BetterRide Mountain Bike School, Cross Country Mountain Bike Coaching and Cross Country Mountain Bike Camps

Want to race faster with more confidence? Want to ride more efficiently and shave 2 to 6 minutes an hour off your race times?

Ross Schnell, 2009 Singlespeed World Champion, 2008 Downieville Classic Winner and Trek Factory Rider said, “I learned more today than in the last 10-11 years of just riding” (in a rushed 3.5 hour lesson, BetterRide camps are 19-22 hours over 3 days!) and tweeted “Learned a lot today about riding bikes faster and more efficiently, uphill and downhill. So psyched to get back to the basics and get faster!” after just a 3.5 hour private lesson with me, so you will definitely benefit from a BetterRide Camp.  Other pro xc racers taking camps from BetterRide include: Giant Bicycles Kelli Emmett, 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo Solo Champion Sarah Kaufman, Trek’s Sue Haywood, Lynda Wallenfels and many Cat 1-Cat 3 racers.

If many of the top mountain bike racers in the US like Ross have gotten faster and learned more in their clinic and/or 3 day camp with BetterRide than in their entire career before the camp, think of the time you could drop in your races while using less energy!

If this surprises you it shouldn’t, Ross had no formal skills coaching before this lesson.  There are no skilled sports that are mastered by just doing the sport.  In ski racing, tennis, golf, martial arts, etc. the best athletes spend less than 20% of their training time actually doing the sport, the other 80% is spent doing structured drills to master the core, fundamental skills of the sport.  Now I realize you need to put hours in on the bike but imagine how much faster you would be if you spent just 20 minutes twice a week doing structured drills designed to get you to master the core skills of mountain bike racing.

June 18-20 Golden/Lakewood, CO XC Race Mountain Bike Camp 6 of 14 spots open

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Read what super coach/racer/mom Lynda Wallenfels had to say about her private lesson with Gene in her blog here: Lynda’s Blog

My own frustrations in technique lead me to start looking for people to teach me better riding and racing skills in the late 1990’s. Unfortunately for me there were no skills coaches at the time.  As a former snowboard racer and snowboard coach at the time this further frustrated me, not only did I not have the skills I needed to go faster but there was no one to teach me the skills I needed.  I knew in snowboarding there were specific skills and techniques that were correct, they had been studied and perfected just like a martial art.  Where could I find these techniques for mountain biking?

I was sick of just “hanging” on in the corners, hoping I made them, tired of muscling my way through sections while other riders seemed to flow through with ease.  I was really sick of racers who I knew weren’t training as hard as me beating me.  Have you felt this way?  By the beginning of 1998 I had three years of pro downhill racing and four years of expert cross country racing under my belt but other than getting a little faster do to improving equipment I was still mid-pack at the big races.

Since I couldn’t find a qualified skills coach I decided to take matter into my own hands. I already had seven years of experience from coaching snowboarding and thanks to USA Skiing and Snowboarding quite an education on how to coach effectively.  So I retired from snowboard coaching and put my energy into to learning how to ride mountain bikes correctly and how to teach others to ride with confidence.  I read books by top motocross coaches, studied videos of the best mountain bikers in the world and then asked them pointed questions and worked with racers like Marla Streb and Greg Minnaar to really figure things out.  I have spent the last ten years perfecting the techniques I have learned (unfortunately many mountain biking skills are not intuitive, you could ride for years and not learn these skills (I was racing professionally for over ten years before I learned many of the skills I teach)) and improving my ability to teach these skills.  In the process I have been fortunate enough to coach some of the best racers in the
sport (Chris Van Dine (Pan American Champion), Lynda Wallenfells (Great Britain National Champion), Mitch Ropelato (2009 US National Champ 4X and Downhill), Eli Krahenbuel (2008 Colliegate National Champion), Naish Ulmer, Ben Craner (2007, 2008 Utah State Champion), Sarah Kaufman (Solo 24 Hours of Old Pubelo Winner).  With the help of these riders, racers and coaches I have developed a fun and structured way to teach “The Core Skills of Mountain Biking”.  I really enjoy helping others and would love to share these techniques and the drills for practicing, getting good at and eventually mastering these techniques with you.

Coaching is my passion and my students say that my, ” … ability to break skills down into digestible parts, watch riders and help them refine techniques, your humility and sense of humor make you a world class coach”*.

Spend a three day weekend with me and I will give you the tools to shave minutes off your race times while using less energy.  Your mental skills will improve too and you will leave with a much greater understanding of how to ride balanced, efficiently, smoothly and quickly and a set of drills to help you master these skills.  Please, do yourself a favor and end the frustration of not riding up to your potential. For less than upgrading a wheelset you can upgrade your skills and start riding faster and with more confidence.

*to read the rest of this student’s email and what riders have to say about my camps please click here