"How To" videos?

[michelem]

I'm in search of some "how to" videos for basic bike skills (cornering, descending, etc.). I've already spent $200 in "bike skills and drills" classes that did more to teach me about bike maintenance than anything else (both classes did not a lot of verbal instruction, but did not give us much on the bike training - 1) REI no on the bike training at all - just read info to us - seemed they were more interested in plugging their bikes to us than teaching us how to ride; 2) other outfit, we practiced braking and cornering techniques in a flat, empty parking lot, but no "real world" training - again, lectured us on things like climbing and descending, but no on the bike experience with this - I need to learn how to descend and corner when there is other traffic around and I don't have all the room in the world.

Anyway, I went to bicycling.com, but it seems that all their skills videos are aimed at mountain biking. While I ride a mountain bike, I don't ride it off road at all. I'd prefer something I can watch online, free of charge, but am not opposed to paying for something if it is really good.

Thanks.

P.S. I've read all of your great advice here in the threads, but I need to SEE what you are talking about for it to really make sense. For example, how do you do the outside-inside-outside line for cornering when there are people coming the other direction, either on foot on skateboard, with dogs, or on bikes? What does counter-steering LOOK like?

Thanks again.

[SouthernBelle]

Have you searched on Youtube? I know they have maintenence videos there.

[michelem]

Thanks for the suggestion, SouthernBelle. Yes, I tried that, but I'm not very savvy with the search thing. I tried "cycling & cornering" as a search, but didn't come up with what I was looking for - some motorcycle videos and short (10 sec. or so) clips of crashes coming around corners - stuff like that. If you have some "dummy" tips on YouTube searches, please send them my way! :p

[SouthernBelle]

I went over and ran a few searches and came up with some safety videos plus some trail riding videos. Use bicycle rather than cycling. Narrows a little.

[michelem]

Thanks again. That search didn't work so well for me - still got a majority of motorcyle videos even though I plugged in bicycle & cornering - it picked up cycle and corner out of that - oh well! There was one video that showed two guys from the back going down a very long, curvy decent, but that wasn't much help either since they were crossing the yellow line on their cornering! That's what I'm trying to learn NOT to do!

Anyway, I guess practice makes perfect. I made it on our almost 60 mile ride today without a tip over or a crash. My legs really burned out toward the last 1/4 of the ride (I hung back pretty far, so wasn't getting any drafting at all). There was no way I was going to keep up with these guys on their Orbea, Cervelo, Giant, and Trek carbon-fiber bikes with the super-light wheels and such. I was the only gal today . . .

Thanks again for your suggestions. I appreciate the time you took to respond.