Quote Originally Posted by Becky View Post
There's been a lot of discussion here about mountain biking camps and classes and their benefits. DH is a good rider and a good instructor, but I think I need instruction that's less "personal". I've been riding for awhile, but my descending skills are atrocious (ok, non-existent) and I balk at obstacles that I really want to be able to ride.

Has anyone ever tried the REI intro and intermediate MTB classes? Any good? They seem to be the only thing near me (Philly area). Traveling to Colorado or Arizona for camp just isn't in the budget.

Catriona- as I recall (?), you were looking at doing one of the REI classes. How was it?

Thanks in advance for opinions/advice/etc!
Hey Becky,

I think there's a Ride Like a girl ride (check out the WABA forums and you can probably find more details ) at Schaeffer farms this weekend... I'm probably not going, but I think 7rider is.

that's going to be a slow paced ride...

I never actually took one of the REI classes...

I've gone once with MdHill slug, 7rider & her dh which was fairly comfortable... Otherwise I go with the BF, and I'm making "slow" progress. I still like my brakes waaaaay too much. And mostly if I refuse to do a downhill that I should be able to, the BF just makes me climb back up the hill and do it over and over again till I get it. It's annoying, but eventually effective just because I hate biking back up the hill.

There's this one really steep downhill near his house that you end up dodging 6 trees and then you gotta jag right to go over a wood bridge over a creek... and it completely freaks me out dodging the 6 trees, then having to get on the bridge before either falling down a steep creek bed or screwing up and slamming into the steel railings of the bridge.

It's a fairly short downhill, but for whatever reason those steel trestle things freak me out, so I can't tell you how many times I sat and did that one section over and over again....