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whistler dh schools

During my trip to whistler this season, id like to take some lessons to improve my riding. SGC looks gimmicky and i am looking for more technical, race oriented instruction and training.

I like the looks of the zep camps. And it would appear that i can hire kovarik for a private lesson, albeit pretty pricey. Anything else i should consider. If any of you whistler monkeys are good instructors, id consider that also.
 

yetihenry

Monkey
Aug 9, 2009
241
1
Whistler, BC
There are guide/instructors based at the bottom of the mountain, at G1 (underneath the GLC). They vary in ability/style, some are fairly average riders, whereas some are absolute pinners. You can just go up in the morning, say what you want and get a guide, private or group, and they can just guide or instruct.

Tuesday night is also men's night. Only $20 or so if you have a pass. Gets you a lesson, a beer and entry into the draw prize (which at least half the people seem to win). I did one once, just to see, and as I'm an "advanced" rider we ended up doing a race lesson on Canadian Open, I then downed a pitcher of beer faster than my opponent, and won a pair of max is tyres, not bad for 20bucks. Probably wouldn't do one again unless it was a race clinic, but earlier in my riding career they'd have been useful. Works out really cheap if you're here for the season and buy a ticket for everyone, only $110 or something.

Alternatively, I live with 5 guides, and know the majority of the others. If you want a cash in hand style thing, I'm sure you could organise a mutually beneficial deal for empoverished seasonaires, especially early/late season when work isn't super busy.
 

davet

Monkey
Jun 24, 2004
551
3
second for C4. The list of accomplished racers that have come through Cory's teams is long and distinguished. He will make you faster.
 
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dfinn

Turbo Monkey
Jul 24, 2003
2,129
0
SL, UT
I also did one of the Tuesday night "mens" nights last season. My buddy and I did it because we heard how few men usually do it and how it's pretty much guaranteed that you will go home with prizes from the raffle. They give away some nice stuff, we each ended up with some Maxxis tires, not the highest value prizes but still more than paid for the $20 entry free. You also get 1 beer for that too.

Anyways, I thought the lesson would end up being lame. It actually was really rad. We broke off into groups based on ability and what we wanted to ride. We went and rode the double blacks on the upper mountain, he showed us some new lines and also did some drills with us. I'll most likely do it again.
 

Steve M

Turbo Monkey
Mar 3, 2007
1,991
45
Whistler
During my trip to whistler this season, id like to take some lessons to improve my riding. SGC looks gimmicky and i am looking for more technical, race oriented instruction and training.

I like the looks of the zep camps. And it would appear that i can hire kovarik for a private lesson, albeit pretty pricey. Anything else i should consider. If any of you whistler monkeys are good instructors, id consider that also.
The Zep camps are excellent - they are the guys who trained Kovarik et al as coaches. Having worked with Paul (head of Zep and PMBI, not to mention head instructor trainer for the largest snowboard school in North America) quite a bit, it is fair to say he is an exceptionally good teacher. If you are really wanting to be put through the wringer and focus on improving your racing, having Kovarik himself teach you is pretty special, the man has a unique ability to remove obstructions and cut through various mental states that are holding you back.

http://www.zeptechniques.com/camps.php they offer a fairly broad range of camps, plus private half or full day lessons as you need them. If you want to get better at riding, it's simply a good fun, efficient way to do it - I can vouch for all this from first hand experience.
 
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Raingauge

Monkey
Apr 3, 2008
692
0
Canadia
Kovarik is awesome. I did a weekend with him last summer. The mental preparation him and Claire teach has been really helpful for me.h
 
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yellowdogx

Chimp
Dec 21, 2003
39
0
Langley BC
I've done a few of the men's nights, usually come away from it with both some new skills and some free schwag (funny as the wife has gone to 15-20 women's nights and has yet to win something!)

Also did a schley camp last year which was pretty cool.

Signed up for summer gravity camp this year.

The zep camp looks good, I have heard good things about C4 too.
 
Feb 10, 2003
594
0
A, A
I will be coaching for Camp Of Champions up in whistler and also do solo and group coaching for Bikeskills.com as well as USA Cycling. With the COC coaches you can get a good range of the slope style guys who can show you the ropes into the airbag and a few other DH racer like myself and Dillon Lemarr who can get you into DH and DS race specific coaching. Try to get ahold of Ken or Rob about what week of the 4 would be best for you and they can make sure you get one of the DH race coaches.
 

MinorThreat

Turbo Monkey
Nov 15, 2005
1,630
41
Nine Mile Falls, WA
I personally would contact Shaums March -- Mad March Racing -- and find out when he will be conducting racing clinics at Whistler. Shaums is an excellent and detailed instructor.