Hi guys,
Recently me and my dad built a wooden kicker to practise and improve my jumping technique
I am struggling to get the pop and really struggling with my arms because they sort of ‘crumple’ when I ride the lip
Any help with this would be much appreciated
Many thanks
by MTB_sim
11 Comments
You’re absorbing the lip of the jump. There are a lot of youtuber’s that go over this. Slanted Ground, Shred Academby, Ben from Pinkbike are where I’d start.
The first thing I noticed is your missing a pre load. Think of this as the part of when you’re jumping on your feet and you put power to the ground by getting a little lower before springing up. Right now you’re just riding over the jump. Everyone says it but practice bunny hopping
Looks like you absorbed the lip by bending your legs instead of extend your legs to pop off of it, once you pop then bed the legs
Ride the jump don’t ride off the jump. Hit it over and over and over you’ll start to feel it. Put it at the top of hills and send it for a step down. Have fun and ride you bike a ton and you’ll get better! Time and effort and fun!!!
Well, a few things. One this ramp is shorter than your wheelbase and has a tight radius. For a big bike its closer to a bump jump technique than actually preloading an entire lip and doing like a traditional lip ride.
I think you’ve done well so far, but yes you will need to pull on the bars a bit, not even so much to fully bunny hop off the lip… The ramp will do the work, but literally to create space for your rear to ride out the lip more UP as opposed to forward and ‘off’.
Again, given how short this jump is… Play with the idea of a bump jump technique to create more space and kinda get the rear to lift upwards, a la: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fSHBGthn4JU
And try to experiment with the jump so that you can definitively land… double tire, rear tire first, and maybe even carefully try some front tire firsts.
You’ve done well to be slightly rear tire first to flat here. But you need to be able to do all 3, depending on the landing/terrain.
Rear tire first for disgusting flat landings, double tire for really mellow landings or sort of stepping up type jumps. And then front tire first dipped in for more traditional jumps, particularly gap jumps with steep landings.
Remember that you weigh more than the bike. You’re not really riding it, it’s riding you. If you jump with your body, the bike will follow.
You’re absorbing the jump.
First thing I noticed is that this jump is quite short and tall. Not an easy jump to learn on.
As for your technique, you mostly absorbed the lip with the back wheel. This probably felt more comfortable, because you were able to maintain a level bike, and land with both wheels at the same time. This is good technique for when you want to do that, but it sounds like you want to learn to boost a jump. Proper jumping technique would have you go higher, and then land front wheel first, and especially with this particular jump, that probably will feel very uncomfortable for someone new to jumping.
The basic idea is to push your legs through the jump as you go up the face. Keep pushing through your legs all the way until your wheels leave the lip on its own (don’t pick up the rear wheel). Your balance looks pretty good, so I think you have a decent starting point. Resist the urge to actually pull on your handlebars. The jump is doing the work, you want to push against the jump face to get the most out of it.
When jumping you want both wheels to leave the ground in the same spot (not at the same time), and then land in the same spot. The higher you go, the more nose-down you will be in landing. You can check how your wheels land by putting a small log at the point you think you will land. Big enough to feel it, but small enough that it won’t cause a crash if you come up short. You want both wheels to land on the backside of the log.
start here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9w2zSvuaGM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9w2zSvuaGM)
basically you dont jump, you just try to move your bike up and actually squash its movement with your body (2nd part of the video where your knees go into 90 degree sitting position – they should be almost straight there). its your body that should be leading the bike up, not the other way around.
Back wheel left too early. Learn how to bunny hop really well and you’ll learn how to push your back wheel through the lip.
Move your body, the bike will follow.
There are a gazzillion jumping tutorials on youtube which are all done very well.
TLDW: Stand up perpendicular to the ground as you roll up the jump an shift your arms forward in the air and pull legs to level the bike. Its basically a bunny hop.
What you are doing is absorbing the jump with your body while the bike is moving under you like you would do in technical terrain or when pushing jumps away fast.
In general dont push yourself to fast and make sure your technique is good before attempting bigger jumps.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtxXnHJMjTM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtxXnHJMjTM)