A great way to greatly improve your fitness, stamina and brush up on your bike skills is to visit your local BMX track. This Sunday I went to the track to concentrate on improving a friend of mine's bike handling skills, particularly bermed cornering and getting a more active body position on the bike.

 

We started with cornering and slowly built speed up on the long right hand berm till he was confident at riding the berm, we then moved onto linked bermed corners and sessioned these looking at where to ride and more importantly, where to look. Happy with cornering it was over to the rythmn section which is a series of 8 rollersin close succession. The idea is to pump your way through the rollers without pedalling, using timing, weight transfer and a lot of practise. After many attempts he was looking a lot smoother so we headed for the starting grid to get some laps in and put it all into practise. 

 

With clearly a big improvement in his confidence and bike handling skills, it really goes to show just how good a focused session at the BMX track get your riding back on track.  

 

 I ride at the Queens Park BMX track near Heywood, Lancashire, it has recently had a make over and a re-design and there is a local club (Heywood BMX Club) who run club sessions on a Saturday morning from 9am till 12pm. Click on the link to The Roch Valley Raiders website and find out more.