Do-it-yourself enduro training v paid coaching - which suits you best?︱Cross Training Enduro
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.ค. 2024
- www.crosstrainingenduro.com Can you really learn enduro techniques from videos? Is paid coaching much better, or a waste of money? We think there are three main ways to improve your enduro skills.We could see the rapid improvement in our enduro skills. The problem? There were still techniques we couldn't get right. And we didn't realise until we had some professional coaching. Try our training vids for working on your extreme enduro techniques. So the third option. Professional coaching. Nine years ago Chris Birch came to Australia and we had a whole weekend of enduro training. The good news was he could see we had learned many basics by ourselves. But he had to make constant corrections to our techniques. If you want extreme enduro training see our playlists of enduro skills to learn. You might have riding buddies who give you some tips. But essentially you are completely self-taught. It works. There are plenty of professional racers who climbed the ranks this way. The main problem? It's definitely slower and there's a high chance of using poor technique and not being aware of it. A good example is sitting versus standing. Our dirt riding tips are great for developing your hard enduro skills. I know some very fast riders who almost never stand the footpegs. There's no way I can catch them when they hit the throttle! But they could be even faster if they did stand on the footpegs more. If you are enduro riding get into our enduro training vids. The weird thing is we kept saying "But I am doing that!" Then Chris would film us on his tablet and show us the mistakes. Some examples? Basic body positioning. It's important to keep your legs slightly bent and your body to the rear. But we usually had our legs straight and leaned forward. Need hard enduro training? Work through our video lists. Hard enduro techniques are covered in our training vids. Cornering when seated. Chris kept saying "slide forward on the seat and weight that front wheel!" We thought we were sliding forward. But no. See if you are hitting the right spot with the front wheel. Is the body positioning correct? Is the suspension being compressed at the right time with body weighting? If you are really serious, film each other on your phones and watch it in slow motion. You won't be getting the feedback of our a professional coach, but I think would be a good substitute if you are on a budget! First? Trial and error. Just keep riding and try to learn from your mistakes. Second? Learning through videos or reading magazine articles. You can learn much faster this way, especially for new riders who have not learned bad habits yet. Ten years ago our group decided to get into hard enduro and we constantly watched the training vids we could find from trials riders and hard enduro riders. The video evidence showed we were still on the middle part of the seat. It felt very weird to have our gonads so close to the handlebars but we could feel the improvement immediately. Log hopping. Regular viewers will know I have about 100 enduro training vids. I have these organised into basic, mid-level and advanced enduro skills. Some of these videos are quite old now but they should still be quite relevant. They are based on what would learn from various enduro coaches over the years. Some of the very old videos could be updated but frankly it's a daunting task! I might get around to it one day... It's very important to hit big logs at a certain spot to get the suspension compressing correctly. I thought I was doing this correctly. But in reality my front wheel was barely touching the log. Chris kept pushing me to hit the log lower and suddenly... what a difference! We didn't learn many new techniques that weekend. Instead the focus was trying to un-learn all the mistakes we had picked up. Chris suggested we make a list of the five biggest mistakes and tape it to our handelbars. Apparently it's very easy to fall bad into bad habits unless you constantly remind yourself. I know a few riders who attend Chris Birch's training sessions every two years. They aren't learning any new techniques. They are just ensuring they still have the right techniques and haven't fallen into old habits. Extreme enduro training vids are our focus. It can be expensive though. As a starving TH-cam artist I can't afford regular paid coaching. And riders in remote areas often won't have access to enduro coaches. My suggestion? What's your preference? Trial and error, training videos, or paid coaching? Do you have bad habits you keep falling back into? What made the biggest difference in your experience? Keen to hear about your experiences. If you have riding buddies who are serious about learning, arrange some training rides and give each other feedback. For example, choose a big log. Into enduro and dirt bikes? Check out our dirt bike videos.
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#crosstrainingenduro #enduro #hardenduro #extremeenduro - กีฬา
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Watching and listening to my own vids helps. When you're riding, you think you're flying and doing everything thing correct. Watching vids of yourself crushes those illusions of grandure instantly
Did a video about that, I was a bit embarrassed at a bit of slopping technique that crept back into my riding lol. th-cam.com/video/chQjl0WIHko/w-d-xo.html
I tried all varieties but think riding with group of friends that constantly pushing harder is the best, professional coaches is rare bread
I agree. I do almost everythiing on a budget and have only paid for one weekend of professional coaching 10 years ago. But our whole group got a good discount deal with Chris Birch. I've spent the last 10 years trying to apply what we learned lol.
