NEWS

Rob Warner  master class

When the Giant rep first suggested the idea of Rob Warner coming down to our little shop to give us the benefit of his years of experience on the mtbking downhill circuit we jumped at the chance. It took forever to get a suitable date that was ok for everyone, but finally the 22nd of July was decided on. Once word got out, places for the masterclass disappeared fast with most participants in the Saturday morning freeride eager to come along.

Now, Rob Warner has a bit of a reputation in the mountain biking world which if you read the mags you will know all about, so it was with some trepidation we awaited his arrival on the Sat morning - would he arrive? would he be, well, laaaiirry! the answer to those two questions were yes & no.
 

We took him along to 'cream egg' where there are quite a few jumps of varying difficulty & technique & a few of the lads did one of the more difficult jumps called 'heads roll' pictured below.

The jump looks huge to me but apparently it's a nice little take off with a nice landing on the down slope with a berm almost immediately after. Above you can see Ollie clearing it on his little hard tail. Simon was having a bit of difficulty clearing the length of it & this is what I find fascinating about professional riders(of all sports)Rob was able to analyse & explain very clearly what Simon was doing wrong & what he needed to do to correct it. To be able to perfom at the top level consistently you need to understand exactly how things are done. Unlike us mere mortals who give it go & often get away with it without really realising how we do it. Everybody had a go with varying degrees of success, probably the scariest was Alan Sparks whose foot came out as he took off but managed to land, just about, without major damage.   
 

Finally Rob had a go & I breathed a sigh of relief that he didn't crash & shatter our illusions! He continued to pass on little titbits of wisdom & we moved onto another little kicker jump. Now at this stage I should mention the accident that seemed to be happening in the background called Mark Woodruff. A very good rider but 'having one of those days!' Every time I turned around I caught sight of Mark narrowly missing a tree or off balance & careering into undergrowth, but it has to be said doing some excellent jumps in between times. His number was up on the little or not so little kicker, he went up! we went oohhh! & he came down! with the front of the bike sort of nosediving mid air & Mark landing head/shoulder first. Mark manfully picked himself up, looking a little dazed, but with fifteen or so people watching, you don't whimper then, you crawl away & do it later. Rob was able to pinpoint what had gone wrong, which was very useful to the rest of us, but for Mark, he was a little too dazed to take it in.

Simon then suggested having a look at a longer, larger jump which motorbikes use.
 

The picture doesn't quite do it justice. There's a gap of approx 15ft between take off & landing. The approach is a bit tricky as you have to build your speed up & then come round a sweeping LH berm & then take off. 'Simon from Sutton' was keen to have a go. The approach was proving a bit tricky, it was hard to go fast enough around the berm to be going quick enough to take off. A few attempts were made & then Rob had a go & before you knew it he had whizzed round, taken off & cleared it by a mile. Everyone was gobsmacked. The gauntlet had been laid down & Simon rose to the challenge. He mastered the berm & cleared the jump easily. Later Ollie had a go but didn't quite have the length & his rear wheel smashed into the face of the landing, wrecking his wheel but managing to jump off with no injuries

Rob then suggested practising going around the berm, trying to keep the speed as fast as possible. Keeping the outside foot down, keeping low on the berm & keeping the weight over the bike, all trying to make the tyres dig in & grip. By this time rain was beginning to fall, so it was back to the pub for some sustanance. Rob was happy to answer questions & hopefully everyone went away having gained some useful tips on jumping/freeriding.

Big thanks to Rob & Giant & everyone who put there bodies on the line for me to get some video footage & which hopefully will be available on the site soon. Below are the rest of the pictures I managed to take, unfortunately my little instamatic leaves a lot to be desired.

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