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    How do you gain speed at a pump track?

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    18 Comments

    1. WelcomeFree310 on

      Pump the Track. Get light and heavy. Load and let go. You will immediately feel if something gives you speed. Repeat that.

    2. fiskfisk on

      You pump – i.e. you use the movement of your body to push the bike down when the track goes down and drag it up when the track goes up. You shouldn’t have to use your pedals at all.

    3. _Screw_The_Rules_ on

      You need to pump your legs down when your are going down and lift them up when you are going up (at least that’s how I understand it and I have not been doing that so far)

    5. Tinu87 on

      Get yourself a dirt jump bike or BMX.

      I tried to do some laps on my mtb with the fork and damper locked. But the bike is too long and I only could gain some speed. On my dirt jump bike, I go faster with a fraction of the effort.

    6. username617508 on

      Think above rowing motion where you are pulling bars up towards chest while going up face of roller, and then away from chest down the backside.

    7. gabzilla814 on

      I can’t really see your bike but is it an old rusted hybrid cruiser with skinny road tires? From the few glimpses in this video it doesn’t appear to be safe for jumping around.

    8. dopadelic on

      Pumping is both pushing down the rollers with your arms and moving your body down with your legs. For rolling up, extend your legs and body like you’re jumping.

    10. KBmarshmallow on

      Think of rowing your bike.  Pull toward you as you head up a roller, and push down the other side.

    13. OhItsMrCow on

      I will try to explain how I understand the concept although I am not very good at this myself.

      Pumping refers to pushing you bike down when your wheels are on a downs slope and un weighting the bike on up slopes. The motion is the same for both but the timing is different.

      If you imagine yourself jumping on the spot while standing, you first compress your legs and the quickly pop up (and extend your toes) to reach max height. The same thig is what you need to do for pumping (and jumping to a degree).

      When trying to weight the bike down on down slopes, you need to compress before the slope starts and quickly extend when your bike start going down, momentarily increasing the effective weight of your bike and gaining a bit of speed.
      Your legs pushing down make the bike heavier.

      When un weighting your bike you want to compress *and extend* right before the bike starts going up, just like jumping on the spot, when you reach the apex of the jump on the bike it becomes a bit lighter, you want to time that with the bike going up the slope so it’s effectively lighter going up, losing less speed.

      Don’t actually jump off the pedals at any point, you just need to move your body around and let the bike follow.

      I hope this makes some sense.

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