“Pushing” the bike on this always felt like I was just rolling so I tried focusing on keeping the front wheel more level by pulling back. The landing whenever I tried this way felt super smooth but, looking at the video, I’m not actually moving my hips back, I guess I’m popping more? On steeper features and lower speeds I’ve been leaning further back, maybe the landing of this was just too flat for emphasizing that ..
I’m pretty level until just before the rear wheel come off, curious if folks think I’m headed in the right direction.
by eikkaj
3 Comments
I’m no expert on drops but I usually try to get further forward on the bars pre-drop. You’re also a bit early on shifting your weight.
Think of it as shoving the entire bike forward using your arms and legs, and initiate it right before the front wheel leaves ground.
Velmont for the win!
I agree that you pull your bars a bit early, but other than that it looks good.
There’s no part of drop technique that involves pulling. You rise to a high ready position and shove the bike forward to get the bike off the edge all at once, then you match landing angle.
Pulling or leaning back are survivable on a little drop like that, but once you ramp things up to the next level, you’ll hang up on the rear or land with no weight on front and wonder why the front wheel went sideways on the landing. Your weight should be balanced front to rear over bottom bracket. If you go back beyond that, you set yourself up to catapult violently OTB.
Your Lizard Brain wants to get away from the danger, and it will destroy you on difficult maneuvers that require fine motor skills. You need to convince the Lizard Brain that you have the skills and it can relax, it’s the worst decision making sector of your brain because it interprets everything as a crisis. That’s the part of your brain saying, “pull the bars, keep them up”, even though physics does not work that way. It’s the part of your brain that says, “Don’t want to crash over front, better move back!” Which is the best way to set up a wild OTB, soon as you lose control because your front has no traction all the weight is in back.