Coaching with Mount Bachelor Sports and Education Foundation

After working in a bike shop, my next job in the bike industry was becoming a mountain bike coach for Mount Bachelor Sports and Education Foundation (MBSEF). This was a great move for me, because it gave me an environment to combine the skill set I built as a mountain biker with the learning and teaching methods I learned in college through the Outdoor Leadership Program. Over the course of the last four seasons I have had the opportunity to work with kids ranging in age from five to seventeen, which has challenged me on many different levels. This past season I had the opportunity to work once a week for six weeks with a group of Middle School aged boys and girls, which was a lot of fun and a great challenge. Many of these kids work with MBSEF in the winter in their snow-sports programs, so they are already athletes in similar disciplines and they are looking to advance their abilities as mountain bikers. I worked with this group of six to eight riders every week with a fellow coach and friend Todd who has proven himself over the last two seasons as a dependable, fun and driven coach and rider. Together we were able to work directly with the group in both advancing their endurance strength as well as the bike handling skills.

(Warm up at the Railroad Jumps)

Most rides began at Phil’s Trail-head, which meant that most rides began in the pump-track then moved to the the Railroad Jumps. Almost every rider in the group wanted to improve their jumping abilities, so we would hang out and warm up with a session at the jumps before we  took to the trails for the afternoon. Let’s be honest if the kids had it their way, we would stay there all day, but we want to ride as much as play, and we see the value in working on endurance as important to however they want to ride when they are not riding with us. Out in the woods we also take the opportunity to play on technical trail features (TTF) as well as natural trail features (NTF). That said every week we would work on and with things like cornering, riding log-rides, bunny-hopping, doing drops, riding steep sections, cleaning rock-gardens, anything that we came across that had a challenge and/or lesson in it was game on for our teaching and trying points.

(Practicing cornering in the pump-track at Phil’s Trail-Head)

(Technical riding and drops at The Lair)

(Log-rides on Marvin’s Gardens)

(Dirt jumps at The Lair)

(Teeter-totter woo-hoo)

(winding out the miles of single-track)

Each week we would mix up the fun the learning and the riding into a few hours of good hard rewarding work. The kids seemed to get faster, stronger, and more confident every week. We rode almost all the trails in the lower Phil’s network, and some of the trails in the Wanoga trail network before are session was over. It was a great way to start the spring, riding with young motivated riders challenges you as a coach to work on making the lessons fun and practical, because if it doesn’t make sense to a teenager they aren’t going to want to do it. This was one of my favorite sessions to coach, and I loved the challenge of teaching these kids how to become more efficient, confident and all around skilled riders.

At the end of the ride, it’s all about getting to do something you love with others and watching their love for the ride grow from the things you show them. In the woods, on the trail, with the kids, this is why I live my mountain bike life.

 

Wilderness Medicine Institute Wilderness First Aid Re-Certification Weekend

A few weekends back Cog Wild and Central Oregon Trail Alliance (COTA) collaborated on hosting a re-certification class through The National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) and their Wilderness Medicine Institute (WMI) so that the group of mountain bike guides and trail crew leaders could re-certify in Wilderness First Aid. Most of the group attended a certification together two years ago, and now we were all meeting back up to spend the weekend working on re-sharpening our skills in wilderness medicine.

I have personally spent over half of my life with one First Aid/CPR certification or another. It began in my teenage years as a Boy Scout, and has continued. When I moved to Oregon in 2007 my first term as a student at Central Oregon Community College I took Wilderness Advanced First Aid, and since then I have either kept the certification current, or as was the case for the last two years this Wilderness First Aid certification. I feel that it is important for me to stay current on my training since so much of my time is spent deep in the woods riding, exploring, guiding, coaching, and/or building trails, far from ambulance access, and sometimes even out of cell phone range, if an accident happens I want to be able to help it end quickly and successfully. Over the years it has come in handy to have some knowledge about how to deal with injured people in the woods, so I keep my certifications current to always be prepared when something goes awry on the ride or adventure

The re-certification class was held at Skyliner Lodge, which was the original ski lodge of the corporation that has become Mt. Bachelor. Now that the building no longer hosts skiers, it is now used for special events and weddings. The set up is perfect for a class like we were set to participate in with ample space inside for us to sit and listen to the classroom aspects of the learning process, as well as lots of space outside in the woods to practice the skills we would be learning over the course of the weekend.

Day 1 started inside the lodge, seated at desks, where we could sip our coffees and listen to our two instructors introduce the material we would be working through. We started off working on the Patient Assessment System, where we go through introducing ourselves to the injured party and interview them on the how’s and why’s of what lead up to the accident or injury. We would work in the classroom, then move outside to practice what we learned in scenarios set up by the instructors.We all took turns as patients and res ponders as we went through the patient interview process.

Where the indoor learning happened, this is the main room at the lodge where we sat and followed along in our course packet taking notes on the different topics of the weekend. After lunch we began dealing with some of the typically injuries we would experience as mountain bike riders, guides, and trail building. These included spinal injuries, head injuries, shock, and wilderness wound management. All of these topics lead to scenarios in the field where we all got a chance to practice and re-practice the skills we would need in the field when a real accident occurs.

(One of the many gatherings around the instructor to watch and learn how to work through one of the many situations we could come across in the woods on an afternoon ride).

Day 2 started just like the previous day, in the classroom going over what we would be working through over the course of the day. In the morning we worked on more theory behind wilderness injury management, then we would go outside and work through a scenario that put the classroom material into practical use. After that we moved into musculo-skeletal injuries and how to teat them with things in our backpacks and things we can find and use in the woods.

(the art of the sling, and how to apply it to an injured party)

(the sling I put on Joe)

(splinting a leg)

(carrying a wounded patient)

We spent the day working through many different scenarios, and working with all the material we were learning. It was a great day of practice, and it was good learning for all of us, whether we were the patient on the first res ponder Two solid days of learning behind us, we left with a refreshed knowledge of how to deal with many of the situations that can present themselves when doing the things we do in the woods. In the end it was a great weekend of learning and practicing the skills we need to be prepared for in our mountain bike lives working and playing in the woods.