Hi,
I am pretty much a novice rider, but have assumed that to ride jumps and drops full sus was the way to go! Do many peeps use hardtails and ride jumps and drops? Does it knacker the bike, or is it just a different technique? I assume full sus allows you to go faster, or with slightly more control. I am sat at home trying to work out how people ride it!
It won't make any difference to me! I tried riding QECP red yesterday to practice on the jumps and drops and didn't have a great time even on my full sus bike, adding a greater requirement for technique would be completely beyond me 😀
cheers!
Take a look: [url= http://www.pinkbike.com/news/Bikepark-Chatel-France-video-2013.html ]Chatel by Hardtail[/url]
If your body can take it, you just need a strong back wheel!
to ride jumps and drops full sus was the way to go
Tell that to the BMXers. 😉
Blimey!!!!! That is serious riding, it would be so lovely to have 1/10th of that talent 😀
It's all technique. FS bikes allow you to go faster and soak up more punishment (they also slacken the head angle when both front and rear are compressing, unlike hardtails which effectively steepen the head angle when the forks are compressed), but you only have to watch a Danny Macaskill video to see that both jumps and drops can be done on a hardtail, just drop the post and use your legs as suspension (bit like a skier). Technique for the two is very different. Google training videos for the two (I'd advise learning technique for drops first) & you'll have loads to go off. Then practice your drops off pavement kerbs. You'll have it in no time. Good luck!
The take off and the 'jumping' part are actually easier on a hardtail, it's just the landing that can be slightly harder to handle. The trick on larger drops is to make sure the saddle is out of the way and use your legs as suspension.
Technique is way more important than the bike you ride.
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I do the same size jumps and drops on my hard tail as I would on my nomad. I'm lucky to live near a free ride park where the smallest jumps and drops are still big. The largest are prob 20foot plus. It's no different to riding them on the full suss you just have to act as more of the suspension instead of the bike.
The thing is, there are jumps and drop, and jumps and drops!
What i mean is that a perfectly ridden jump, with a nice take off and landing ramp / transition, can be (and should be) so smooth, you struggle to tell when you take off and land. But make a mess of it (see "case a jump" on youtube....) or hit more natural or more technical real terrain, where you are jumping or dropping on rough ground, and there may not be a proper landing transition. In this case, the great shock absorbing capability of a long travel FS makes a difference.
For learning to jump, a hardtail is easier to learn proper technique on (arguably) and i'd suggest learning on nice, smooth, well shaped jumps, enabling you to concentrate on your technique a bit at a time.
I am hoping that my experience at QECP yesterday was due to the fact that everything was clogged with mud........and I was trying flats for the first time! Got to the take off for the jump, i jumped and the bike.......didn't! Back next weekend for more practice me thinks!
Many thanks for all the answers, such a font of knowledge this place!
Yes, practice on a bmx first as it'll teach you everything. Unfortunately, alot of MTBers haven't, and hence they look woeful on a bike (see that Chatel video up there for example)
This never gets old:
I would love to be able to ride like Jinya!
I'm back on a hardtail after a couple of years on my first full-sus. It's great! As above, I think the first half of jumps and drops is easier, the timing is more precise on a hardtail, it's just there's less margin for error on landing. Having super aggressive geometry on the new hardtail is helping a lot!
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is that a bird AM?
Very nice looking bike!
Yes, well spotted! Bird Zero AM with -2 deg headset and 130mm fork. Have entered the enduro series the QECP guys are organising, in hardtail cat, so I have no excuses for being even worse than mediocre (which is my usual lofty aim...)
raced HT in DH for a few races, you learn a lot fast.
If you want to progress or just be more comfortable on the trails the best thing you can spend cash on is a skills course.
I love a hardtail and have hit some decent jumps and drops. I raced a seasons local DH Series on one. Did really well actually. They are great fun and will do anything your body can take.
Definitely gets your skills your skills up!
+1 for skill being far more effective than a bigger/better bike. Suspension lets you do 3 things:
*1 come up short without crashing as the rear wheel just gets out the way, looks crap and kills your speed though.
*Lets you land on rougher slopes, not much you can do about that, except most 'trails' are pretty smooth.
