Youth Intro to Air Blacksburg

Location

Blacksburg, Virginia

Group Size

6 people per guide

Duration

3 hours

Youth Intro to Air Clinic

For 10-15 year olds who are regular mountain bikers wanting to learn or refine air skills for jumps and drops. Is your little shredder eyeing the jumps and wondering if they can ride them? Maybe they’re already hitting some jumps and drops with mixed results. Sometimes it appears to go smoothly but not always. Let’s help them get in the air with more control!

During this clinic, we’ll introduce and refine the foundational skills needed for safe air time in a controlled environment to minimize risk. Our proven step-by-step building block progression helps youth learn the skills needed to be successful for jumps and drops before they start getting wheels off the ground. Once we develop some mastery with these fundamentals, we help them to start to get their wheels off the ground in a controlled way on small features.

 

Cost: $44 per person. This clinic is sponsored and subsidized by the New River Land Trust, the Town of Blacksburg, and the New River Valley Bicycle Association to keep the cost less than a 1/3 of normal pricing. Consider signing up for a few clinics! 

 

Who should take this clinic:

• This clinic is appropriate for 10-15 year old riders who are regular mountain bike riders.

• Riders should be on mountain bikes in good working condition and fit the child well. Bikes should be fitted with disc brakes, with quality gears, and mountain bike tires. 24in wheels or bigger are required. 

• Kids who are just beginning to get their wheels off the ground will learn proper technique to get started in a safe way and get PLENTY of repeatable practice with expert analysis and feedback to help them progress.

• Intermediate level jumpers will benefit from going back to basics, refining the essential fundamentals to jump with control on different size and shape jumps and drops.

What to expect:

• At drop-off, we’ll check in with the parents to hear more about what experience your little rider is coming with, what kinds of trails they have ridden in the past, and any suggestions / information that will help us provide an excellent experience.

• WIth the kids, we’ll start with a meet and greet to say hello and learn everyone’s names. We’ll play some on-bike games right away to get everyone moving and having fun. This also serves as a skills assessment for our professional coaches.

• This clinic will start in the open grassy areas and the practice trails at the Gateway Skills Park. We’ll set up our mobile obstacles and features for a controlled and safe learning environment.

• Next, we’ll move to applying these foundation jumping skills to the practice jumps at the Gateway Skills Park. We’ll get a ton of repetition on those jumps with individual analysis and feedback from our professional coaches (including video analysis).