Morocco Special Weeks

You can find a vast array of information on the internet on how to get your bike set-up correctly, how to sweep stylishly through a hairpin corner or how to pull the perfect wheelie. But when you want to learn something new in life, nothing beats being shown how to do it in person.

With this in mind, we’ve recruited two of the UK’s finest mountain bikers to join selected departures of our Atlas Descent and Jebel Sahro Ride, where they will be on hand to offer their expertise and guidance on everything from bike set-up to sartorial cycle elegance.

The Professionals
Paul Hinton - Skills Week: Having taken up the sport in 1987, Paul Hinton became synonymous with mountain biking in the UK. He was quickly offered a pro contract and raced professionally for 8 years. He has also worked as a freelance journalist for MBUK and MTB Pro magazines. During this time, he also started one of the UK’s first mountain biking schools. Paul will run specialist skills tuition sessions each day with the aim of helping you improve your bike handling skills, confi dence and ability on a huge range of different surfaces and terrain. Both trips will focus on the same basic skills at the start of the week, but will progress more rapidly and to a higher level on the intermediate week	Jenn Hopkins - Women’s Week: Jenn Hopkins is the perfect ambassador for female cycling in the UK, managing to balance being super fit, happy and positive, and always looking über-coordinated and feminine – quite a juggling act! Jenn races cross country and enduro mountain bikes, has survived riding the 3000 mile Great Divide race (which traverses the length of the continental divide in the USA) and is a cyclocross demon. She’s currently the deputy editor of Singletrack Magazine and consequently gets to set-up, adjust and test hundreds of different bikes each year. Jenn will be joining a ‘Women’s Specific’ departure of our Jebel Sahro Ride & Marrakech’ trip, offering advice and guidance on all aspects of women’s mountain biking – everything from bike set-up to what clothes to wear! The trip will be led by Liz Proctor, one of Exodus’ most experienced mountain bike leaders and an expert on Morocco.

Atlas Descent - Intermediate Skills Week

Departure 07 April 2013

The best way to fast-track your bike skills is to get some expert tuition and guidance.  For 2013 we’ve got Paul Hinton, one of the world’s most experienced skills instructors, on hand for this special week and with Paul’s knowledge and expertise, you should come home having pushed your skills to a new level. 

This week is aimed at mountain bikers who have been riding for a few years and who are already confident to ride off-road, but who want to either finesse their existing skills or learn some new ones. 

Paul will start with the essentials including correct bike set-up and equipment choice. He will then move on to look at reading the trail, body position, gear selection, climbing, descending, braking, cornering and getting your wheels safely off the ground.

Every day Paul will concentrate on a range of skills appropriate to the trails that you will be tackling and he will tailor the sessions to the terrain and the group to help you get the most out of the week.

Jebel Sahro – Women’s Specific Week

Departure 26 October 2013

Mountain biking is often seen as a male dominated sport and this can put off female riders from getting into it.  This special week, which will be run by Liz Proctor (Exodus’ most experienced mountain bike leader) and Jenn Hopkins (deputy editor of Singletrack Magazine and all-round cycling guru), is designed to help female riders to learn, improve and progress in a testosterone-free environment.

Jenn and Liz will look at all aspects of mountain biking from a female point of view and will consider everything from how to set your bike up to get the most out of it to what clothes to wear. They will also consider other areas of cycling including diet, stretching and simple trailside maintenance. 

They will offer advice throughout the trip which will help you improve your confidence, skills and fitness.  The emphasis will be on encouragement and improvement in a non-competitive environment (although both of them are extremely skilled bike handlers, so they will be able to push you too, if that’s what you are interested in!).

Jebel Sahro – Beginner’s Skills Week

Departure 09 November 2013

Our Jebel Sahro trip has been running for more than 10 years and manages to capture everything that’s best about Moroccan mountain biking. For 2013 though we’ve managed to make it even better by having mountain bike skills instructor Paul Hinton on hand for this special week to offer tips, guidance and coaching sessions.

Paul will be there to help all of you who are new to the off-road way of life or those of you whose skills are a little rusty to get back into the swing of things.  He will look at the whole gamut of bike skills, but geared up for relative beginners – if you want to learn how to “huck” off a 30 foot cliff this isn’t the week for you, but if you want to improve your confidence, abilities and fitness, then this week is perfect.

Paul’s style is that of gentle encouragement, expert explanations and demonstration and constant constructive feedback – all of which is designed to help you improve rapidly and be able to come home with a greatly improved level of confidence and competence.