Any usefull advice for doing these, totaly out of my comfort zone, a trail i wish to ride has a few, the sort that has a nice assortment of old stumps if you fail, please help.

Find a similar sized tabletop and practice.

It’s all in your head, took me ages to get over my mental block of gap jumps, then I was following someone else downa trail too closely one day and commited to one without seeing it, had an ohh-shit moment when I realised but made it over just fine.

just forget there is a gap and aim for the part of the trail you need to hit.

I don’t think there is any specific technique to avoid a gap. just don’t land in it.

It’s your speed that gets you over them rather than how much effort you put in. Look way beyond your landing zone and let your speed carry you over while you stay nice and centred without yanking on the bars or owt. (cheers stuart)

Try following someone who knows how fast to go.

Not that I like jumping or have much idea how to!

Any usefull advice for doing these

Good advice Stuart it’s dialing in the right amount of speed, this is the bit that i find perturbing, will have to just commit and hope for the best!

For me it’s all about the confidence, but haven’t done any for ages so I’m starting to get the fear again.

It’s your speed that gets you over them rather than how much effort you put in

Ehhhh? Depends on the jump, but a mixture of speed and techniques always needed, judgeing how much speed and how much pump is required is where the skill comes in. Just watch soem good dirt jumping and you wonder how they can ride it so slowly!

Start small & build up, preferably on a table.

thisisnotaspoon here lies the conundrum you are both right, i fear i will not have enough aproach speed to clear them, the aproaches are tight so good technique would really help, they are on an old freeride trail( think uk here not the north shore!) on a steep wooded hillside, so a bit rutted and blownout in places and really needs to dry out.

are you happy with your wheels off the ground at all?

It may be wise to try some jumps with an easier entry exit before the ones in the middle of this tricky sounding trail…

Just man up.

Jumping is no where near as hard as people imagine. MTB mellow kickers are simply a case of going fast enough to clear, then hold on. as long as you relax, the bike will doing everything for you.

It’s not until you ride jumps like this – http://www.vimeo.com/14563097, you need some form of skill or control.

I am reasonably comfortable with drops now, enough to control the fear, i can certainly see myself riding the trail with a little commitment…it’s a goal of mine…a couple of years ago i stumbled across this trail and thought my god not in a month of sunday’s ,but now think it is achievable with some work.

Public Service Announcement:

Jedi to the thread please.

Jedi to the thread please.

Look at the landing spot, head up, arms bent, bars up – at the correct speed the bikes front wheel will land where your looking.

Im not an expert on a mtb, but the few Ive done right were done right because I placed the wheel where I was looking and I was looking at the downslope of the jump. I also got my speed just right.

When Ive got it wrong, mostly I was not fast enough. Or looked at the face of the jump.

deanfbm nice and all, but this trail is a little less groomed, up north in the backwoods, think tall pines on a big hillside, come to think of it pretty north shore looking apart from the size of the gaps, but you are right i do need to mtfu, psyching as i write.

Public Service Announcement:
Jedi to the thread please.
Jedi to the thread please.

… Jedi must be away from his computer… probably doing some big gap jumps! 😉

sorry just back from to coaching sessions………. guess what i was teaching 🙂

I would never trust e-net for that kind of advice, honestly.

Things will start from: – my heels are dipped, I stay low, MTFU, my balls are so hard and that gap jump going to launch me into Ministry of Radness! … and eventually will end -what tyres, and main conclusion of I’m better than you.

Thing I can’t figure with gap jumps is how I go from front wheel up on take off to front wheel down and rear up on landing in such a short space of air!?
I’m loving drops and jumps now (cheers Jedi) have yet to get my head around gap jumps yet though.

Fergal. I built some small ramps out of pallets of varying height then used those to start with. I got inspired by some I saw at Morzine. Anyway they were great to just get a feel of things and could be used anywhere. You can pull them apart to make the gap bigger and I made a box to go in the middle of the bigger ones that you can pull out to change it from a table to a gap jump. They are only 75cm high but fine for starting off with. In the end as the others have said it is all about speed. and just letting the bike do what it does naturally, as in go in a nice smooth arc.

It may have seemed like quite a daft question, but honestly if you have never ridden one a few pearls of wisdom are never out of place. Thanks for the consructive advice.

Jedi if you were a little nearer i would have perhaps considered your services, would you like to add anything, before i mtfu and ride blindly into the abyss!!??

what size tabletop are you comfy with?

The thing is when i visit a trail center (rare) if they are on the trail i will ride them but will usually land on the top, i find it really hard just going flat out over them because i fear i will over shoot and endo, i have never really practiced them to be honest. The gaps i want to ride have more of a flat lip with a slightly sloping transition, not a kicker on approach, one of them has a short sketchy run up, certainly the crux, i’m thinking a huck is the solution for this one.

My dilema is sort of do i approach like a drop or boost like a jump, if this makes any sense.

My dilema is sort of do i approach like a drop or boost like a jump, if this makes any sense.

As in, weight back and don’t add anything more; or pull the front wheel up, weight back?

