Close Menu
    Mountain Biking

    Side view of I always land back wheel first

    Share.
    View 10 Comments

    10 Comments

    4. Alfredison on

      It’s just your timing. If you observe your second jump, you’re fully extended while your front wheel hasn’t even started to leave the lip. And so follows the consequences 😀
      Nonetheless – kudos for having no fear on these jumps! I’m a coward so I’m in awe every time

    5. coco_is_boss on

      This is difficult fs. I think you’re just kinda letting the jump throw you rather than actively controlling your takeoff. Try doing a bunny hop landing front wheel first. That’s the feeling you should have on a jump. You kinda pull back, put pressure through your feet. Going through the motions but, I’m not actually trying to hop. I’d recommend finding some rally small jumps, like 3ft and jumping them trying to bunny hop them.

      The other thing that could cause this is a rear shock that has no compression or ramp or rebound meaning it kinda just absorbs the energy from your legs. Basically meaning all your doing off the lip is pulling up on the bars. This can be fixed with stronger riding but worth checking.

      Also remember that on a jump, you first lean back to generate the pop, but then you have to begin leaning fordward to line up the landing.

    6. GregBVIMB on

      Tap you front brake in the air if you feel you are too far back. Trust me… it works. Agreed on what others said about body position.

      The tap trick is a wicked little tool in the toolbox. Stops the rotation of your front wheel and immediately brings the front end down.

    7. existentialjoe on

      Your body is a bit rigid. You sort of freeze leaving the take off so the back of the bike remains the same and all you’re doing is using your arms. Hence the front comes up. This is a dead sailor.

      Go find some smaller jumps and practice pushing the bike into the take off. The rear should then come up into you and then you can angle the front on to the landing

    8. Gold-Foot5312 on

      https://preview.redd.it/5iubtfxgtilf1.png?width=882&format=png&auto=webp&s=5711bb93806e90d7aa5edb65f7a42f1fb664bc1d

      Your timing with leaning back and pushing with your legs are off, but you also throw your body slightly forward.

      #1 You got pretty good preload at the start of the jump… However, in #2 you can see you pretty much still have almost the same body position as in #1. Your timing is off, because your body position in #2 should happen when you leave the jump in #3. Pretty much, the correct order would be #1, #3 and #2. In #3 you’ve shrunk again to “throw” your body forward. This a bad habit that a lot of people learn in their early days of jumping. Your legs should always be straightened the same amount or more the further up your travel the jump.

      I included #4 because it’s proof that you are throwing your body forward after #2. The bike has the same angle in #4 as in #3.

      So what do you need to change?

      * #1 your preload is good. No need to change anything
      * #2, as you’re going up the jump, you should still be straightening your legs as you lean back
      * As you leave the lip (like in #3) you need to lean back a tiny bit more to compensate for the new leg push timing. The goal is to have your back perpendicular to the ground, which you’re really not far off, hence “tiny bit”

      In more simple terms:

      * If you land back wheel heavy, you are either pushing with your legs too late or not pushing enough
      * If you land front wheel heavy, you are not leaning back enough.

      **Never ever** try to “throw” your weight forward at the jump like you do right now to “reach” the landing. It will have the opposite effect, but feel like the “correct” thing to do because you get further forward relative to the bike. The reality is, throwing yourself forward means you just traded a bunch of speed to pull your bike back.

      Any chance you could post a link of a jump where you land properly? You could also just put the two videos side by side and watch the difference between the start of the jump, middle of it and as your rear wheel leaves the lip. Another very good way is to record one of your friends jump without any tricking (just a straight plain jump) and compare that to yours in slow motion. Most phones have a slo-mo feature on the camera.

      It’s very difficult to give advice when the timing like yours is off because you have to push with legs later, more and also stop throwing yourself forward to “reach” the landing. I strongly recommend watching Ben Cathro’s How to jump because he details what happens when you do singular different things wrong (including landing rear heavy).

    9. TobyDaHuman on

      Either you have to lean forward a tad when leaving the ramp to start rotating the bike towards the front, or you have to use the back damper more in the jump.

      Just be careful not to over-rotate. Maybe just try at tabletops at first.

    Leave A Reply