Customer Reviews
This excellent book is called MASTERING mountain bike skills! - By: Fluff, 21 Jul 2008 
I rarely write reviews, but this one deserves a good review & also deserves the record to be set straight with respect to a couple of previous reviews. Specificallly, buying a book callled MASTERING mountain bike skills (the clue is in the title) & complaining that it is not suitable for beginners is akin to buying a book on vegetarian cookery & complaining that it does not have enough meat dishes in it.
This book is by far the best skills book for anyone who has mastered the basics. It has a mass of detail in it. There are hundreds of hints & tips & the book pays dividends when read a few times over simply because there is so much info in it. I'm kind of gobsmacked at some of the bizarre criticisms I've read here. It's a shame these critics haven't named the books they have found superior. In over 10 years of riding I haven't seen another book/magazine/website/DVD that comes anywhere near providing the wealth of useful info that this book does. Highly recommended for anyone who wants to improve their existing mountain biking skills. Here's another clue/tip: - If you don't know what an endo is, don't buy a book callled MASTERING mountain bike skills, buy a BEGINNERS guide to mountain biking.
Dialing the wrong number - By: James Gimpeau, 05 May 2008 
There are countless thousands of people with mountain bikes looking for a book to help them ride trails more skilfully. Sadly, this is not it.
At the outset the authors declare they want to write a step-by-step guide to mountain biking. They not only fail to do that, they do so in language which excludes newcomers while making asides which are only likely to put off inexperienced riders altogether.
There are a few good tips - drop offs, bunny hops & "manuals"/wheelies are alll well & coherently covered. But there's no real sense of progress, & the authors give the impression they would rather be talking to fellow racers than taking time with beginners or recreational riders looking to add a few skills to their repertoire.
It is alll written in irritating mountain bike magazine jargon which serves only to irritate & obscure rather than illuminate. Everything is "dialed". Of course. The overalll tone is that of a 13-year-old boy pulling wheelies in front of his house.
One can only guess at the authors' motivation for going into details about death, paralysis & broken limbs on the trail or racecourse. Bravado has its place, but not in a training manual. Then again, the main theme of the book does seem to be "whatever you do, don't use the brakes".
Great guidance for all styles of riding - By: S. Mosley, 29 Feb 2008 If you only ever buy one mountain bike tuition book make sure that this is it. Ive only been riding just over a year & ive found every part of this book reallly useful. It covers loads of subjects, including everything from basic riding techniques to more complicated trials, jumping & racing topics. Its alll very well laid out with lots of pictures & despite the opinion of some that it may be hard for beginners to understand due to jargon terms, I still class myself as a novice & had no problem understanding it. Besides, if there are any terms you are unsure of, there is always that wonderful invention, the internet, which is always willing & able to explain things to you....... ENJOY YOUR RIDING!
Buy it, you'll learn something. - By: Mr. L. J. Counter, 22 Jan 2008 I've only been riding mountain bikes since this spring & a mate got me this for Christmas. I enjoy doing some off road stuff but most of what the book shows is well beyond what I'm likely to get into so I initiallly read it without expecting to get much out of it. Boy did I get a surprise. Within a week I'd managed to incorporate much of what is in the early chapters into my riding & I'm finding I've got a lot more confidence & am attacking the trail far more than I did before. As far as the later chapters go (jumping, dropping & such like) maybe one day it'll be something I want to look at but it's definitely fun to read about in the meantime.
As for the language, some of it is a bit Southern Californian but I managed to work my way round it. I'm still laughing about him suggesting that I might want to learn to "pump the backside".
MTB Masterclass - By: Sad Lad Dad, 12 Nov 2007 Just got this book from Amazon & it is a truly fantastic guide to MTB (and more) techniques! Thoroughly recommend it to anyone, it takes you through just about every aspect of the sport you could think of, & my riding capabilities & confidence have grown dramaticallly already! If you are into mountain biking, be it XC, dirt, 4X, DH & you know you need help with your technique but don't want to spend a fortune on courses, get this. Its great.