I R not rad (even a tiny bit), but

if they are on the trail i will ride them but will usually land on the top

There’s no “top” on a gap – learn on tabletops first

yep something like that, i know guys here who just say you sort of ride off the thing, speed is your friend, not very helpfull, it’s amazing how quickly you learn after a few otb moments.

you’re talking drops i think fergal. push dont pull etc..

scaredypants i don’t have the inclination to session tabletops, besides there are none here, these just require the right approach, i feel i just need to be positive it has worked for me so far, now where is the manual( Lopes – mastering bike skills, thumbs up every time, even if it requires a little faith first time!)

Yes Jedi i have sort of gathered that drop technique will work best,it’s just a matter of having a go at the speed you feel will clear the gap, they are built up with logs on both sides.

sorry just back from to coaching sessions………. guess what i was teaching

Just back a few hours ago from a coaching session………guess WHO Jedi was teaching?

http://ukbikeskills.blogspot.com/2011/04/johns-new-skill-set.html

I’m not going to even try tonight and say how buzzed I still am by the day. I’ll do that another time. I’m just reading the conflicting advice given by people who can clearly do this stuff but honestly speaking don’t know why they can do it or how they do it. Up to a few weeks ago I’d have been so confused by which is right and which is wrong. Then a few weeks ago i booked with Tony and decided at that point to avoid any online skills advice and wait until I’d had the treatment. Which was a sound idea, and by the end of the session I was clearing the gap with ease.

That’s my tip, listen to Jedi, and if you can, get yourself on his course.

It’s better to go to fast than too slow.

Ive been jedi’d and know they are doable but I just dont have the experience to judge the entry speed without someone who does around. And I mostly ride on my tod as I am free midweek.

Trying to judge the entry speed by trial and error was what led to the stack that led to Hertfordshire so being old freelance with dependants I am reluctant to trial and error again.

So it will be back to Herts at some point for sure.

I now also have the mental skills to say ‘that transition is too sketchy/not maintained/GFY’ when people suggest I MTFU 🙂

I just wish I had some speed/distance judgement skills. Although I think/was surprised that its not as fast as you think.

Now… which is worse – coming up short or going too far? A shoulder separation suggests the former to me!

I think many of the gaps/jumps/tables at trail centres (which I have been too) aren’t really designed very well. Too much health and safety means they end up pretty shite tbh, through fear of Joe Bloggs hurting themselves. They are all designed to be rolled over…

The only good jumps I can remember is Brechfa’s black run – the tables at the end of that can be cleared…. but only if you’re absolutely nailing it..

I don’t seem to recall any ‘gap’ jumps at any trail centres…

Get yourself to a place which specifically has the type of jumps you need to practise on. Jedi’s back yard springs to mind, judging by the photos of his training sessions.

It’s all good teaching people how to jump gaps… but unless they dig their own trails, or visit somewhere similar to Jedi’s yard… there’s nowhere to practise. Hence the dwindling confidence level.

On one of our local trails there was a tree that had fallen down and some had put a little north shore ladder on it so you could get over the tree and pop off the end.

Recently someone has cut the fallen tree in half and pulled one half down so there is now 2 trees across the trail.

The north shore ladder is still there but you have to jump and clear the second tree.

I hadn’t done this before so I just followed my mate, matched his speed and cleared it!!

Helps to ride with someone who has either done these things before or give you tips / confidence to give it ago yourself. Once you have broken the barrier of doing it you’ll be ‘sending it’ before you know it!!

judgement of speed comes in time. if a trail is built correctly it will manage your speed quite deliberately for the jump/drops . unfortuanately not many get built that way 🙂

Similar to Jackass, I was hooning down some Black Mountain or other on my 63mm hardtail Pace, came swinging round a grassy mound on a grassy trail and found a short very bouldery rock garden section that dropped a few feet. The rocks were big enough to knock me flying so I had absolutely no choice but to heave my bike into the air and sail over the lot.

Rode the trail again and because I knew it was there I instinctively slowed and minced it, even though I was up for the jump again.

Correct speed, approach the jump in as relaxed a position as you can (arms and legs bent – it’ll help to have your saddle down out the way the first few times you do it).

Now it depends on the size of the take off and transition as to the timing of this but, as you hit the base of the tranny, compress the forks by moving your upper body weight down towards the bars and then springing up – this movement is fairly subtle – if you get too dynamic with it it can throw you off balance. If you’ve timed it right, the fork should rebound to reach full extension on the lip of the jump and your arms should be pretty much fully extended which will pull the front wheel up off the lip. (If you’re riding with rigid forks, it’s the same sort of movement except the you don’t the benefits of the rebounding fork to help you on the lip). Pointing your toes down as your wheels leaves the lip will help to lift the rear wheel and help to level the bike as it approaches the mid – point of the jump.

A lot of people pull the bike up underneath them too early when they jump and this will make you feel unstable. If you need to do this at all, it should be when your upper body has finished it’s springing upwards motion (normally around the middle/highest point of your time in the air). At this middle point your front wheel will should be a little higher than your rear wheel so (depending on the angle of the landing) you should start pushing the front wheel forwards and slightly down as you shift your weight rearwards on the bike so that the bike angles in at the same sort of pitch as the downslope that you’re landing on.

Try and get these feelings on a tabletop jump first – it all sounds quite complicated as it’s written down like this, but each movement should flow smoothly into the next. Rolling round a BMX track figuring out all the movements you need to gain speed without actually pedaling will also teach you a lot about the type of movements you need to make when you’re jumping.

Hopefully I’ve written that well enough for you to understand it – ha!