I have a mental block about a drop off onto a flat BW. For anyone who rides Hankley Common, its on the LH of the three little (midly cheeky) routes down from the trig point at the N end near Pitch Place.

Nice short descent (despite the gorse splinters that only appear a few days later) finishes with a narrow trough and broken lip and smallish drop down onto flat BW

The drop is too big to roll. So is the correct technique just to be bold, launch off and land both wheels together. My current image is of landing front wheel first and then OTB or a heavy landing and a kick up the backside.

In reality, probably very simple if I watched someone else/just did it, but a wee bit timid and afraid to hurt myself especially if riding alone!

I should probably google Barel and see if he has good tips

Just unweight the front at the lip by pushing down a little on the bars and then extending your body straight as if you were jumping (on foot) off the lip bend the knees on landing to absorb some impact, look up and straight ahead.

If you can ride off a kerb and land both wheels together you can do most drops. The skills are the same, just bigger balls required.

I’ve always found that sort of problem to have been caused by the previous labour government

😀 yunki

Thx, I think its partially mental in that it is a very narrow shoot with gorse on either side, straight on to the flat. I have dropped off bigger things but normally on to a down slope.

I found a Barel video!

Hey thm, just started venturing up that way from Haslemere. I can come with you and take photos / pick up the pieces / call your OH/ambulance in exchange for a show around?

Start small

Photos?? Only if I can delete them quickly!!

That could be fun. Especially as I need to be pushed on the steeper stuff eg Gibbet, and a new cheeky area I found yesterday. When do you tend to ride?

just bigger balls required.

oh dear! (but true – crashes yesterday were all caused by braking/going too slowly)

Where’s that thread about the bloke doing the drop to flat in his local park?

We had the ‘can it be done’, the ‘I’ll have a go tonight’, ‘the maybe tomorrow’, the ‘I’m in a&e’ and the ‘my bike’s broken’ spread out over about a month.

coffeeking wwaswas?

I find drops in real life (ie on proper trails with less than perfect take off and landing) to be much more intimidating than practice stuff off for example a set of steps. So start on the perfect setup set of stairs and go bigger and bigger, once you’re dropping off 4′ practice runs you should be able to manage a 2′ in tricky situation much better.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/how-to-attack-this

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/that-bloke-and-his-drop-off

🙂

thanks 🙂

You see this?

[video]http://youtu.be/Wr81SN8S43c[/video]

Don’t do that.

Start off curbs and try to sort of push through with your hips so that you land both wheels together.
Increase drops and when you get off really big ones you may find a bias towards rear wheel first better.

I can do open drop off’s (up to about 2″ – joke!) its just this narrow one leaves me with an image just like the video ^.

Its not the drop as much, its more that there is a very short landing spot and then the flat and my mental image is of landing somewhere painfully in between!

There is a bigger drop off that is in the open about 100m away which is fine – hit it fast, and land it both wheels of rear wheel each time.

I think its true – need bigger balls!

What you don’t want to happen is for the bike to rotate around the back wheel, and face plant you to the ground.

Normally, you bike doesn’t rotate around your combined Centre of Gravity because both wheels are on the ground, so as long as your mass is somewhere between the wheels all is good.

When you ride off a drop, the front wheel gets their first, how much sooner than the back depends on how fast you are going of course. Because you and your bike have inertia, it takes time for the bike and you to start to rotate.

So basically you have 3 options for drops:

1) Ride so fast off the edge, the short delay between the front wheel being unsupported and then the rear wheel being unsupported is not long enough to allow the bike to rotate forwards (this works for small drops on fast trails) and as a rider you don’t need to do much

2) Stay centered on the bike, and dynamically un-weight the wheels just before they leave the edge of the drop. Here, you deliberately pump down hard into the ground BEFORE you get to the edge, so as the bike (and you) bounce back into the air effectively both wheels leave the ground at the same time (even though the front wheel is over the drop first). Here you need to link the size of your pre-edge “pump” to your speed towards the drop. The slower you are going, the longer you need to unweight for, and hence the harder you must pump

3) Get your mass back, as the front wheel leaves the edge, to hold up the front wheel and to make sure your weight is being held up entirely by the rear wheel, so not resulting in the front wheel dropping.

In most cases, most drops require a combination of all these techniques.

(ie you’ll see trials riders rear wheel pedal kick hopping down off things, and SH riders just sending it off the edge at warp9 with hardly any change in body position)

And in all cases, it’s not the size of the drop that is important (it is mentally important of course) so nail your technique at various speeds on a small kerb, then work upwards. As that video proves, sticking your front wheel off a 4 foot rock drop with little of no technique ISN’T going to end well!

So we had the epic fail, who has got a good one to show me the OP?

