No matter how many times I read about pumping / getting heavy in the hollows / light on the crests etc I really don’t understand the physical action that I am suppose to make to achieve these effects.

The ‘Mastering Mountain Bike Skills’ book by Brian Lopes tries to explain in my jumping up and down on a scale and how it effects your weight, but how does that translate on the trail? Is ‘getting light’ just the action of absorbing bumps by letting the bars come up? And is weighting the bike just as simple as standing up more?

I’m really struggling to understand what I’m suppose to do physically when trying to make the bike lighter or heavier.

Help me please!

Where are you? Either find a mate or try some coaching (cyclewise in whinlatter sorted me out) failing that find a flatish or slightly decending trail and try and get through it no pedalling. Push down all the downslopes etc.

you got it, just takes practice, bend knees and elbows so you stay as level as possible on the way up, push the pedals like rising from a squat on the other side and the bike will accelerate, practice at slow medium pace on rollers of 50cm or so,
it is important to be relaxed and loose or it will not really happen

Go and find a pump track or bmx track. Ride around it on a hardtail. Wash, rinse, repeat.

You will soon understand what pumping is all about.

Try and squash your tyres as they are on a down slope, mainly the rear, try and lift the wheels when on short sharp ups (ie a take of).

Go on a skills course, I recommend donny’s one at llandegla, as it’s what taught me, but any will do.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-xVnddnX10[/video]

Pump

Ok, beginning to understand a little more.

In the picture below, he is heavy then light then heavy again. Presumably when he is heavy, he is trying to push the bike the into the ground? But doesn’t the action of pushing just result in you standing up more?

Then when he’s lighter, is he lighter because he has crouched down more and got lower to the bike, or is he lighter because the bike has come up to him?

Good suggestions on the skills course, but annoyingly I’ve done two now and always been left confused by the pumping bit and consequently left behind in the group 🙁 Nothing more annoying then everyone else ‘getting’ something and you not.

It’s a slightly strange thing to get the hang of if you’re used to always just sitting and pedalling to go places. Find a flat-ish road with speedbumps or a gently bumpy bit of trail. DO NOT PEDAL! Let the bike coast and as you rise up the first bump suck the bike up under you, then push the bike down the other side. Feel how the sucking up the upslope helps keep the bike from decellerating, and then pushing down the downslope accelerates the bike.

Although most pump will come from your legs once you’ve got the hang of it, to start out just pump with your arms as the timing is more obvious and the suck phase more intuitive. DO NOT PEDAL! Suck up, push down, coast, repeat. It’ll take a long time to get good and a lifetime to master but even basic pumping skills can be applied on the trail and will improve your flow.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BDJ0JcKusM[/video]

Ok, beginning to understand a little more.
In the picture below, he is heavy then light then heavy again. Presumably when he is heavy, he is trying to push the bike the into the ground? But doesn’t the action of pushing just result in you standing up more?

Yes, you push your mass upwards, this pushes the bike against the ground. If you’re on a downslope then the ground pushes back against the bike and the angle of the ground means that that push isn’t straight back up, it’s slightly forwards which accelerates the bike.

Then when he’s lighter, is he lighter because he has crouched down more and got lower to the bike, or is he lighter because the bike has come up to him?

Action and reaction are equal and opposite! 😉

Imagine the “Bump” in the track as a triangle, or inclined plane. If you don’t change your body position, as your weight comes to bear on the upslope, the angle of the ramp pushes back against your weight. In effect, you trade forward speed for height. As you cross the “peak” of the bump, your weight still pushes downwards, but this time, the backslope of the bump pushes (or accelerates) your bike forward.

So, by pumping, you can use your bodies inertia to effectively “store” the your mass for a short period of time (whilst travelling over the upslope), so not slowing you down, then release that stored mass on the downslope pushing you forwards.

By shortening your legs and arms and absorbing the bike as it rises up the slope, you aim to artifically lighten yourself for that period of time (which is why you can only pump a bump or a certain size, and you can’t pump a mountain for example!). Then extend you legs and arms immediately you cross the peak, pushing the bike downwards into the slope. You “regain” the energy you lost to the downslope (which also pushed you and your bike forwards) by standing back up on a flat bit of ground, because at that point the extra vertical load has little effect on your forwards velocity (because at that point your velocity is as normal to the force applied by your mass as it can be.

