Earlier this summer, we welcomed young riders to our new progressive kids MTB skills Training course at Glentress. At 13-14 years old, they had pretty solid red‑grade experience, the right equipment, and a genuine hunger to ride. Over three half‑day sessions, we watched their riding transform from capable but sometimes cautious red‑grade riders into catching real momentum and flowing confidently through some of Glentress’s most technical black trails and features.
This was an experiment for us as we have always concentrated on our sold out Kids Camps, but when the kids aged out, we rarely saw them again. Now we have a real, proven avenue to bring the most capable young riders up to a higher level of understanding in how they handle their bikes on challenging terrain. With large groups of riders, we have to make decisions about syllabus on the fly. But it all worked really well and gave us a solid base for what turned out to be a great 3 weeks of our progression sessions.
Here’s a run-down of the 3 days including some of our awesome riders and their bikes!
DAY 1: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast…
The first session was all about assessing the riders baselines. We quickly spotted a couple of key habits that most your riders have. Heavy braking into corners and features with a tendency to stand too upright and stiff through rougher terrain. Once we focused on vertical and horizontal movement through some advanced body position tips, they found balance easier at slow speed for steeper features, that they could move the bike around a lot easier and, and control braking more effectively. The changes were pretty much immediate.
By the end of the day, they were more thoughtful about how to approach features with the correct momentum rather than outright speed, finding grip where they’d previously struggled as well as holding cleaner lines through the twistier sections. Overall, as assessment session check for the willingness to listen and learn as well as to commit to the concept of learning as they ride.
“I didn’t realise how much smoother everything felt just allowing my bike to move a bit” Was the common collective feedback from day 1 sessions.
DAY 2: No sudden moves…
The second day moved us into technical territory rock gardens, root and rock littered chutes, drops, and tight steep, flatter corners. These were features that some could ride before? But not always with thought or consistency. By breaking each challenge into manageable steps, they started to approach them with commitment rather than hesitation.
We rode a VERY challenging trail blind, then walked back up challenging the group to session different line choices. We considered line sight, speed, momentum, braking, where to fid support and the function of risk and reward Vs getting down the trail cleanly. After session 3 key areas of this trail, we had a clean run down to see if they could catch their chosen lines when the pressure was on.
The body body position from the previous day started to make sense to the riders and with the horizontal and vertical movement tips starting to happen on the trail, this is the day that signalled to many a “I can do this” moment.
“The more I look up when it gets steeper, the more confident I become” and “What a difference for braking when I keep my heels down” Were the themes of the day. Line choice will be important tomorrow!
DAY 3: Becoming colour blind…
On the final day, we put the new skills into practice on full trail sections. Suddenly, they weren’t just surviving features; they were linking them together with flow and intent. Corners were set up earlier, momentum carried naturally between obstacles, and braking was used deliberately, not instinctively.
Their riding had gone from reactive to proactive.
Quote: “It finally felt like I was riding the trail, not the trail riding me,”
The idea of our consolidation day being that we stop thinking about common trail features being “graded” (green, blue, red, black etc) rather just as problems to overcome by employing simple thought processes and then learning from how a riders deliberate inputs effect the results. Both successful and unsuccessful.
So there we have it. Our first Youth Progression Sessions. A brilliant few weeks with some amazing young riders. Watching confidence appear and evolve in young riders is incredible. It’s also incredible for us to be part of the journey too.
We’ll be putting on more Youth Progression Sessions alongside our usual kids camp offerings, so stay tuned to our social media channels to get the latest on dates pricing and availability.
