Hello,

So I’m crap at leaving the ground, but I’m determined to get better. My main issue is that I often feel the bike falling away from my feet and/or don’t fully understand how to keep the pedals stuck to my feet when jumping.

I have read and watched most resources on the net but nothing seems to address this fully – they mention the weight transfer, which as a concept I understand, but I can’t figure out how to practice the “heavy feet” part of the process.

My first issue was that I was “bunny hopping” off of jumps, so lifting up with my arms as if I was doing a bunny hop on the floor. I’ve realised now its more of a pump down motion without the pulling up at the end, and that’s helped to add control a lot, but I still find my feet sometimes slipping away.

Any pointers really are welcome.

Cheers!

heels down / toes up?

learn to bunny hop properly for a start. Bunnyhopping does not involve pulling up on the bars

then get the hang of pumping small bowls/berms

then get the timing correct for pumping lips.

that’s it.

“heavy feet” is bollocks skills coaching jargon. as is “heels down” and many other gems

Where in the country are you? Not that it changes the technique but it’s easier to see this sort of stuff than read it.

You and the bike took off together, and gravity is the same for the both of you.

If the bike is falling away from you, then you pushed it 😀

Bunnyhopping does not involve pulling up on the bars

I am intrigued as to how you get the front wheel off the ground without pulling on them

True fact what you do is just will the earth away from you and levitate on your own personal awesomeness.

Mtbel doesn’t pull the bike up, he pushes the earth down…

Mtbel should be a coach, learn to bunny hop > learn to pump > learn to jump, sounds easy.

it is.

I would just push into the lip with my legs and that’s it. The rest is a result of physics.

You have already realised you don’t pull with your arms, so its just the push with your legs that’s left. Perhaps body position in the air may help. I tend to squat and pump and the bike comes up under me if I get it right.

Find a pump track or BMX track near you, take your chain off and try and get round. You’ll figure out how to pump the jumps then its just a case of picking up speed untill you clear the jumps, the pumping motion is just the same for jumping.

I found it easiest to imagine a solid mound between takeoff and landing, not a flat tabletop. The idea is to be weightless over that mound. So if the takeoff and landing are both 1/4 circles then draw an imaginary 1/2 circle linking their lips, obviously the flatter the takeoff the flatter the ark to the landing.

The other thing to try is riding up a bit of concrete banking, gives a better idea of how fast you need to be going to transfer that to a given height, i always found the speed needed was much higher than imagined as other people always look slower than it feels when you follow them.

Just forget this obsession with flats and clip in!

“heavy feet” is bollocks skills coaching jargon. as is “heels down” and many other gems

You do realise that coaches (in any sport) use what you call “bollocks jargon” as a device to explain something that can be quite technical otherwise.

A good coach can explain a technical manoeuvre to someone with a simple explanation that’s easy to visualise.

Whereas you just say “learn how to pump” with no further info as to how that is done, or how it will help.

which is about as helpful as a slap in the knackers.

You might as well have responded with “just jump, once you’ve done it, you will know how to do it”

This..

learn to bunny hop properly for a start. Bunnyhopping does not involve pulling up on the bars

Could you explain that one?

I would just push into the lip with my legs and that’s it. The rest is a result of physics.

You have already realised you don’t pull with your arms, so its just the push with your legs that’s left. Perhaps body position in the air may help. I tend to squat and pump and the bike comes up under me if I get it right.

So, i was thinking after I posted, do I need to be doing a sort of “undulating pump”, like a wave… arms and then legs… this is really hard to explain in text.

You and the bike took off together, and gravity is the same for the both of you.

If the bike is falling away from you, then you pushed it

With all this talk of pushing with your legs… this is what im afraid of!

True fact what you do is just will the earth away from you and levitate on your own personal awesomeness.

😀

With all this talk of pushing with your legs… this is what im afraid of!

OP go on UK Bike Skills website and watch all the coaching session video clips or Nirvana Cycles on facebook. You will see there is no massive bunny hop/leaping up stuff. You do need to push with your feet and hands before the lip, you are resisting the motion of the bike which is probably rising up on the takeoff lip. Its the exact opposite of squashing a jump by bending your arms and legs.

EDIT:

Notice no leaping about, all quite controlled. If you have the time and money go and see Tony or do a public session. Best money you will spend on biking full stop

UK Bike Skills Blog

Sample Nirvana / Dan H video

[video]http://vimeo.com/110496566[/video]

You’re overthinking it. Find a medium sized jump and practise it until you’re comfortable. Jumps are fun, keep practising and you’ll soon get a feel for what you should be doing.

learn to bunny hop properly for a start. Bunnyhopping does not involve pulling up on the bars

Could you explain that one?

I reckon in his usual helpful way he’s alluding to the fact that its more of a weight transfer thing than an actual pull-up motion.

so pay me neal and I’ll happily meet you and show you.
or simply come over and I can give you that slap in the knackers so you can get some real perspective on which is moar helpful

forgive me for not embracing modern life but I learned all of the above before any of the jargon was dreamed up, before there were mtb coaches and indeed before there was an internet to ask for advice on. it’s really not very difficult to figure out if you simply ride your bike enough.

