After much pain and practice I am now happy manualling. Length needs to be worked on and can't do it so well clipped in as I flipped out last week riding in the forest! Anyway how do you get from manualling to bunny hopping? I can hop on flats to about 30cm but the front wheel is not going up high enough and if I do a manual to get it up my weight is too far back.

I saw some slow motion flims on you tube but I still can't work out how to get the front up smoothly and then get the back up.

do you just mean a fluid bunny hop lifting the front first or do you mean manualling along a bit and then hopping?

the first is not really manualling

once broke a finger and mashed up my face manualling the length of city hall square, then hopping on to a curb.

one of the best manuals of my life, went on for days. then dropped just as started to hop onto curb and i went straight over bars onto my face.

dangerous game.

sorry

I have the lopez MTB skill book and some other skills videos and they all say front up first then the back. Get the front up with the start of a manual then weight forward and scoop with the pedals.

But doing a manual your weight is too far back to get the weight off the back tyre.

Jenifer?

scoop with the pedals.

nope. it's all about the unweighting.

some people like to practice the back wheel without the front lift – press (pump) the bike into the floor as much as possible then spring up – the pedals and back wheel should come up too.

the way i do it is manual like you normally would, then begin to drop the front as you would if you ending the manual but don't touch the front wheel down and pop a hop in.

like all tricks its a case of practice practice practice and i guess for this particular trick its finding the new balancing point between the front wheel dropping and the manual in order to pop the hop!

unweight and rotate the bars forward with your hands and wrists.

So i was told. like I can do a manual or a bunnyhop…….

Hum. But what happens when I do it is weight back to lift the front up. Then try to get the weight forward a bit to unweight the back at which point the front slams down without the back coming up. I can hop about a foot by compressing the front then pulling up and then lifting the back up but this method has its limits.

I can get over logs and stuff in the woods with a manual and weight shift but it is not quick enough to get the back in the air.

so you do mean a scoopy manual bunny hop. not a long manual followed by a bunny hop…

in that case just slow it all down. dont get your weight too far back.

As per previous comments but for my own benefit,is the reference to a proper manual i.e. lifting the front wheel off the ground and then holding up in a controlled manner for a reasonable distance or a bit of a lifty front wheel off the ground wheelie?

proper manual

(eventually)

Chris Smith is king at this….the hop to manual as it's known. Took me ages and i cant get the two foot hops these guys do but the gist is to manual then reach said object and pull the bars into your body thus bringing the front up a little more….then throw the weight forward and you should be airbourne. Get really good and you can hopefully drop back into the manual. To be honest no amount of explainations will get you there, you have to plug away at it bruises and all.

Often amazed at how many "experienced" MTBers who can't do a bunnyhop (with flats – no SPD cheating allowed).
Surely it's an essential trail skill?!

I'm no trail riding ninja, just a fastish XCer but a good (2ftish) bunnyhop is one of the most useful tricks around. Maybe it's why so many have FS big travel monsters even for a lamest of descents? They go through obstacles instead of jumping over them!

i think you are just on about a regular ollie, no?

IMO a bunny hop = lifting both wheels off the ground simultaneously, which has it's own merits for changing lines and stuff like that

an ollie = lifting the front wheel first, followed by the rear and is the proper way to get off the ground because you can use different forces to get the bike higher. theotherjonv has it about right – unweight the front wheel and pull high up (the manualling part) and as the wheel is reaching its highest point stand up fast (jump) on the pedals (which are now higher than they are with both wheels on the ground) and pull up with the bar whilst rotating your wrists forward and pointing your toes down to grip the pedals and help you get the back wheel off the ground. you then need to concerntrate on bringing your rear wheel up as high as your front, which you do by bending your knees upwards and the bike comes up between your legs.

like with a skateboard ollie (which i can barely do) it takes a lot of practice but once you got it, you got it. extending the manual before the jump takes more time to learn and is a bit further on from ollieing.

btw, i don't call it an ollie; it's just jumping – but it is the best way to describe the proper technique…and it probably should be called an ollie rather than a bunnyhop!

unless you look at the way that a bunny hops. i.e. font legs up first then big kick of back legs.

Fast manuals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZahZu9KoZa8&NR=1

I'm still learning and I am fairly rubbish

But

it helped me to practice on a high curb

front wheel up (by shifting weight back and pushing forward on pedals)

then let the front wheel touch the top of the curb

then quickly shift weight forward, and push bars forward whilst unweighting your feet (point toes down to help with this)

if you are doing it right your back wheel lifts smoothly onto the curb

do this quicker and quicker – then move on to hopping small bits of wood etc. The change now is that you are trying to lift the back wheel whilst your front wheel is in mid air and not sitting on a curb

GEDA-looking at your original question it sounds like you are maybe doing a coaster manual rather than pumping to get the front wheel up. Coaster style you use a lot more weight shift of the back/shoulders to get the front wheel up – works when you manual through doubles or cruise down the road. If you want to keep your weight forward try to pump the manual instead – as the front wheel pops up on the rebounnd you push through with hips and feet to get it high, but with your body now over the centre of the bike and not the back wheel.

Just rereading that, its a lot of words and not sure it's easy to translate into real assistance. Basic rule is – get a look at how you manual so you can pop the front wheel up without levering it into the air with all your weight on the back wheel. Then the rest becomes smoother.

Cheers
Chris@CycleActive

This is great, but how am I supposed to read all this while trying a hop? It's hard enough on its own without having to print out pages of instructions and pasting them to my bars…