British Cycling | Level 2 Mountain Bike Leadership [Everything you need to know!]

Interested in becoming a mountain bike guide or leader? Want to up your skills and confidence on the trail? Well the Level 2 Mountain Bike Leadership accredited by British cycling might just be for you!

I was recently invited to Coed Y Brenin by Pedal MTB to take part in their Level 2 Mountain Bike Leadership training (accredited British Cycling). I had an incredible time developing my skills on and off the trail.

In this video I go into depth about my experience of the Level 2 training days and tell you what you can expect to do if you go on the course.

About the course:
The Level 2 Mountain Bike Leadership Award is the entry point for most aspirant mountain bike leaders, enabling qualified leaders to use their experience to safely guide others on off-road terrain. The award is ideal for anyone with an interest in mountain biking, who is either working in the outdoor sector, volunteering at a club or simply has a personal interest in gaining additional skills. These skills can be used to go out on a mountain bike, be safe and have fun.
More info: https://www.pedalmtb.co.uk/qualifications/british-cycling-level-2-mtb-award/

Registering with British Cycling:
https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/mtbleadership/article/leaderst-Level-2-Mountain-Bike-Leadership-Award-0

About Pedal MTB:
We are the leading mountain bike training company in North Wales, with an international reputation for delivering client centred training. We are the official coaching partner of Beics Brenin and our partnership aims to increase the accessibility and quality of coaching for all. We are the official coaching providers for Coed y Brenin and Antur Stiniog and deliver at these sites and across North Wales. Internationally we deliver guide training courses in Kenya, Nepal and Greece and are constantly seeking opportunities to continue to deliver quality guide training courses overseas.
More info: https://www.pedalmtb.co.uk/

Music by White Laces: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1Q2r4…

About us:
Sam and Pete are 2 guys from mid wales with a passion for mountain biking and a desire to progress their mtb skills.
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Hello and welcome to go biking A couple of weeks ago i was invited out to coy de brennan by pedal mtb to take part in a level 2 mountain bike leadership course this is a two-day training course accredited by british cycling aimed at giving people the skills and experience they need to start taking out guided groups mountain biking

In this video i’m going to share my experience of the course what we got up to what i enjoyed and also just a little bit more information about the course to hopefully help you decide whether this might be the right course for you and so i’m going to start off by handing over

To al who’s going to tell you a little bit more about pedal mtv and the course they run okay so i’m al i’m a business partner with ed and four years ago we formed pedal mounted biking specialising in leadership training guide training and coaching as well i worked fortunate

Enough to work throughout the world in nepal in kenya greece and obviously a lot over in the uk as well i’m really passionate about riding my happy place is on the bike and i just want to share that with other people and that led me into doing a fair bit of

Mountain biking ended up finding out about the award with the old scottish system uh qualified in that as a tutor just because i wanted to share my passion and the idea is really just to give people an introductory level so they can share their enjoyment their fun their

Learning with other people out on the trail and we get a whole range so we get teachers people who want to do it full-time as a business family members really who just want to be a little bit more comfortable taking their friends and family out uh yeah so

The whole range of people actually it there’s something for everybody so for the really good riders we’ve got something where we can just give you a bit more leadership experience and understand the map work for those who’ve got a leadership background we can sort of upskill you in terms of transferring

Those skills into the mountain bike arena make sure you’re comfortable and confident on the bike and understand how to manage flow and so yeah it encompasses a lot of people it’s a really accessible course thanks al as he mentioned um this course is aimed at a real variety of people um

And that was the case on this course you know i met a group of really lovely people all coming at this from um different perspectives you know some looking to start businesses and make this a really professional thing some were looking to help out with um kind of

Kids clubs and stuff like that and some more like me who were just looking to up their skills and become more confident on the trail and so we’ve heard a bit about what the course is all about but what can you expect to do when you’re on this course So day one is a predominantly classroom based day so be prepared to learn a lot because they really cram in the information you’re covering a really wide variety of topics everything from what makes a good leader to carrying out dynamic risk assessments and everything in between

Um there were two topics for me that really stood out the first of which was the trailside repairs in this session we were given hands-on teaching on the classic issues that pop up on the trail everything from just how to change a puncture really quickly uh to how to make your bike a

Fixed gear bike if you’ve messed up your mech and and a few other things like indexing gears and for me this was a really good topic because um if you watch this channel you know that i usually ride with pete and pete is fantastic with the