By doing this, storing energy in your mass transiently, you effectively harvest energy from the downslopes to accelerate yourself forwards!

That Fairclough vid is niiiice.

Some nice combos on this from a fair few years back (at 1:30)

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=y_AtdLu56YM#t=93s[/video]

My brain can’t handle pumping either, I can use/time my arms fine but to do it properly it’s mostly from the legs and I struggle to time it or even get the action right. It feels more like I’m just pulling against the bars rather than pushing into the ground 🙁

Fairclough. No words!

Pumping is the source of so much I think. It changes everything from being nasty and bumpy to being smooth and flowy. That´s what I think anyway. I was shown by a friend but a course with Mr Oxley, the bearded one, opened my eyes to a few things pumping related.

You are talking about pumping for speed on a downslope and to maintain speed on the upslope but you can pump corners for grip, pump corners for speed, pump to get air, pump to go light, and a million other things. I think Brian Lopes talks about it in the book you´re talking about, he calls it riding a 3D trail or something. It didn´t make sense to me at the time but now it does. It´s about flowing.

It´s a hard thing to explain, I think the best way is to follow someone who can do it and also get them to explain it to you. Ed did that for me.

Another thing you can practise is slaloms on a flat-ish road. Drop low before the turn, stand up in the turn pumping the bike into the ground. If you pump before the apex you’ll gradually accelerate the bike down the road whilst if you pump after the apex you’ll decelerate the bike – so you can descend a hill without using your brakes by pumping or you can climb a gentle hill by pumping. It’s much easier to feel all this on a rigid bike, so do whatever is required to make your bike as rigid as possible (crank your compression damping up and/or lock your fork and shock).

Put the hours in and it’ll start to feel right!

I particular like this explanation and also find it very useful

Imagine the “Bump” in the track as a triangle, or inclined plane. If you don’t change your body position, as your weight comes to bear on the upslope, the angle of the ramp pushes back against your weight. In effect, you trade forward speed for height. As you cross the “peak” of the bump, your weight still pushes downwards, but this time, the backslope of the bump pushes (or accelerates) your bike forward.

So, by pumping, you can use your bodies inertia to effectively “store” the your mass for a short period of time (whilst travelling over the upslope), so not slowing you down, then release that stored mass on the downslope pushing you forwards.

By shortening your legs and arms and absorbing the bike as it rises up the slope, you aim to artifically lighten yourself for that period of time (which is why you can only pump a bump or a certain size, and you can’t pump a mountain for example!). Then extend you legs and arms immediately you cross the peak, pushing the bike downwards into the slope. You “regain” the energy you lost to the downslope (which also pushed you and your bike forwards) by standing back up on a flat bit of ground, because at that point the extra vertical load has little effect on your forwards velocity (because at that point your velocity is as normal to the force applied by your mass as it can be.

By doing this, storing energy in your mass transiently, you effectively harvest energy from the downslopes to accelerate yourself forwards!

Many thanks.

I’m local to Hayfield in Derbyshire, does anyone know of any local bits of trail that are good for practicing pumping on?

Go find your local BMX track, mine (Gosport) is one of the longest tracks in the south and getting to the end without pedalling takes real concentration and technique. It’s a great way of honing your skills and is really useful out on the trail. Get it right on the track and you can really accelerate through some sections and feel the benefit. This really translates on an undulating section of trail and you can feel the difference.

Think crouch at the peaks and standin the dips. Its like getting a swing to move.
Pumping is my fave thing to do!

Good suggestions on the skills course, but annoyingly I’ve done two now and always been left confused by the pumping bit and consequently left behind in the group Nothing more annoying then everyone else ‘getting’ something and you not.

Save up for a 1:1 then?

It took me a while to ‘get’ it and I did it wrong for a few years untill one day it clicked. But when you do it’s brilliant. Loads of free speed from almost any trail. Most fun bit is on the singlespeed, seeing how long you can go between pedaling whilst following someone who is pedaling.

Think about it as if you are trying to keep your head perfectly still in relation to the ground.