by G. Kunkel
Patrick Neelan, the USA distributor for Stalmach skibobs, visited Sipapu Ski and Summer Resort in New Mexico, USA during the annual skibike festival there. While there, he held a skibob instructional clinic for the staff.
While this video is meant for the Sipapu staff, one can still pick up some basic techniques - how to fit the foot-skis to ski boots, loading/unloading from the chairlift, stance, sideslipping, and stopping.
Whether one is one a skibobber or pegger, one controls their speed through edge angle and performing turns. Sideslipping or skidded traverses, with their low edge angles, are the most basic techniques of keeping one's speed in check.
Notice how Patrick is showing the instructors how to skid the back end of the bike around at the end of the turn. Swing the back end around quick enough and one can perform a hockey stop just like on skis.
Skidded traverses, where the student goes across the hill with the ski bases almost flat to the fall line, are where beginners will really learn how to control their speed. It's the most basic maneuver that every new skibiker should learn first in a lesson. Without it, peggers will find it very difficult to stop.
Study the upper body and lower body positions in relation to the bike and the fall line of the ski slope. This video works well for visual and auditory learners but not so well with kinesthetic learners. Kinesthetic learners need to feel the bike in relation to their body.
Think how you would create muscle memory in your students on their choice of bike. It's critical for their success.
© 2013 G. Kunkel and Skibike and Snow Bike Instruction. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to G. Kunkel and Skibike and Snow Bike Instruction with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Google