Diy stuff but for me it’s a real weak point so it was great to take ownership of those trailside repairs and give me the confidence to you know start tinkering with my bike a little bit more and be prepared on the trail then when things do go wrong that i know that i

Can sort my own bike out so yeah that was a really good session so the second session that i got a lot out of was the map navigation session and this takes up quite a chunk of the course because for the level two assessment you’re expected to be able to

Guide a group of mountain bikers using a compass and map without using any kind of gps technology um and that might sound a little bit scary to you and to be honest it did to me too um but we went really into depth with it got loads

Of really good advice so actually by the end of the course it was something i was starting to feel a lot more comfortable with um it’s still something i need to do quite a lot of work on um but it was really good to get those skills

So after quite a long day in the classroom it was great then to be able to go out for a bit of a ride in the afternoon and the focus of this ride was mainly about observing good practice in mountain bike leadership so al our guide

Kind of showed us round as if he was guiding a group he showed us a variety of warm-up games that would help you gauge the ability of the riders you are working with and how confident they are on the bike he also showed us different ways of kind of guiding people

Up climbs and making it more interesting different leadership styles in how far you let people go and how much control you take things like that and that was really interesting to watch because it just showed how flexible and adaptable a guide needed to be depending on the type of group they had

So yeah that was really interesting the other thing that we focused on a lot during this ride was making sure trails were within remit and this word remit pops up a lot during the course and essentially it’s just a set of rules that stipulate where you

Can and can’t take a group um so it’s rules like the trail can’t have drops that you can’t be rolled down and you have to be able to ride the trail at walking speed and you can’t be further than 30 minutes walk from a road and those rules sound quite restrictive and

To be fair they are but they’re restricted for a reason because they help keep you and your group safe um and also keep you covered so that you know if you’ve kept within that remit and someone has an accident on that trail you know that british cycling have

Said he’s within his remit he’s covered um and that’s over oversimplifying it but it’s there for a reason and i think the remit speaks to who this course is aimed at as well you know you don’t have to be an amazing rider to do this course um yes you need

To be comfortable and confident on your bike but you’re not going to be expected to send it down massive drops or just ride incredibly steep techy stuff at an amazing pace you know that’s just not what is expected of you on this course um it’s more about giving you leadership

And the tools you need to be able to guide people safely so it’s perfect for people who are like instructors that want to add mountain biking to their repertoire of things they can guide on um but if if you know your instructor and you’re not an amazing mountain biker

That doesn’t matter and so that that’s really good however you might be thinking actually that remit is too restrictive for my needs and in that case the level two course is a really good stepping stone um to progression so after the level two you can progress to a level three which

Essentially allows you to take a group anywhere within reason um but during the level two you’ve gotta make sure you stick within this remit of rules so day two is a big day in the saddle and it is all about putting into practice those things that we learned

About in the classroom the theory of kind of doing dynamic risk assessments and making sure that your trails within remit so what happens is essentially we go out as a big group and we take it in turns to be the guide for the day One of the things that i really enjoyed about the course was how it encouraged you to get away from the trail centers off the beaten track and into the wild and you know it was about relying on your map and your compass and you know going out to places that you wouldn’t

Normally go out and see and that was amazing because we just got to see some truly beautiful places on this ride it was quite epic So having a go at leading the group was a real challenge and it made me appreciate just how much there is to think about as a mountain bike leader you know you’re weighing up the risks of the trail but also trying to ensure that the group are having a good time and

That the flow of the journey is there while in the back of your mind you’re looking at your map and thinking i hope i’m going the right way so yeah there there is so much to think about when you’re doing this um and yeah it was definitely a challenge but i

Got so much out of it so after an amazing day’s riding having learned so much and challenged myself with a variety of ways and we got back and then we were given personalized action plans and these were to highlight some key things to work on before coming back for

Assessment at a later date so for me it showed that i needed to work on my wild riding um and upping my confidence with map work and navigation so that’s something i need to go and work on now before coming back and doing my assessment so i had an absolutely amazing time on

This course i challenged myself in so many ways i learned loads of new things and i picked up skills that even if i don’t go out and start leading mountain bike groups i’m going to be using every time i go out for a ride so a huge thank

You to pedal mtb for having me along if this course sounds like something you’d like to do there’s a link in the description box below and where you can go to their website and check out more information there if you’ve enjoyed this video please do click like and subscribe become part of

The community it’d be great to have you here and equally if you’ve got any ideas of things you’d like to see us do in the future please do drop a comment below so yeah thank you very much for watching guys see you next time [Applause] You