Could you explain that one?

Yes.
the correct procedure is push* your bars forwards when you have the front end high enough in the preceding manual.. I’m assume that you know how to manual?

*Push by weight shift as Steve explained above.

I learned all of the above before any of the jargon was dreamed up, before there were mtb coaches and indeed before there was an internet to ask for advice on.

LUXURY! We had one mtb wheel between five, and if father beat us with it we were grateful.

didn’t learn any of it on an mtb. hadn’t even heard of one.

forgive me for not embracing modern life but I learned all of the above before any of the jargon was dreamed up, before there were mtb coaches and indeed before there was an internet to ask for advice on. it’s really not very difficult to figure out if you simply ride your bike enough

so he can spend X amount of hours figuring it out for himself or he can ask for advice and manage it in X – Y hours. So who’s the daft one here?

(X and Y being entirely subjective and will vary wildly for each person)

Also if you want paying for coaching it’s fair enough you can either keep quiet or do some forum based soliciting if that abides by the forum rules, saying “just learn it” is just…
well it’s classic mtbel I guess.

forgive me for not embracing modern life

Given your trolling it seems you have dived head first into the modern world and landed in a big embarrassing crash that everyone, but you , can see

Could you explain that one?

If you are pulling on the bars when bunnyhopping you are doing it wrong, end of story. Weight transfer lifts the front not your arms.

The ideal steps to learn are manual > bunny hop > pump > jump

But really in order to jump all you need is to learn how to pump and this:

I would just push into the lip with my legs and that’s it. The rest is a result of physics.

You have already realised you don’t pull with your arms, so its just the push with your legs that’s left. Perhaps body position in the air may help. I tend to squat and pump and the bike comes up under me if I get it right.

You push with your legs and the opposite of what you expect happens. Rather than the bike falling away from you it sticks to your feet. It is counter-intuitive, but it is what works due to kinetic energy.

Think about jumping off the ground as high as possible on your feet. You don’t pull up, you squat down and push. Similar concept on a bike.

so he can spend X amount of hours figuring it out for himself or he can ask for advice and manage it in X – Y hours. So who’s the daft one here?

Nah..

You simply need to actually spend time riding your bike, you know… for fun instead of talking about it in algebraic terms and then worrying about wasting your time. You might even meet other riders in real life and learn from each other.

“Trolling” is just another new a bullshit concept too Junkyard. I just call a spade a spade. always have. always will.

Weight transfer lifts the front not your arms.

weight shift certainly does the majority of the work but I’d argue there’s still an amount of pulling back on the bars to get the front end up. But then I’m not a skills coach (and I sure as shit can’t jump)

You simply need to actually spend time riding your bike, you know… for fun instead of talking about it in algebraic terms and then worrying about wasting your time

when I was young, had no kids or a full time job I spent a fair amount of time doing just that, nowadays riding time is short so I empathise* with others who want to get better at riding asap.

I mean I’m sure it’s possible to throw a bunch of books at a group of kids and tell them to just learn to read and let them get on with it, eventually they’ll probably manage it. However I reckon schools, teachers and a well thought curriculum are probably a better idea.

*look it up

Until everything ‘clicks’ the relationship between (often very, very boring when you’re told to do it as a drill in a coaching session) bunnyhopping and jumping can seem tenuous. But it’s not.

Scour t’web for how-to videos on bunnyhopping and then jumping and practice. As others have said, keep it fun and try to session a jump you are comfortable with to build up skill and experience and then progress to another.

Threads like this always confuse the hell out of me. There are no words that will teach you to jump a bike.

I was jumping 20 foot doubles before I learned how to kiss girls. Time well spent in my opinion 😉

Learning as an adult must suck. Especially when you read all the bollocks in a thread like this as a learning tool. Hit your local BMX track.

I actually happen to understand empathy better than most DONK. As you seem to have noticed I have a huge gap in the ability empathise with whiney people who don’t really deserve it. Once upon a time I thought there was something important missing from my personality/social skills but weighing up the evidence and looking at it subjectively I came to realise it wasn’t worth worrying about. not one bit.

and No. there is no pulling up of bars required. think about how one “ollies” a skateboard. it’s the same basic procedure.

kissing girls is for when it’s too dark/wet to jump 20ft doubles.

my first kiss was age 4, funnily enough the same summer I first jumped my bike off a ropey wooden ramp.

my first kiss was age 4,

Pregnant

mtbel so can you do a bunny-hop without holding your bars? Assuming you are riding flats. What sort of bunny-hop are you referring to? If you want to bunny-hop over a big obstacle or on to a ledge you will be pulling on your bars

Pulling back not up is the point.

Pulling back not up is the point.

well yeah I said that but apparently no it’s all about the weightshift

no handed bunny hops ware where it’s at 🙂

my first kiss was age 4

Your mum doesn’t count! 🙄

kissing girls is for when it’s too dark/wet to jump 20ft doubles.

Totally. I’ve got a t-shirt that says this. I also say it to my wife every morning.

Steady there tiger I nailed it with levitate on your own personal awesomeness.

clealry you he can do this no handed