i have alittle problem with jumping!!

ive been riding now for ages(20 odd years!) and have never been able to jump properly !!

im ok with drop offs and the like but put a set of doubles in front of me and it all goes tits up.

i either end over the bars as i land in the dip front wheel first or i go over the bars as my rear wheel is getting caught in the dip too!!

ive tried doing it faster and just end up bottling it and messing it up.

im ok with single jumps where you land flat but i just cant bring myself to do doubles!!

any ideas??

cheers

steve

get good at tabletops first…

A double is just a tabletop with the middle cut out. Learn to jump them and then move on.

Smoothness is key, relax or you'll dead sailor.

im even messing up table tops!!

when i do the "jump" i seem to be going off at an angle and landing funny which is pitching me off the bike!!

skills course mate? somethimes you need someone to actually show you how to do somthing point out what you're doing wrong……well I do!! 😆

I ride round them 🙂

look where you're going to be landing and stop thinking the world becomes a straight line from the lip of the jump onwards, thats what used to mess me up! (I doubt that helps anyone! 😀 )

We offer skills sessions covering all you will need to know on jumping and pumping, its hard to convey in few words through forums but we'd be only to happy to help, look us up at http://www.mtbskills.eu Most of our sessions are run at Mabie Forest 7stane's trail but we can deliver bespoke sessions at a location of your choice. Feel free to drop me an e mail – ss01mbc@mac.com – practice your speed control (do I need to go faster or slower to match the feature), manuals and bunny hops as they are key components when it comes to jumping. Good luck and have fun. Clive.

Go to somewhere like Redhill Extreme where the jumps progress in size and you can roll them/jump/do what you like on them.

you can do drops but not jumps? same technique basically.
pushing into the kicker is the same as pushing into a drop

when i do the "jump" i seem to be going off at an angle and landing funny which is pitching me off the bike!!

Sounds like you might be yanking the bars which will put you off balance.

pulling the bars or pedals with your feet it a no no!

you're not alone! I think it's just more speed + balls and disengaging yer right thinking brain.

pulling the bras jedi!!!!!!!

go on a skills course and find a tabletop to practise on

balls is never the answer!

A double is a table top with the middle cut out. A table top is a big hump with the top cut off. Practice on a big hump and get used to the bike going light over the top and work up from there. The big hump emulates exactly where the bike should be through the air. Worked for me anyway.

at lee quarry today, i tried a lot less harder than i'd previously been doing and found myself clearing one of the smallish tables fairly easily.

"balls and disengaging yer right thinking brain."

Don't do that or you'll be maimed 😉 "Balls" is just another way of saying "I don't know what I'm doing but I'm doing it anyway". Even if it does well it's not "doing it" it's "getting away with it" Figure out how to do it instead then you won't need so much balls.

IMO 😉 I won't lecture you on skills, tbh I'm not in a position to for pushbikes, I'm not that great but I used to ride motorbikes by balls alone and I'm quite lucky I didn't pay for it I guess. These days I ride by skill and brain, I don't go quite as fast but then I don't end up in as many ditches. And getting away with it never taught me a thing.

jumping is very easy and the same as drops

only if your doing drops right to start with

Put a peice of wood between the doubles, it's now a table top. Do it. Now remove the wood.

I used to be a bit like that.
Realised that it wasn't the jump that scared me, it was hitting the ground… obvious I know. But, then you can work on jumping by really checking out your landing point and ensuring that it's good. Then the jump is just flying without wings!

get a good skills coach to take you through the technique… you will get better much quicker than trying to learn by yourself.

Like others have said it sounds like you are trying to pull up on bars/pedals and it also sounds as if you are too tense when in the air.

You probably need to learn how to pump the bike correctly. Getting air should be coming from pushing the bike into the ground. Think like bouncing a ball. The harder you bounce into the ground the higher the ball goes.

Once you have your pumping sorted you then need to learn where and when to pump. Once you have timing it is a case of finding somewhere with a bunch of tabletop jumps that start off small and progress through to bigger. Get your technique dialed in on the jumps you are comfortable with (making sure you confident on the small ones and can relax will give you a feel for what you should be doing). Once you have the smaller table tops dialed, then move up to slightly bigger and bigger ones. When you want to move to gaps, you probably want to go back to a bit smaller than the table tops just because they are a little scary.

Easiest way is to find someone good to teach you this stuff…

Reading your comments it sounds to me like you're pulling up, and pulling unevenly, as you hit the jump. This is a common cause of nose-diving over jumps, often leaves you badly set up for landing, and the pull makes a twist more likely than a smooth pump.

By pump i mean you should be pushing evenly and snappily into the face of the jump – the rebound of your front wheel into the air as you do this is what give smooth and controlled lift.

You say drops are ok but what may be happening is the exaggeration of minor problems in your drop technique – again this often happens when you are under pressure (ie hitting a jump knowing you're not sure about it).

Do you have a video or small camera that shoots video? If you do then – if this is useful for you – get a friend to shoot you doing a couple of jumps and drops, put the footage on youtube, and email me the link at chris@cycleactive.co.uk We coach this stuff an awful lot and it'll only take a minute or two to see what you're doing and make a couple of more meaningful suggestions.

