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  1. First practice looping out.
    Get your butt lower, closer to the rear tire.
    A bit more speed will result in a more stable manual.
    Optional: remove your brake so you’re only reliant on how you shift your body’s weight.
    What works/worked best for me was to keep my arms stretched, and try to shift the balance point between your body and your bike by using your legs, but that’s perhaps more of an advanced technique. Then again, better to learn properly from the start than having to unlearn..😉

  2. You really don’t need to “pull” your bars for manuals! Not that much! Get your ass (much much!) lower and your front wheel will lift up automatically when you get your (LOW!) ass behind the rear axle….maybe a “slightly” push on the pedals will help a bit!
    (Sorry for my bad english!)

  3. finallyfreeallalong on

    Try to squat down a lot more, look at your video and try to get down to seat level with your butt. Try for even pressure on the pedals, knees bent, arms straight like you are hanging off the back of the bike. Go as fast as you feel comfortable looping out, the faster you go the easier it is to manual. You want to loop out more than you drop the front, it is the only way you will find your balance point. After a bit you will find yourself making small corrections to stop looping out. Try to manual without looking at your bike, it helps keep your head up which keeps your back upright and not folded over forward like most beginners do. Now is the easy part,do it a hundred thousand more times.

  4. I’ve seen some people build a manual practice stand, in which they simply lock or hang their rear wheel.. I’ve never tried this myself and I imagine it does help finding the balance point between, but a proper manual requires at least sóme movement speed..

    Not sure about your bike’s geo, but at some point I had a quite small frame with a short rear end.
    The difference in geo was pretty much enough for me to just hang low with my butt and the front would almost lift up without even having to push or pull the bike into a manual..

    Not sure if this is in any way helpful, but keep in mind, even though a manual is considered quite a basic trick, they are NOT easy to learn..!😉

  5. pascallafontaine on

    I’m not sure if anyone else has mentioned that part of the struggle could be in your frame geometry. It looks like you’re riding more of a race-style bike, which would have a super long back end compared to 99.9% of street/park oriented frames. The long back end will help with stability, so not a bad thing necessarily, but will also require a little more pull/pump to actually get into (and maybe stay in) a manual. Best advice would in addition to what others have provided would be to just keep practicing. Eventually you will figure out the sweet spot between looping out and not getting your wheel off the ground haha. I will also mention that I first learned how to manual with brakes and you can feather them a bit if you feel like you are going to loop out to bring your front end back into that balance point. Some might call it cheating, but if you got ‘em use ‘em! Happy shredding!

  6. Novel_Lifeguard_8248 on

    Yes that’s ok for a few weeks. I’m 2 years in and can only do a few metres reliably. Maybe get some pegs and learn rocket manuals 1st which are easier.

  7. unhappy_strangers2 on

    The big thing that made it start to click for me was realizing you don’t pull the bars. You push with your feet on the pedals to move the bike around the balance point and just hang onto the bars. I was trying for so long to pull the bike up with my arms and push and pull it with my upper body. That’s definitely not the way.

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