For me filming myself has been a real eye opener! Ive spent years working on technique and body positioning and the first time I filmed myself I was stunned at how crap I am. Its so easy for me to THINK I’m doing it right and then when I look back at the video I’m not even close. You’re so right about how easy it is to develop bad habits and how difficult it is to break them 🤦♂️
Same here lol. You swear you are doing right but the camera doesn't lie...
I don't need no coach'n, I watch Cross Training Enduro! I like one on one coaching because they can see things you can't, and a good coach can help you with technique, making riding easier and safer.
Dodgy training vids guaranteed, Jon!
Your vids are gold ,The art the science ,always uping the game ,its flipping brilliant
Thank you sir! I got into the habit of adding the 'sir' in Canada. 😊
The biggest difference I found was riding a trials bike in my backyard with three simple obstacles and riding slow. Then tackling harder stuff in the bush and concentrating on having fun. I found I was more relaxed and have gone from dropping my bike constantly to hardly dropping my bike at all. Not bad for a rider the same height as Meg's Braap. Your videos have also definitely helped as well. Thank you
Nothing like some slow balance exercises to improve almost every aspect of our riding. 😎👍
I think the online videos helped tremendously because I did the actual annoying drills over and over. I got better and better. They became easier. I was a brand new dirt rider so I had no bad habits. Went on to win a C class championship in 23’ in one hare-scramble series. And runner up in another series. Currently sitting in 3rd for this years B class championship. I’d like to add: going really fast through the woods is a different skill set than enduro. You will never gain speed unless you learn to look ahead. And I mean FAR AHEAD. When trails are tight and technical I often pass those who have passed me. I feel the enduro techniques have a shelf life. If you don’t practice, they fade a little. I’ve been looking for a weekend of coaching by different folks. Interested in Birch, Shane Wat, or similar.
Great to hear! Birchy is great. I hear Wattsy tends to polarise riders. He pushes everyone really hard which guys either love or hate.
Wow man, that’s impressive! 👍
I would like to say a huge thank you. I live in the Far East of Russia, there are no enduro trainers there. All the skills I gained were all thanks to your old videos. I studied all the techniques from them. Very good channel, thanks again.
You have to travel thousands of kilometers to work with trainers.
Therefore, my choice is training from TH-cam videos.
Glad they are useful!
Watch irc tire guy, megs braap etc and then go practice one particular thing over and over while recording yourself with a camera on a tripod so you can look at your technique, posture etc to see if you're getting it right and what you can improve.
Agreed. Filming yourself is a great idea. th-cam.com/video/chQjl0WIHko/w-d-xo.html
Filming yourself is very good. I did that when I was learning how to do power lifting and it helped improve my techniques a lot. Filming yourself riding is a bit harder.
For a while I just did everything myself and watched the odd video on what I should be doing. I didn't really make much progress after a certain point, sure I could ride but my balance and ability to actually finesse through obstacles not just launch over them was non existant.
Earlier this year I took a few days and sat down with a pen and paper and watched a ton on videos, making notes on what I thought were my weak points. I wrote out a number of basic drills to just go out and spend hours doing in the evening, no trails just a rural gravel car park for hours on end with my phone recording me. My riding advanced more within two months than the previous two years and I realised that I can actually be way better than I ever thought I could be, still an awful long way to go but I've never felt this inspired and capable of reaching my goals. I definitely want to get some coaching in soon but I'm trying to get the basics down first so that I can try and have more advanced techniques critiqued by a professional
Great to hear! I know plenty of riders simply want to chill and ride and not worry about finessing their technique... which is fine of course. But for those of us who really enjoy getting better it's an awesome feeling when you can feel the improvement happening. 😎👍
Self taught/trial and error. I do what I feel comfortable with and what makes the experience most enjoyable. I have a job that requires constant self reflection and an ongoing commitment to learning. I ride bikes to get away from all that. To each their though, and I'm happy with my skill set as it is.
I was just saying in another comment that plenty of riders just want to chill and enjoy being out on the bike without making it a training process... which is absolutely fine of course. Until about two years ago I used to regularly ride with guys training hard to get better in our hard enduro events. I'd get bored as they endlessly tackled one obstacle trying to refine their technique lol.
