‘Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness’ stated Malcom Gladwell in his famous book ’Outliers’. To achieve greatness in anything that you set your sights on - focussed practice, and lots of it, is the only way.
Trials and motorcycling in general are no different to this. Targeted practice, focussed training and sheer dedication take you to the top. During this time of crisis, we all have the opportunity to further our skills, knowledge and more in a range of different areas.
At OSET, we have seen this as a chance to do this for Trials and other motorsports. Within the small confines of your garden, you can do a lot of learning; without time being an obstacle.
As you all know, Trials riders both current and past, have gone on to do great things in other disciplines. Enduro superstars such as Graham Jarvis, Billy Bolt, David Knight, Taddy Balzusiak, Johnny Walker, Cody Webb and more, all started in Trials. Other riders who haven’t come from Trials use it as a tool for training such as Marc Marquez, Aleix & Pol Espargaro and more. The great Barry Sheen started in trials, as did Kevin Schwantz. Whether you are interested in Road Racing, Motocross or Enduro you can take Trials skills and transfer them across.
To help teach some trials skills, OSET have decided to release training videos on a twice a week basis. These will be with Oliver & Elliot Smith, who arguably have the most experience on OSETs of anyone in the world, and will be hoping to pass on their expertise. Subjects include basics such as stance on the bike, balance and tight turns, up through hopping, wheelies, stoppies, bunny-hops, front touches and – ultimately - to front wheel roll-backs! Lesson 1 is live now, and available via OSET Facebook & YouTube channels, and the OSET web site.
OSET also plan to have 11x US National Trials Champion Pat Smage guest star and teach us one of his most impressive skills; the front wheel roll-back! His challenge, once completed, has a prize for the first under 15 to have video evidence attached. Oliver (19) will be his first student and will be trying to do it in the time given.
This isn’t just for the children stuck at home either. With the 20R and 24R both ideal adult play and training bikes, adults can undertake the challenges as well to further their skills. Whether a kid or adult, whether a newcomer or a veteran, these video’s can help improve your skills.
Once a week, Oliver and Elliot will sit down to give feedback to anyone who submits their video challenge attempts (via the OSET Facebook page) to try and help riders improve. This will either be done as a video or bespoke written feedback – like at school!
Whilst not outside, the Activity Pack that we have released alongside the Home School Challenges features design activities that will keep the mind engaged. Stickers and riding gear templates are left blank for anyone to fill in. At the end of the 3 months we plan to have this out, we will pick a winner for both. The prizes will be announced at a later date.
Crosswords and word-searches are also in the pack with easier versions for the little ones and harder ones for teens & adults.
All of this is being done to give you a goal during these times where everything has been put on halt. Our mental and physical wellbeing is the upmost of importance and we hope that we can help with this, even if it’s small.
Ian Smith, founder of OSET (and Oliver and Elliot’s dad) commented:
“These are strange times. All of us at OSET are following the government advice and staying at home where possible, so we wanted to use this time to support both parents and riders by helping them stay active, develop their skills and most importantly have FUN”
“ We know how much our riders love to be out of the house, taking part in competitions and generally living their life on two wheels, but we hope that they can use some of this time positively and get closer to their 10,000 hours! There may be a lot of expert riders at the end of all this!”
Anything that you want to share with us to do with your riding or anything else, feel free to contact oliver.smith@osetbikes.com and he will be more than happy to help out. Otherwise, direct message us and use the hashtags - #osetbikes #osetgardentrials
The OSET ‘Activity Pack’ is now available to download from the OSET web site: https://osetbikes.com/gb/activity-pack/
Lesson 1 covering Balance & Stance is available now on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/Kxz8-XOIAtQ