*And lets you land bigger drops without breaking your ankles, but that's not a problem until your talking 20ft+
Basically suspension covers up your shortcomings, some people would argue that if you're always going to ride FS bikes why does it matter, but IMO if you learn on a hardtail with flat pedals then those skills are 100% transferable and you'll be riding better and be able to do more on the FS bike.
A mates pic
[url= https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7020/6517545329_b1e41f5cc6_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7020/6517545329_b1e41f5cc6_b.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/aVW8ac ]DSC_0662[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/42545625@N00/ ]Super Dan[/url], on Flickr
Basically suspension covers up your shortcomings, some people would argue that if you're always going to ride FS bikes why does it matter, but IMO if you learn on a hardtail with flat pedals then those skills are 100% transferable and you'll be riding better and be able to do more on the FS bike.
This is true, but conversely if like me you are limited by bravery, on FS you know you can get it pretty wrong and learn, and as long as you then keep at it til you do it nicely rather than riding however you can get away with, it's all good.
I think though learning on smaller, smoother jumps a HT or rigid will be fine and takeoff (which really is the critical part of the exercise) is easier.
QECP at the moment is dead slippy, the only jumps I can think of aren't really on straight track apart from the 3 table tops.
The routes out the back are too slippy for me at the moment.
Maybe wait until its dry and concentrate on the approach and landing rather than worry about loss off traction and the bike being clogged.
QECP is perfect on a hardtail.
😈QECP is perfect on an [B]awesome[/B] hardtail
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It was those three tabletops! I haven't been off road for about 2 months due to trying to train for London, and I was jumping well before Christmas (but using clipless).
The slightly obsessive part of me wants to learn in flats, just to know that I can.........I will get there eventually 😀 Thanks for all the advice.
You don't even need a mountain bike/bmx [url] http://www.pinkbike.com/news/test.html [/url]
Flat's Vs SPD's is a different argument altogether. I don't think anyone thinks learning in SPD's is better for not picking up bad habits!
The slightly obsessive part of me wants to learn in flats, just to know that I can.........I will get there eventually Thanks for all the advice.
Listen to your obsessive side, it's right! (Especially in light of the current grease).
learn on a hardtail with flat pedals
This, this and 1,000,000 times this.
There's a whole generation of guys who grew up on FS bikes who can't really jump. They can [i]clear [/i]a jump but they're relying on speed + suspension to do it (and having their feet attached to the pedals ... yuk!) - there's no skill/technique involved.
Learn to jump on a flat pedaled HT, learn to pump on a flat pedaled HT and when you have it sussed, get sussed.
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He's cheating with that slope to land on 😀 I see pics like that and think 'How da fug?' then remember i was doing that (to flat) over 25 years ago 😛
yup, me too, neary 35yrs ago 😯 😥 gaaaaawd in Owd.
I was being kind to myself with 25 😀
Paying for the stuntman wannabee tendencies of my youth these days, but it was worth it. Just wish i had pics 😥
The birds look lovely. Thinking of retiring my Inbred to get one and that's the first time in 7 odd years I've thought that.
me too Euro, my body is wrecked these days due to my youthful (and middle aged) exuberance 😥 I can't honestly say it was worth the pain I get now tho.
fortunately I do have some pics but none of them are on computer 😕
That video from Whistler is the type of stuff I dream of 🙂
anywhere like that in the UK/Europe with the same sort of terrain as in the video to ride??
OP, drop me an email (in profile), I'm local to QECP (Rogate) and would be more than happy to join you on your jumps/drops sessioning.
I ride a Cotic Soul, but am (at the moment) a wheels on the ground kind of rider. Any excuse to improve would be gratefully received!
I've been to Swinley a couple of times and made some improvement on the swoopy/jumpy run there (although I've no idea what its called)
Standard advice is to book a session with Jedi, and later on this summer I fully intend to!
Hope to hear from you soon.
Dicky
Cheers, that sounds like a plan 😀
I have had a session with Jedi, so I can jump, but a couple of months being off the bike, trying to do run training etc and swapping to flats all conspired to make me forget everything 😀 I am sure a couple of hours sessioning will bring it back though, so I will sort out a time and message you!