Page 49 - RADC 2017

ADVENTUROUS TRAINING
Mountain Bike Foundation in Snowdonia
Lt Col LM Valler, RADC
The Adventure Training Directive from CDO(A) and encouragement from my PDO gave me the opportunity to spend a week developing a sporting interest that began a few years ago.
Arriving at the Joint Services Mountain Training Centre (JSMTC) in Anglesey on a wet Sunday night I met my six-man team and discovered all were either from 1Para, RAPTC, or Hereford, and I was at least 12years older than any of them! So initially I was worried that I was going to spend five days struggling to climb the mountains and always being
is no comfy chair-lift to get you to the top;
a long uphill graft is required before the adrenaline-rush can begin on the descent. Another big difference between ski runs
and MTB runs is that a stumble on skis ends up in the snow but coming off the
bike involves getting very intimate with Welsh rocks! Maybe a mouthguard next time??!! Fortunately, each day our instructor, John (a local MTB dude), took us to the skills park to develop useful techniques such as braking, cornering (I would deem these essential techniques!), drop-offs and
at the back of the group. However, my time spent blasting around the Troodos mountains during my previous posting in Cyprus gave me a good grounding
Mountain biking doesn’t need to be flying down the side of a mountain...
manuals (mountain bike-speak for pulling a wheelie). There was also instruction on bike maintenance and trailside repairs.
Mountain biking doesn’t need to be flying down the side
of a mountain, it can involve more cross- country riding that also skills to good use. Two
in battling up rocky
tracks (known as
‘technical climbs’ in
mountain bike-speak) and I coped without any problems.
puts the map reading
days were spent touring the hills and valleys around Betws y Coed, all involving timely stops at cafés and the odd pub. A good way to make yourself unpopular is to send your group speeding to the bottom of a steep hill only to announce it was “the wrong hill” and make everyone spend 45mins struggling to cycle back up to the top. You know what they say about Officers and maps.......
The Mountain Bike Foundation offered by ATG(A) comprises 5 days of tuition
in mountain bike techniques as well as guiding through MTB trails in North Wales, so much more than cycling ‘around the back area’. The days were spent at three different trail centres in the area (take a look: www.mbwales.com). For those who’ve never been to a trail centre they are mountain descents that are graded in a similar way to ski resorts, however, there
ATG(A) provide a progression of mountain bike courses and qualifications and I hope to complete the MTB Leader course later in
the year giving me the qualification to take a group of RADC personnel up and down some trails in 2018.
The organisation and instruction at JSMTC was excellent, as was the standard of equipment and specialist clothing. This included using some very high performance expensive mountain bikes. So take a look at the ATG(A) website and see for yourselves what’s on offer.
RADC BULLETIN 2017 47