Outdoor-sports experts can help someone on your list get in the groove

Straddling my mountain bike atop a short, steep hillside in Seattle's Woodland Park, I watched as Baker, my 9 ½-year-old son, biked down what appeared to be a vertical pitch. (To me, anyway.) From the look of it though, to him it was as tame as the flat walkway to the picket fence in front of our Bellingham home. He swooped down with ease and grace, knees and elbows slightly bent to absorb the bumps, head up, looking where he wanted to go. At the bottom, he swept smoothly into a turn to the right.

"That's it, that's great, Baker," Simon Lawton said, offering encouragement and guidance. Baker and I were in the midst of a two-hour mountain-bike instruction session.

"It's when we become most defensive that we lose control," Lawton said.

Ah yes, defensive. Lawton, the owner of Fluidride, a kind-of one-stop mountain-bike instruction/bike shop/race-promotion business, would be referring to moi. When it was my turn to descend the same hill — actually, I'd scooched over about 20 feet to the left to a spot not as steep as Baker's but still seeming plenty perpendicular to me — I was all agita and angst. I was terrified I'd tumble over the handlebars and ragdoll my way down the hill. (Which, to be honest, was maybe only 20 feet of soft dirt and rain-soaked leaves. But still.) With a white-knuckle death grip on my brakes, my wheels locked, I kinda crept down the hill — going too slow to even skid — at all of 3 mph.

"That's a good start, now try to moderate your braking this time," Lawton told me. "And let the bike do the work. Relax, keep your elbows out a little and let the bike jockey like a horse underneath you."

The words were helpful but I probably learn best by trial and observing others. Watching Baker, who started mountain biking young enough that good technique comes easily to him, and Lawton, who's a pro downhill racer himself (as well as a guru to the pros), I began to get it. We repeated the drop 10 or 15 times and eventually, not only did my speed increase, but so did my comfort level and the feeling of being in control of my bike. I even managed the hard right-hand turn Lawton had set up with some orange cones at the bottom.

Training the brain

"Mountain biking is a very intimidating sport and my goal is to make it non-intimidating," Lawton had told me before we got started. "We try things in a non-consequential environment" — that is, places with soft landings, cones standing in for rocks and trees — "and once your brain is trained that it can do these things, you can go out in the real world and not have your brain stop you."

Lawton's Fluidride instruction arm is just one of the many Seattle-area coaching sessions, instruction clinics, training programs and the like offered for cyclists, runners, triathletes, climbers — really enthusiasts of just about every stripe — who want to improve their skills or learn new ones.

"Great coaches know how to motivate athletes," says Seattle's Scott Jurek, who, along with being arguably the world's top ultrarunner for the past decade, coaches and offers running camps. "They're a combination of a great scientist, mechanic, strategic planner, psychologist, teacher and motivational speaker."

Sounds like a great deal. And a coaching session or clinic makes a great gift idea for the outdoor enthusiast on your holiday list. (Wife Jen, are you reading this?) It's also a great way to get fired up for the New Year.

Starting with the basics

In the past six months, Baker has become an avid mountain biker, pulling me — a roadie who sometimes mountain bikes — deep into the sport as well. From Lawton's session I wanted him to learn safe techniques for the jumps, drops and skinny ladder bridges that are more and more alluring to him. As for me, I just wanted to learn ways to keep up with my son. Or at least keep him in my sight.

Lawton began our session with basics — teaching us effective braking (don't stand so high while leaning forward that you're apt to flip over the handlebars) and turning (push down with your outside foot to apply pressure down into the bike so the tires grip better). Cheerful, upbeat and with a contagious passion for mountain biking, he'd first demonstrate what he wanted us to do, explain the physics behind it, and then have us do it over and over again. All the while videotaping us. Afterward, we watched our progress (as in Baker's case) or something resembling progress (as in mine).

Spotting an opportunity

After our downhill session, Lawton set up a small foot-high ramp on the downside of a slope and Baker and I practiced dropping off that. It's an invaluable skill applicable on probably half the trails we ride on Whatcom County's Galbraith Mountain.

"Tip back onto your heels so that you elevate the front of the bike," Lawton told us. Baker seemed to get it right away whereas I, who tend to think that bunny-hopping is the answer to most mountain-biking obstacles, hadn't quite dialed it in.

"You're tipping back just a little too soon," Lawton told me.

The camera doesn't lie. Watching the tape of our first few attempts, Baker's transition off the ramp into the air and onto the ground was smooth, as if once he reached the end of the ramp, he continued riding on an invisible bridge that gently placed him back on the ground. My timing was off and I appeared herky-jerky, as if reacting to being struck in the back of the neck by a spitball.

"Wait till you're just about to go off the drop," Lawton said.

With repetition, my timing improved and I got it. More important, I got the concept behind it and it was something I could take home with me, practice repeatedly and, I hope, incorporate into my riding.

Lawton ended our session demonstrating how almost anything can be turned into a jump. Baker leapt up and down at this concept. Riding toward a pair of thick, slippery foot-high tree roots, the kind which to me, spell get-off-your-bike-and-walk-around, Lawton, who's 6-foot-5 and weighs 200-plus pounds, launched off the first which elevated him above and past the second. In doing so, he generated a great deal of speed in a very short span of both time and distance.

"Awesome! Do it again!" Baker implored Lawton who, in the name of instruction (and fun), did indeed do it again and again.

"I'm taking something that's an impediment and turning it into an opportunity," Lawton told us. "That's really what mountain biking is all about, and that's what makes it so much fun."

Turning impediments into opportunities — wow, that's an ethos one could apply to all of life, isn't it? A great outlook for the holidays and the New Year, that's for sure.

Mike McQuaide is a Bellingham freelance writer and author of "Day Hike! Central Cascades" and "Day Hike! North Cascades" (Sasquatch Books). He can be reached at mikemcquaide@comcast.net. His bike-centric blog is mcqview.blogspot.com.