Drops to flat is a little bit of back wheel first on landing I think, like extend your legs a little in the air

thm, loops round punchbowl area and Golden Valley with occasional forays into Thursley, h….ley, tilford , Frensham ponds.

Drop me a mail. in profile.

mamadirt – Member

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/how-to-attack-this

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/that-bloke-and-his-drop-off

that was 5 YEARS AGO!!??? feels like last week, what fun. 😆

So we had the epic fail, who has got a good one to show me the OP?

I’ll take that bait for some willy waving. here’s a reasonable sized drop to flat
https://www.instagram.com/p/5C_S5fMSB5/?taken-by=steve___a
Hopefully someone can one-up-me.

If you nosey around my Instagram page you might just see cheifgrooveguru’s infamous nose dive 😉

No backflip? Ya big fanny!

There’s a drop near me that I refused on first attempt and now I just can’t get over it. Been psyching me out for about three years! It’s about a foot and a half log drop. :/

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TADLgDeEtw[/video]

Arrrrrr. Was going to do a little drop on my extended commute today ( 14s into this video http://youtu.be/cy3cZmMnuxc?t=14s ) when I discovered some bastards have put these concrete head stone things all along the edge of it. Put me right off. I’m going have to go back to the coming off at the shallow end for fear of my rear wheel getting caught on the stone lip thing.

The offending lip. It’s a giant alright. Got to be an extra six foot on the already mamoth 28 feet drop. Might have to get some of that military grade LSD that they used in ‘Nam before I try this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SmUNX9xfok

Oddly I find drops to flat a bit easier in my head than to transition. Straight line in, and I can see the landing and it’s straight ahead. Makes in my head the drop not so big. With a transition the landing may be out of sight until I’m at the lip or the drop seem much bigger as the landing is “way down there!” (okay my drops are barely more than a couple of feet 😀 ).

Exactly, I remember flying[read mincing] down the shredder at Ae marvelling at my drop off awesomeness, loking back up the trail the drops were about 10inches but the transition made me think I was ‘hucking the canyon at Rampage’. Whereas in reality I was plopping off the kerb outside WalterWilsons.

Yeah i know exactly the spot. I’ve seen people not expect it in the dark and get down it without the loss of front teeth though so you should live to tell the tale even if you muck it right up. Is it the fact that the landing spot is partally obscured by gorse and vegetation so you don’t feel confident to just unweight the front and pop down?

I have this issue on a couple of spots around Peaslake. I call it my ‘sense of death-by-misadventure’ kicking in. It’s led to more injuries from abrupt refusals at the very edge of the drop than rolling it would have!

I live close so drop me a line of you want to go and give it a bloody good thrashing…

Good luck!

Is it the fact that the landing spot is partally obscured by gorse and vegetation so you don’t feel confident to just unweight the front and pop down?

Exactly that. After the tight LH corner, you lose speed thought the short windy bit and I find I am going too slowly to hit the lip with confidence. Its a bit embarrassing to walk that v short bit!! 😳

not sure about this weekend but looks like we have three of us on for a ride there!

(sounds like you are more adventurous than me – are your responsible for the new cheeky stuff about 1/2 mile away?

Haha, not me but I’ll take a look!

Unfortunately recovering from a horrible bout of food poisoning so I’ll pass on this weekend but I’ll drop you a line fornthe future.

Get well soon – the other stuff is very short and sweet and WIP by the looks of things. Wont give it away on a public forum but if you are into cryptic crosswords think a “dog that is sad” and look to LHW (uphill) of the three forked climbs to the ridge.

Did the harder RH run but wimped on the same drop on the LH one again albeit only took it from walking up to session it, rather than riding it properly. Not enough speed!! AARRGGHH

Spent much more time in the nearby cheeky DH (?) – if only that was longer.

Nice to meet the other riders at the trig point and watch the demos down the RH fork. I didn’t see the spill 😉 Rode it after you and almost fell on the same spot!!!

Sorry ned, v last minute decision due to tennis being cancelled and only had 45 mins. Will make a date for the future.

Thought this might be relevant to this topic.

10 CRAZY ROOF DROPS

ROOF DROPS! This one's not for the faint hearted… 10 of the biggest/best roof drops we've seen over the years. (Watch in HD)Sean Burns Tom Dugan Eli Taylor Jeff Landtiser Gav Shortall Dale Armstrong Robbie Nelson Max Wood Garrett ByrnesOsiris etnies Fiend bmx OGCBMX Proper Bike Co Rude'En Bone Deth #RideToGlory Little Devil Brand

Posted by Ride UK BMX on Friday, February 26, 2016

Ha! Sean Burns FTW!

Well faced and conquered my nemesis this arvo. Well done me.

Over to you them.