New mountain biking "club"

in message <[email hidden]>, soup

(') said:

Son's school (Balerno High, Edinburgh)is running a course which wil have
at the start a coach (Mark Young) of Scottish cycling .
Subsequently the school is hoping to have at least two members of
staff undergo a "British cycling coaching assesment" and "go for" a
trail leader award.
Are these organisations rated, have read some horror stories(in
here)about "qualified" people coming out with flawed even dangerous
advice)?
Does this seem a good idea?

There is an organisation known as the Scottish Mountain Bike Leaders
Association which is just what it says - a club for people with the
Mountain Bike Leaders qualification. They're a very sober and competent
bunch of people, on the whole, and the training they've developed is good
and worth taking. It's administered by the SCU, so it's all above board
and generally a Good Thing.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

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Simon Brooke wrote:
They're a very sober and competent

Quoted message said:

bunch of people, on the whole, and the training they've developed is good
and worth taking.

That's good I had this image of MBUK reader types being in charge and
saying things like "it's only a 20 foot drop go for it".
--
www.cheesesoup.myby.co.uk

soup said:

Simon Brooke wrote:
They're a very sober and competent

Quoted message said:

bunch of people, on the whole, and the training they've developed is good
and worth taking.

That's good I had this image of MBUK reader types being in charge and
saying things like "it's only a 20 foot drop go for it".

But you know that it is a well chosen 20ft drop and fully risk assessed
by a trained coach ;-) [1]

We have a set of trained coaches in the club, and more undergoing
training. The SMBL jersey I have seen is pretty cool.. it is a print of
the 1:50k OS map where they did the course.

They are supposed to be competent to teach the full bikeability/NCS
stuff as a prerequisite to being able to take the coaching course, so
are generally fairly sound, though it does vary between individuals.

...d

[1] having seen the older MTB group at the club doing a 20 ft steep
slope - the sort where you are using the back wheel as a drag brake and
almost sititng on it to get down... All under careful supervision and
advice. Some of them even survived ;-)