Slowing down...balance...clutch and traction management.
Smooth and steady is my game now.
😎👍
The biggest thing that has helped me become a better rider is just the love for the sport if you love something long enough you will become good at it 🤙
agree with all of it...i did superbike school over the years (yes, for "evil" road bikes) and improved immensely...i have used Birch videos to remind me of what I used to know way back when I rode dirt bikes 24/7...and will defo grab some in -person coaching here and there..in the meantime, I will continue to work on improvement and ENJOY myself! (and yeah your stiufff is great - thank you!)...starting out in the early 80s, I know that keeping my record of no broken bones is important (to me) 😅..I aint Mick Doohan (who technically had an "incorrrect" body position - but who's gonna tell him that!?!?!😂) and I aint Chris Birch...all good. ...love yer werk guys!😃
No broken bones... well done! Can't say the same here lol. Yeah I won't be telling Doohan he had it wrong! 🤔
I'm trying all 3. I started off 8 yrs ago with trial and error, then I found your videos which helped alot and today me and my young bloke are doing a training course with Tim Coleman. I'll keep you posted with how it goes.
Cool, I used to do some coaching with Tim in Canada. We had a pile of stuff already formulated so we swapped notes and picked up new coaching techniques.
So we did the course with Tim and absolutely awesome. Money well spent. I believe I got value for money with just what my young bloke learnt, he was using the clutch properly after about 15mins, I have never seem him standing on the pegs so much and was hopping concrete pipes by the end of the day like an absolute champion. Will definitely be doing another day with him, once we master what he's taught us today. 👍👍👍
Great to hear, Andrew!
You and your groups level is very good skipper so whatever system you use works!
It,s easy to fall back into bad habits, i do and have to correct them.
I can go faster sometimes sitting down(depends on terrain)but its more like crouch/then sit down.This terrain is always smoother and not technical or sketchy.
I watch your videos and some other YT channels,i have chris birches course and practice alone or with my instructor.The positive thing is you make incremental improvments and be able to do stuff better than majority who dont practice !Then you inevitably meet someone better and have the old reality check esp with the instructor.
Most of all enjoy,i am always laughing when i go out with the instructor and joking .Our sport is GREAT fun😀
True, Nick. I'm not sure how many sports there are where the learning and practice are all fun!
@@crosstrainingenduro 👍
💯 ,Chris is the man.very articulate.
Great video, Barry. Definitely agree with ya. I took the long route of 'DIY' because I had time and didn't want to "invest" in training at the time (although trail riding/enduro coaches weren't common around here).
I think it comes down to how motivated and intentional a rider is, and if they're willing to spend some 'moola' to learn from the right person so that he or she can progress faster/reduce the risk of crashing.
-Kelley
Good summary. I know guys who get paid coaching every year or two to keep improving at hard enduro events. Others like me had paid coaching once then milked it for all it was worth lol. And others it's purely DIY....
@@crosstrainingenduro Haha, yep.
I'd really like to get some paid coaching from someone like Birch or Watts to see how much I could still improve upon after all these years of DIY and watching videos of myself.
I feel like the best would be a mixture of all three.
I had to take 5 weeks off of riding after the bike ate a big one & needed to be repaired. My body position was shit, realized that 2 months after getting the bike back. I solo ride, and have never had a in-person lesson - i do have a insta 360 x3 and a tripod though. watching the footage while editing is the main reason i improve.
Sometimes those bad habits sneak in fast lol. I had a few weeks off the bike recently and was wheelspining everywhere in the technical terrain until I reminded myself of the usual techniques...
@crosstrainingenduro I popped a wheelie to get over a big stick (or a small log depending on how you look at it) over rotated the throttle & realized my foot wasn't on the rear brake 😅🤣 Saved it but it was dang spooky.
Body position and riding mechanics aside , after 30 years of woods riding i think fear is my biggest hurdle now days. Years ago I never really didn't see myself going over obstacles. I just did it.
Well now with shelling out 13 grand and another 2500 on parts to make the bike almost as reliable as the red machines I used to ride on , health insurance is more expensive than it ever has been with crappy coverage. These things help add doubt! No more "yeah I can make that" it's more like "well , yeah I can see what happens. But we could just go around it..."
