Help me understand this waterbar technique

Was looking for other routes around Torridon and happened across this video of the back of Liathach. Initially I was impressed by how effortless his waterbar technique seemed. He barely seemed to need to put any oomph into jumping them.

But then as I watched more I started to wonder if he was in fact making any effort to avoid them at all. Around 2:20 for example it looks like he is just letting the wheels/inserts do their thang and just (if I may be so bold) ploughing into them.

Am I misunderstanding his technique?
Is it an accepted approach, or do rides tend to be really short when done like this?

The reason I ask is that my WB technique is pretty bad. I can jump small ones or ones with the right lips, but anything over about 30cm or so requires anchors on and crawling or lifting over. This mandates a pretty low top speed and a very stop/start ride. I’m wondering if I could just be a bit more relaxed and go with the approach in this video (if I am correct in my assertion above that he is generally not doing much jumping lifting)

Got a horrible suspicion I’m going to get flamed for completely misunderstanding how he’s ridden it.

tell me

If your fast yu don’t need huge height so you can clear with a little lift.

Oh how I hate those bloody things.

I just unweight the front wheel or lift the minimum amount to clear the lip, again rear wheel I just sort of unweight or lift it depending on the side of the bar.

Also remember the camera is probably using a lot of stabilization and keeping the horizon level

With the sound up you can hear a gap in tyre noise (try around 3:10), so I assume he’s actually lifting a little. As above though, I tend to lift the front and let the rear deal with a bit of punishment.

maybe clipped in & just “lifting” a bit rather than bunnyhops

Got a horrible suspicion I’m going to get flamed for completely misunderstanding how he’s ridden it.

No, I think you’re correct, the rider is clattering the rear wheel into each one, you can tell by the visible loss of speed after the bigger ones.

With the sound up you can hear a gap in tyre noise

Yep , I did hear very occasional gaps, but very rare and very short. What I heard much more were resounding thumps when his rear wheel appeared to hit the bars. Eg 2:48.

Having said which, it appears the prevailing opinion differs so it looks like I’ve got my answer. 🙂

The ‘gap’ could be just the front wheel though, as gopro mic is forward facing.

I’m not sure he’s using any technique.

Looks like my “technique” – plow down the trail as fast as you dare, lift the front wheel over the obstacle and the back wheel will follow

i suspect you’ll find thats an artifact of the stabilisation on the video

I think he does a little (clean) hop, but the camera software is locking onto the high contrast on the horizon, so negating the movement quite a lot.

FWIW, i would roll my weight back into a little manual, to lift the front wheel over the gap/bar, and then jump the rear wheel as little as required to get the back end over.
American style bunnyhop?

(Or just plough the back wheel over it and let it look after itself, its not going to pitch you forward any more than putting the front wheel back on the floor)

As above I’m not sure there is any ‘technique’ in the video. Seems to be lifting the front wheel most but not all the time judging by the direction he comes off some of the early bars. The clattering and pinging suggests that the back wheel is mostly doing its own thing.

Is it an accepted approach, or do rides tend to be really short when done like this?

😀

Can relate. I ended a ride on my gravel bike coming up short after trying to hop a wider drainage ditch waterbar thing under Stanage back in summer.

I find Mctrail riders’ videos brilliant for this as he does on bike and drone footage.

10:24 – on board followed by drone with some water bar hops.

You don’t need much of a hop if you at a decent speed, just enough to stop the rear wheel clattering into the bar/dropping into the hole.

One thing you can do at lower speed (that first vid is fairly slow) is weight back slightly, lift the front, then move forward and tap the front brake as your rear wheel gets to the gap, which really helps give it enough lift to clear the gap. With practice it’s possible to do this smoothly, but it has a top speed limit above which you can’t move your weight around enough. It’s quite demanding to have to do it thousands of times on those trails though! Best technique there is probably big wheels tyres and inserts, and a motor to carry it all around 🙂

“You don’t need much of a hop if you at a decent speed”
Agree. if you’re going fast, then only a couple of inches is enough to either clear it or reduce the impact to such a degree that it does no harm.
my proper bunny hops are terrible but a little squat down on tyres and suspension and a pull up on bars and pedals easily lifts the bike a foot or so.
If i’m not going fast enough for that, then i will slow down and lift each wheel separately.
So i guess it’s either fast and both wheels together, or slow down and do them one at a time.

That trail looks ace.

I hate those things.

Im terrified im going to stop dead and be propelled over the bars lying broken miles from help.

And so many, it’s like whoever builds them gets a premium for each one.

Those are all reasonably bike friendly. The ones on Exmoor are built by vindictive volunteers who dig a gully and then line the downhill side with sharp vertical stone.