Hi guys,
Lately I’ve been trying to learn how to manual but I just can’t seem to lift the front wheel off the ground consistently, as you can see in the third clip, I can get it up occasionally but I have zero consistency!
Any advice world be hugely appreciated
Many thanks
Manual Help
byu/MTB_sim inMTB
by MTB_sim
7 Comments
I’m not a huge MTBer, so feel free to downvote if what I’m saying is a load of bollocks.
To me you need to compress your front suspension more, like really sink in there to give extra “pop” to lift your front wheel far off the ground. You get more air when you do this. 1st vid compared to 3rd
That last one was looking good. It’s more of a pull back motion than a pull up motion.
Honestly man, it’s just repetition. If you did it once, you can do it again. I think people are very concerned with technique and not enough with repetition. I’d say be regimented about your practice and you’ll be manualling in a couple weeks. Cheers!
There are a lot of great videos out there covering that topic.
One thing that helped me more personally: Don’t think of it as pulling with your arms to initiate/sustain the manual but to push the bike forward with your feet.
That being said, doing manuals with such low speeds is hard af (but good and safer way to learn them). You are almost there – keep up the work! Doing them downhill with more speed will feel like a piece of cake in a couple of weeks.
Its a lot better than what i or the average person can do xD
Think L shape with your body. Down to the seat, then back to lift the front wheel. After that it’s all just practice.
Keep your chest up and your shoulders back. You are stretching out and bending forward enough that your center of mass barely moves. Instead of focusing on throwing your butt back, try to think about pushing the bike forward with your feet. The goal is to push the rear axle forward enough that it ends up under your center of mass instead of trying to move your butt far enough back that it ends up behind the rear axle.