I know the feeling, Dave! In my 60s I've really lost my urge to take risks and there's stuff I refuse to tackle now. And the guys in their 50s are still getting into it.
I learned how to ride with your excellent training vids! and sure enough, I recently broke my hand riding my bike and am recovering 🤣🤣
but in all seriousness, I learned many techniques from watching your excellent tutorial, and it made me a much better technical rider 😍
Ouch! Hopefully not a complicated break... just six weeks to mend?
DIY is pretty much all I can afford, so it will do just fine, lol
As long you're having fun, the rest is just icing on the cake.
Definitely nothing wrong with it, I'm in a similar position. Couldn't afford coaching but Chris Birch gave me a freebie years ago. And Tim Coleman let me sit in on a few sessions.
I'm not a very advanced enduro rider. As a beginner I ride mostly on the flat with some occasional jumps. It's super fun and a great overall workout. But tbh, I'm still a bit scared of the bike, it's super powerful even though it's "just" a 250 4stroke.
250 four stroke enduro bikes are plenty fast! In most cases anything over 30hp is just going into wheelspin and the 250s put out a fair bit more than that.
How's that saying go?
It's hard unteach an old dog old tricks....
Or something? 😁
Guilty as charged 🙋
Woof woof!
I would like to give a coach a shot for a day sometime, up here in the not-very-dirbike-friendly NE US they are a rare breed undeed. The assorted videos that have been up on this channel have definitely been a help, same with IRC tire's channel, and i paid for Chris Birch's say no to slow series, and everythijg added a tip or perspective that have been a help. Im still a fairly rubbish rider, but I cant imagine how rubbish I would be if left to my own devices, if for no reason other than how counterintuitive almost everything about riding a dirtbike is compared to everything else you do in life.
Did you like the Say No to Slow series? I think he has an adventure version out now too...
@crosstrainingenduro I really liked it, Birchy delivers all the little detailed "how to" stuff in that typical calming reassuring manner that seems to come natural to NZ folk. I felt it was worth the money (it wasn't very expensive, like 50$ us I think), and the adv series is on my to-do list, it's even cheaper if memory serves, and would probably do good to add some confidence when the bike is an extra hundred-ish kg.
If I've learned anything in my 56 years it is .. I do everything the hard way whether I pay for it or not ..😂🤣
I know the feeling!
Rekluse clutch, stop them annoying engine stalls in the hard sections.
😎👍
Both training vids and paid coaching can show you the technique, but only practice/repetitions can make you learn to do it. Seen guys taking paid coaching but then just continuing their usual rides. This is not how it works :) I only noticed some real progress when started to deliberately exercise all those drills for hours at my training spot.
Saw that in Canada a few years ago. We'd do a fun ride in the afternoon after a morning of coaching. Only one guy out of 14 was using the techniques lol. That was how I met Coxy who runs the Muppets Inc channel. He's now entering silver class enduro events.
Bit like the guitar YT courses "learn to play amazing in 1 month!!yeah right ,thousands of hours it takes trust me!!
😂
Chris Birch? Never heard of him?
New Zealander. Well known in this corner of the world. He was better known years ago, he was arguably the top international hard enduro rider years ago before Graham Jarvis took over.
@@crosstrainingenduro That was a joke mate...I thought someone would bite...didn't expect you would. Cheers for taking the time though!
It's a great topic, but the whole " paid coaching " will remain a niche product. You'll have to overcome millennia of ingrained [male] ego to get more people to undertake such stuff. How dare you even suggest that my riding skills are not up there with Toby's!! You'll have more luck converting Flat Earthers......
😂👍
Paid Training vs. DIY Training: More money in Barry's pocket vs. More money in your pocket.
How? I've never accepted a cent in my life lol. I did do a lot of coaching years ago in Canada but never asked for money. Never received any money.
Actually not entirely true! Years ago in Canada an American guy gave me a tip after five mornings of coaching at a Traction eRag event. I tried to politely refuse but he insisted. And I also helped out at one of Tim Coleman's coaching sessions as he had so many students. I helped run some of the drills and Tim gave me some money afterward to say thanks. Again, tried to refuse but he insisted.
every you said was spot on... and we dont have access to a professional coach here
I scared to stand up in section where I should be standing up
I keep burning the clutch on my TTR125/xtz125
no access to pro coaches
i usually ride with my friends who are at my level or lower than my level