. I think it could work, but unless it's a live video session I think it would be painfully slow in terms of feedback. One of the best things about in-person instruction is the instant feedback. 

I've probably spent about $1300 on various clinics and private coaching sessions from a few different providers in the past 18 months. I'd rather have used that money to buy carbon wheels. I'm sure there is a coach out there that could really impact my riding, but I'm tired of spending a couple of hundred bucks a pop in search of that person.

The most effective training I've spent money on is the online lessons from Ryan Leech for a paltry $19 a month.

https://fluidride.com/remote-instruction

Check that out. Looks like it is video submission but I agree, quick feedback is the key and you wouldn't get that as fast. Man, in person is seriously expensive... everyone's gotta make a living but DAYUM!

As someone who gave some guitar lessons when I was younger most people forget it isn’t just the hr of instruction but the travel time and logistics of scheduling students.  Getting 3-4 lessons in the post school/work time was pretty feasible when it was pretty hard to consistently get one lesson the rest of the day.  (Kids are just generally who receive coaching especially on a consistent basis).  I could also give guitar lessons at night all year round so there wasn’t an issue of finding seasonal or supplementary income.  For mtb those issues are going to be exacerbated and there also isn’t going to be as much competition to keep pricing competitive.  

that said we always offered large discounts to the parents of kids who asked for them and were willing to work around our schedule than theirs.  We could always have a customer who is making us come to them more or less supplement those unseen costs for someone who is flexible and really wants the lessons that are out of their budget.  I’d imagine most coaches can operate on a similar method if they have enough core students.

This is where the coaching / student dynamic gets interesting.  There are some incredible teachers / coaches out there, and there are also lots of lousy ones.  I think most would agree with that.  What I've noticed most people don't recognize - and I'm not suggesting at all that this is you, Remymac - is that there are both incredible AND lousy students.  I don't mean they aren't good at whatever they're trying to improve on. I mean they are literally bad at being a student.  Even the best coaches won't make much progress on bad students.  But a mediocre coach can still help out a good student if the dynamics are right.  A great coach with a great student can produce amazing results.  But even with that, sometimes the approach or the personalities or whatever don't line up and you get mediocre results despite a good coach and an eager student. 

And as you get better at something, finding a coach that is knowledgeable enough in their field to help higher-level athletes (or musicians or whatever) gets more difficult, so the better you get, the tougher it is to find a coach with all the tools to make a difference.  But being a good student always helps in the end, even without a coach. 

All true! I've seen riders who just absorb and integrate new info like a sponge, going from zero to hero in no time at all. I've also seen the guy who ignores the coach's instructions, changes nothing about their riding even when other students are telling him the same thing as the coach, and ends up in the hospital on day 1 of a 6-day trip. 

On the other hand, I've had instructors who I didn't personally gel with - whatever they were trying to tell me was lost in translation. I got frustrated, they got frustrated, and it was a bad day all around. If that happens, I ask to switch instructors, making sure to tell management that it's not the coach's fault [unless it is], but that the stars aren't aligning quite right. Usually, it's not an issue to make a switch, and it's much better than suffering through a bad session.

Yeah, FluidRide's Youtube channel is probably the best I've seen in terms of beginner to intermediate riding progression. Their rates for private coaching though - hot damn! I guess it's what the market will bear - if their rates are too high, they won't have clients, so somebody is paying that. I have to say, for that much money [less, actually] I'd do a week of riding with instruction at Whistler...

I decided to invest in weed and earthed videos, seems to work for me.

I paid a decent chunk of change on an “advanced” riders skill course. I was 1000% disappointed. This was a group setting and we spent most of the day doing beginner skill drills because almost all of the riders in this group were beginners who “thought” they were advanced. It was a total DISAPPOINTMENT. If you’re looking for  serious coaching don’t go with Ninja Skills or whatever their name is. Big waste of money

I come from a motocross background and I'm very good at that. The skills carry over quite well, although there are obviously lots of adjustments to make. 
I consider MTB sort of my "#2" sport, so I don't feel the need to invest in a coach; I just ride to train and have fun. I have the ability to ride anything I can imagine doing on a mountainbike, so I'm content with the skillset I have now. 

This is what turns me off of most classes offered.  I'm an expert level rider and I'd be disappointed in this.  If I'm doing a class I do not want to be in a field with cones or ladders.  I want to be on challenging trails pushing my skills safely.  Some of these classes too I think are outrageously priced.  I felt like I was seeing anywhere from $500 to $800 for a couple days.  That seems steep.

If you are starting out or intermediate I think these style of classes is a great way to build foundations.  My wife saw serious improvement in a few classes.  

I'd lean towards something like "Into the Gnar" with a group of the same skills if I was doing a weekend class.  But even slightly different skills if you are in a place with radical trails, you can still get something out of it.

But I also think I could benefit from continuous coaching on foundations like body positioning, cornering and vision.  These are life long things to practice.  A weekend course I don't think is the best for these type of skills as I think in a couple weeks I would revert to older habits.  A weekly class with the same coach for a few weeks would accomplish this better.  I don't know how online does this but I would likely prefer in person as it is more collaborative. 

I'm seriously jealous of the kids in our Durango Devo program.  They have some serious skills and that is from great coaching every week with a solid foundation.  They will almost all be better riders than me in their early teens.

JasBushey, I'm gonna push back a little on the "cone drills or ladders aren't worth my money" thing. The one-on-one Fluidride clinic I attended with Simon that drastically improved my pro downhill racing skills (I'd already attended one or two world cup races at this point) was largely cones on a gravel road. I don't want to give away too much of Simon's secret recipe here, but I distinctly remember thinking "this is the dumbest thing ever" at the start of the clinic and then being totally humbled within 5 minutes. And again, we were at Duthie Hill which has a total vertical drop of 80 feet.

To reiterate a lot of what's been said in this forum, good and bad, I think your experience is going to be largely shaped by how good your coach is and how willing you are to learn. I was totally surprised by what I learned at the Fluidride clinic because we only worked on fundamentals, and previously I'd thought my fundamentals were great, or at least good enough. I think you can have a bad cone drill from a bad coach, but I had a mind blowing cone drill from a great coach. I even bought a set of cones after the clinic so I could keep practicing what he taught me.

How did this one cone drill objectively improve your performance? What transferred to actual trail or race and what was the explanation of the why behind this drill?