SadieKate, does your comment about road-only riders mean that you think mountain biking is a good way to learn some of these skills?
I ask because that is exactly why Jeremy (uh, my husband, not the Jeremy in the article) encouraged me to get a mountain bike and take some skills clinics (which I am going to do this spring; it is much easier to find mountain biking clinics than road clinics, it seems), because he said he learned most of what he knows about bike handling from mountain biking (and also from riding BMX bikes as a kid).