Hi All,

I'm new to posting within these forums although I've been a reader for quite a while.

The thing is, i've been riding for about six years now and over the past 12 months I feel my riding has got worse, with me stopping to think (and 5ing) sections that I would have previosly made easy work of !. I'm sure it's 90% in the head, i look at sections and think of what could go wrong then get afraid of falling off ... then do fall off in places that i could tackel with ease a year ago !

I cant understand it, my turning is worse, my climbs are bad, my splatters are nearly now non existant and general riding lately is crap to say the least !

Does anybody have any advice or have any of you experianced this ?. And if so how did you overcome it ?.

My decline in my ability is having a real impact on my enjoyment and motivation to keep up the sport (which I dearly love). ..... Any help or advice guy's.

hi there

i know exactly what you're talking about. I'm alway doing the same kind of thing. i end up talking myself out of being able to do something. But i think your right when you say its all mental. If you know you could have done it a year ago, nothing is stopping you except you mind.

I try and always watch a better rider go through before me, thenn you just have to get on and do what they did wihtout thinking about it.

My friend told me a good techinique for this kind of thing. try and picture what you have to do after the upcoming obstacle. so if your faced with a big climb that looks a bit scary, think about what is following it, say, how you plan on descending back down the hill, something like that. so the theory is if you think about what next, then you dont talk yourself into failing on whats in front of you, because you have told yourself you need to get past it.

Maybe difficult to explain / understand. but it works for me. The key is to visualise yourself beyond where you currently are. - does that make sense?

other than that. If your really not having fun because you seem to be trying to hard. dont try as hard and remember why you put yourself through all this - its meant to be fun!

Mikeyboy, you sure you havent just hit 40 mate

Been through the same thing myself mate, trying to hard and getting no results to show for it. Best thing i found was to get away from the sport for a month, dont think about it, then came back and found i was riding alot better.

Happend about two years ago, was a rubbish novice rider with no confidence and just couldnt make it happen no matter how hard i tried. Took a short break and came back a new person and left all those old habbits behind, now riding as a top inter rider and loving it. Often find if i dont ride for a few weeks i come back stronger than before, might just be me, but found it works. Dont believe in giving up but there is such a thing as trying to hard when it just isn't working.

Edited July 31, 200719 yr by KICKSTART101

I agree with kickstart, take a break, eat well, drink lots of water, less booze and build your fitness, then come back after a couple of weeks break with a possitive mental attitude .... can do and replay a good section ride in your mind before you do it.

Remeber as stated previosly, first it's fun, if you are having fun, your riding will improve with your enthuisasum. If it dosent after a break and increased fitness, then accept you are at your level and enjoy rather than be fearful before every section, drop down a level.

Try Neil at www.competitionmind.co.uk. He helped me with my fear of hills. A trained sports psychologist can very quickly pick up where your thinking is going wrong. Since you could once do these things and are still physically capable of doing them, the 'fix' is in your head, you just need someone to point you in the correct direction.

Drink!

I'm not sure if this will help, but if you plan your dabs you may prevent the 5s.

Then you'll eventually build the confidence that you wont need to dab at all.

But to got into every trap and worry more about dabbing than getting through is a big psychological hurdle.

I have been told to go back to basics. Riding as often as possible and visualising the section helps when checking your lines in the section work well.