So thinking back, what was the complicated bit about that corner, how do you think riding a BMX bike down the trails is going to help you with that? Better yet how about a road cycle? Great, get fit, stay fit, ride a BMX for fun, ride a motocross bike, whatever, but TRAINING for a DH race HAS to involve cornering on a DH bike how else will you train those muscles (mostly the one between your ears) that you need to understand and attack the corner?

So training is a way of proving to yourself you want to go faster when deep down you know you can’t face the fear of going faster. Agreed? Glad we got that cleared up.

Are you really prepared to go faster? Who is out there doing braking drills? You? A rider develops a poxy couple of horsepower, a brake develops 40–50 reverse BHP. The only reason it can’t develop more power is because the bike will loop out and you’ll go over the bars. Why aren’t riders thinking about stuff? Is it not fashionable to be smart in British DH, why is everyone ‘playing dumb’ to mates instead of ‘playing normal’? DH is full of only-fools-and-horses ‘Trigger’ type characters, “had this frame ten years, three new swingarms, two new front triangles and a new shock”.

Are playing or are you practising? Do you go riding to try to go faster or do you search out new tracks all the time for the novel experience? Are you having fun? If you bought your own stuff and you ride masters, great, have fun, you deserve it, well some of you do. If you get stuff for free, bikes, accessories, expenses, etc., you are someone’s representative whilst at the races, you are not supposed to have fun at work! If you want to have fun go on holiday, whilst racing as a sponsored rider you are NOT on holiday. I’d say don’t go and try a new track until you have reached the time limit of your current track, but 99% of you NEVER get a timed run until you are at a race, how can you know if you are improving or not if you never know exactly how many seconds it takes?

Do you actually deserve any free stuff? Do you know how to receive free stuff and do you know the responsibilities that come with free stuff? I’ve seen the best riders in the world riding on sponsored tyre deals in BIG teams using rival brands with logos duct taped over!!! If you want to run Brand A and they don’t want to pay then you don’t take money from brand B and still run Brand A, you simply BUY brand A, you can afford it. Is it better to have a normal, real job and ride a good bike or have a poorly paid ride and pilot a free turd?

‘Externalisation’ of problems, just another way of making excuses. It’s NOT someone else’s fault, EVER, it is always in your hands. See how you can learn from that now? If you blame the tyre for puncturing and shout at the tyre in order to teach it a lesson, it will not learn, it will always be a tyre and will never show remorse for letting you down. If you work out what you control action you took that made it puncture and reduce the chances of it happening again, tubeless, Stans, line choice, tyre pressure, then that is improvement through experience, if you take responsibility for everything that befalls you then you stand a chance of learning from the experience and improving, if you off–load responsibility you can never control that off–loaded situation again? Bad weather beyond your control? Maybe, but not beyond your understanding, get a barometer and learn how to read the clouds…sorted. Now you have an advantage and ‘Trigger’ simply has a brolly.

Has MTB DH moved on or has it been held back by riders and riders’ agreements? Are you more interested in fashion than speed? Are baggies just another way of comfort braking? No one would argue that a skinsuit and an aero tuck would be faster, all we hear from riders is that it’s not cool to wear lycra. So go and race supercross! Oh, you aren’t good enough? Well let’s not pretend that this is supercross for losers, it’s a different sport with different needs – human powered, get over it!

How can YOU call a course ‘TOO EASY’? Only one guy/girl can call a course too easy, the one person that wins, everyone else should try going faster, it won’t be so easy then will it? By the way, after the last Pro DH humbling display by Sam Hill, I reckon even the very quickest of the rest need to go about 15–20% faster, ‘cos one day, he’ll get a run down Champery in the dry and then you’ll all look really bad. Just be thankful it’s not motorsport and you don’t have a ‘within 10% of the leader’ cut–off for qualifying, if he had a dry run on those rules, he might be riding the finals with very few riders for company.