Hope this helps.
Chris

I really need to get someone to show me then. Every time i do a drop off i pull up on the bars. Obviously doing it wrong. Need to save up my pocket money and get a sesh with Ed booked I reckon.

soobalias, you know it 🙂 🙂

I learned to jump the other day, with the aid of the speed humps up the road and a howto article on Bikeradar. I've always been one for pulling up on the bars, getting the front wheel up, twisting it, landing in bit of a mess etc.

As soon as I realised that I needed to push down into the ramp and practiced somewhere without trees to crash into and lots of repeatable ramps, I got it sorted very quickly. I'd recommend it over trying to learn on the trai, where there are lots of hard things to crash into, your mates watching and the jumps aren't uniform and don't always have nice easy landings.

For a drop off from a flat piece of trail, though, don't you have to pull up on the bars? I get that you should 'scoop' the bike up over a jump by pushing into it, but for a drop there's nothing to really push into on the trail – if you just rode straight off wouldn't you risk a complete nose dive? Just asking as a beginner who's trying to sort basic drops out.

you can do drops but not jumps? same technique basically.
pushing into the kicker is the same as pushing into a drop

Eh? You push into a drop?

Renton, you are not alone, I am here typing with a dislocated shoulder and a badly mashed wrist, face and leg after completely cocking up a set of doubles at Glentress yesterday. Long drive home to London OUCH !!

Still could have been worse.

Me ? I'm going around them next time. Pushing down and using rebound seems like the easiest thing to say in the world, but if (like me) you just don't get it…..you're stuffed !

Ride safe and keep your wheels on the ground there fellas !

Too old to hurt myself this badly……again !

Unweight, pull up on bars to keep level, push down with heels when nearing landing, . . no?

WOW I know something

For a drop, kurbs are a great starting point, you push down before you reach the lip

The physics is simple as you push down you increase the force between the bike and ground, when you stop pushing this force pushes the bike up just before you go over the edge

You can go off a curb pulling on the bars but it doesn't work well

You can go off a curb pulling on the bars but it doesn't work well

Never been a problem for me, just pull back and lean back a little unweighting the front?

If i do do it I've never noticed that I do, I generally just unweight the front end and allow the rear to drop as it wants, then scissor action down as the rear lands, or on a transition landing I just let the front drop to match the slope.

Anything else seems like pre-jumping the drop, which would just add height to it? I have no problems doing it from stationary on the rear wheel, I've no idea why I struggle on the trail!

is it easier to learn to jump on a hardtail or a full sus bike, only asking as it's something I need to sort too.

On the confidence thing I'd say mine has taken a dent from spending the last hour and a half teaching a student with a scape down the their whole face where they failed to clear a jump

I have no problems doing it from stationary on the rear wheel, I've no idea why I struggle on the trail!

Riding drops and jumps on the trail requires a much different technique from trials style stationary drops. You basically do the first part of a manual as you approach the drop/jump, pumping it. The faster you go the easier it is.

Go to somewhere like Redhill Extreme where the jumps progress in size and you can roll them/jump/do what you like on them.

is it open yet? Its only up the road from me and I fancy having a go. I, too, have some serious wheels-oof-the-ground issues

The wee book "Essentials" by the girls who set up The Hub at Glentress (Emma and Tracy)I think explains it rather well. I picked up from it that you want to shoot as far upright and forward as you can by pushing down on your bars and pedals. You then get masses of height without needing to go very fast; much more controllable."Good Game" at GT is ideal to practice on IMO.
But doubles still give me the willies.

the bike you use to learn on doesnt matter. you NEVER pull the bars.
(only when cleanly in the air you can)
never press down with your legs to land.

Lot of people workin on jumps…

@Lowey – without wantin to be too pushy, check out the courses we have on jumps, pumps and drops at http://www.cycleactive.co.uk or get a private day of tuition if you prefer.

@tron – great! I wrote that article so I'm glad it worked for you.

About pullin up, or pushing "down". Neither is the answer. Think about having a bouncy ball and droppin it onto a ramp – it bounces off forwards. Now push it hard down onto the ramp – it bounces further. reverse that process and that's what your tyre does – push it into the face of the ramp and the harder you push, the higher you go. Pump=Push but it's a short, snappy push.

As for pushin down, if you do that a lot of your energy is soaked up by the forks, especially if they're 5 inches plus and well damped. So you push forwards and just a bit down so the energy is instantly turned into lift.

Goin off drops is similar. This time you definitely push forwards and down into the ground, and the instant, smooth rebound from the tyre (not the forks) gives your lift.

@younggeoff – As for the bike choice thing, you definitely get more height and quicker response from a hardtail because much less of the pump from both hands and feet gets absorbed by the bike. However, the flip side of this is that it responds much more quickly, so is maybe a bit harder to control than a full sus bike.

But you can perfect the technique on any bike…especially with a good coach….check out the courses run for us by Rich Barnard, Jon Chalmers and James Richards at http://www.cycleactive.co.uk We cover Cannock, the Lakes, Malvern and Ae Forest.

Cheers
Chris