Professional Guidance Tips

Team Banana show you how to Ride Fast and Ride Fruity.

Words by Professor Thumpweed-Garglehooter III, Pictures by Canon EOS500.

Chapter one: Getting started, the ups and downs of mountain biking

Getting started can be tricky, in this chapter we give an example of how you can make an early start at familiarising yourself with your equipment, riding technique, and the pain of mountain biking. The following examples are all based around a day in the life of Team Banana, which was in fact about the fourth time that one of its members had been on a mountain bike.

STEP 1: Find a suitable Route

Find a suitable Route

Don't be shy, find a biggy - a whopping great big climb followed by a belting big brake melting downhill. There's nothing like a good eight hours in the saddle to get you familiar with the pain and tears, the laughter and joy of biking. Something like a long climb on rubbley tracks followed by a long technical downhill would be ideal. [Pro tip: there's a lot of nonsense written about training techniques these days, starting gently, getting adequate rest, not getting badly lubed on the beers, that kind thing - pay no heed!! Be fruity!!]

Step 2: Learn to climb (no pain, no (height) gain).

We managed to find this big French hill (not too surprising as we were in France) called Petit Valon - hey, and don't be thinking, "what's wrong with Grand Valon? Petit Valon sounds kinda small and wimpy", cos it was more like not-quite-so-Grand-Vallon-but-still-pretty-grand. Anyway, the only way to learn is just to keep going up and keep pumping those thighs, even when there's like a thousand devils of pain dancing through your legs.
So whenever you see a bit of ground that's higher than the bit you're stood on, get pedalling. [Pro tip: climbs can also be used to familiarise yourself with the technique of pushing your faithful stead - often a useful technique, and in no way girly] (speak for youself man o’no-tail in pants -Ed stew pot)

Step 3: Learn to hold on.

Okay so you're at the top, you're thinking, "Great, reached the top, thought we'd never get here, I'm ready for a rest". Rest schmest biking dudes(team squat allowed - Ed stew pot). Going down is just time to workout a few more muscles and practice a few more techniques. To maximise the learning we recommend combining something really bone-breakingly bouncy with something that's nicely technical too. Try something like a black ski run, preferably with heap big boulders where there's no chance of finding a line down the hill, that way you'll discover the virtues of just hangin' on in there. [Pro tip: don't go too slow. Sounds maybe a bit mad, and contrary to what your brain is thinking but it really is best to point and pray]

Step 4: Familiarise yourself with your equipment (and we're not talking about the way you did when you reached puberty!!)

Modern bikes can be totally tricked out in way exciting technical looking bits of machinery which can leave you thinking "wayhey like fetch my brain man, I need a degree in Bikology to understand this machine". But technology is your friend, things like disk brakes can be a great bonus "like parachutes" (particularly when combined with a lack of fear/lack of brain). But, be warned show a little respect and learn the basics, cos technology can be full of hidden surprises for the non-technically minded. For example, those disk brakes don't forget simple things like pumpin' 'em up, or you could be in for a bit of a surprise, a thumping heart and some high speed dirt eating action.

Step 5: Familiarise yourself with more of your equipment (this time we mean more like when you reached puberty)

Familiarise yourself with your equipment

Outdoor sport can be great for getting back in touch with nature and with yourself. There's nothing like a high speed ball bounce on the top tube to remind you what it means to be a man - and there's nothing like lying on the hillside unable to speak for ten minutes to remind you how green the grass is and how much simple pleasure you can find in nature.

Chapter two: Team riding, five steps to team nirvana

Team riding is a great way of achieving your personal and team training goals. Done right it can also be a more stretching, sociable and fun way of riding - so why not try it? Here's a few tips on how to get the most from your team riding sessions.

Step 1: Get a team strip.

 Its fab fun designing your own kit and then getting to scoot around the place all looking kind of similar and like some sort of semi-pro cycling outfit or strange religious sect. [Pro tip: don't forget to sign for the delivery of your parcel before tearing it open and putting on your new prize garments - don't want to upset the postie].

Step 2: Learn to keep together.

Learn to keep together

Team riding can be a tricky thing, keeping a steady pace that all the team can live with takes some practice. You know, even we had problems when we started: on our first day of team riding two out of eight of the team were five hours ahead before the others even set off! And they were riding in the opposite direction! Crazy eh? So stick with it, these things come with practice. [Pro tip: try starting with all getting out of bed at roughly the same time and working up from there].

Step 3: Maximise the strength of the team.

Look to build a diverse team. What you're aiming for here is "the whole being greater than the sum of the parts" - sort of a weird concept in maths terms but highly logical in team biking terms (like, cyco-logical). Here are some of the sorts of skills you might look for in building your team: map reading; guide book reading; sign post reading; palm reading (today might not be your lucky day dude!); first aid skills; big lungs to blow up the team tyres when your pump breaks; extra gooey spit to glue on puncture patches when you run out of glue, etc. Peoples' professional training can come in handy too, just think how useful an engineer could be for all those "mechanicals", and be careful not to carry "dead wood" - for example, can you imagine what use an accountant would be fixing your rear mech, yeah, right, "thanks mate, don't call us, we'll call you, like when we want to count how many cogs we've got!!". [Pro tip: you can even carry a spare bike between you all if the team is big enough. The frame might not be too great though once you've hacked it up and shared it out].

Step 4: Watch out for other road users.

 You know you can be kind of menacing when there's heap big numbers of you sweeping down the public thoroughfares looking all like some sort of private army, and all whooping crazy cries and howls and things, so spare a thought for other road users. For example, don't go flying round some unsuspecting driver on all sides of his motor vehicle like some swarm of oversized bees giving him big heart-thumpy shocks. (see 'Hounding' or 'Buzzing' in Esperbananaranty - Ed stew pot)

Step 5: Learn to keep together (again).

 Look this really is the key to it folks, like what's the point of spreading yourselves out over 1 mile of trail leaving people to struggle into the wind on their own? Kinda defeats the object don't you think?! Like, try checking out a dictionary, see what it says under "team" and compare it to: "individual"; or, "solo"; or, "poor sad f#$*er left on his own". Get the point? Cos don't forget, it can look majorly cool, like Premier Division of Hipness, cruising down the hill in RAF style formation, Bananas at twelve o'clock, that kind of thing. [Pro tip: you'll have to call yourselves something other than Banana cos we got there first and we don't want to get all heavy on you with lawyers and other suits like that you know (In fact now that we move in Banana circles we have discovered that the name Banana is about as original as the name Bob, but what the hell we thought, and we still think that its as cool as Baldwin) ].

NEXT MONTH -

Chapter 3: Summer Riding - How to make war paint from Eldeberries.
Chapter 4: Downhilling - Simple Applied Mathematics and Death.

REMEMBER!
The BANANA

IN NO WAY A FOOLISH FRUIT.