Viewing 36 posts - 1 through 36 (of 36 total)
  • I'm unable to bunny hop.
  • tacopowell
    Free Member

    Mock me if you have too.
    I learnt to ride a bike without stabilizers at the age of ten,
    Is there much hope for me twenty years on?

    Switching from SPD’s to flats,

    Any tips?

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    find someone to teach you

    /thread over

    butcher
    Full Member

    I grew up on BMXs and could bunny hop well. Completely useless on a mountain bike though. Curbs put the fear of death into me!

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    iamroughrider
    Free Member

    I kinda learnt in one afternoon on a bmx after watching tutorials and with loads of tries. Shame the hops were pretty lame, although i think I sort of got the technique down.I ached like mad for 3 days after though.

    tacopowell
    Free Member

    iamroughrider
    I kinda learnt in one afternoon

    How has it worked out for you since?

    nwill1
    Free Member

    My fitness is lame but my bike handling is not bad, bunny hops, jumping, drops etc come with lots of practice. It’s about just sessioning stuff over and over, I have the benefit of years hanging around on BMX’s in my teens with mates constantly pushing each other.

    Find an empty car park get some ‘things’ and just keep trying (after watching online tutorials) to clear them, two challenges are height & distance, a stick or cane balanced on top of a couple of employ coke cans is a good start.

    headpotdog
    Free Member

    Try practicing them in two parts.

    1. Learn to get the front wheel off the ground without pedaling. (No wheelies)
    2. Learn to pick the back wheel off the ground by scooping the pedals backwards.

    Once you can do both of these things separately, try putting them together lifting front then rear. You’ve got more time than you think, so don’t rush and feel you’ve got to do everything at once.

    Have fun. Feels great when you get them right 🙂

    Travis
    Full Member

    I can’t bunny hop either. Is this an excuse for me to buy a bmx 😀

    uphillcursing
    Free Member

    I taught my my kids recently. Bigger one has progressed well. Still not confident with curbs yet but is fine with a piece on 2″x2″.

    johnnyboy666
    Free Member

    It’s well worth putting the practice in to learn this basic stuff, it seems a lot of people jump straight to SPDs and that often means missing these core skills. It’s hard to explain how to do it but as mentioned above there are loads of tips and videos these days on how to do such thing. Bigger bikes allow people to smash through stuff now so it’s not as vital as it perhaps was on some terrain but still the ability to manipulate the front and back of the bike independently will definitely improve your technical abilities.

    Once you have learned you’ll never forget it and wonder how you couldn’t do it before!

    John

    ohrats
    Free Member

    You’ll have to break the muscle memory of “pulling up” with the feet associated with riding clipped in and get the feeling of “scooping back then up and rearward”.

    6079smithw
    Free Member

    Travis – Member

    I can’t bunny hop either. Is this an excuse for me to buy a bmx It’s in the UN Charter that you need to 🙂

    I got better at them from this video but take it easy cos practicing solidly made my neck hurt.
    [video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79axgQNKQVo[/video]

    uphillcursing
    Free Member

    The thing that got it for my kids was rotating your wrist forwards as you are trying to get the rear wheel up.

    I repeated the mantra. Push,bend and twist, meaning as they had the front wheel up simultaneously push the bars away, bend their knees and twist the grips forward.

    Worked a treat for them.

    P20
    Full Member

    [video]http://youtu.be/gMNGN4y0NEs[/video]
    Might help

    jaffejoffer
    Free Member

    im alright at buny hopping on a flat trail but when it comes to an obstacle i brick it for fear of smashing my bb 🙁

    howsyourdad1
    Free Member

    If you can’t bunny hop you can’t mountain bike. Discuss…

    wolfenstein
    Free Member

    Bunny hop , i think i have better odds winning euro millions.

    uphillcursing
    Free Member

    OP… What part of it are you struggling with? After helping the Kids and having to break it down into little bits and different ways of explaining what to do. I might just have a few pearls of wisdom.

    hexhamstu
    Free Member

    If you can’t bunny hop, go out to a car-park somewhere and just repeatedly try until you can. You won’t just be able to bunny hop magically one day.

    Macavity
    Free Member

    RobHilton
    Free Member

    I can’t BH either – it doesn’t concern me. I could do it if my shoulder wasn’t ruined – some how it doesn’t stop me mountain biking…

    stilltortoise
    Free Member

    1. Learn to get the front wheel off the ground without pedaling. (No wheelies)
    2. Learn to pick the back wheel off the ground by scooping the pedals backwards.

    Once you can do both of these things separately, try putting them together lifting front then rear.

    I can do 1. I can do 2. I can also do a bunny hop in the sense that I can get the whole bike off the ground using flat pedals. I watch these tutorial videos and still think I’m doing to wrong though. As a kid my bunny hops were learnt by just going out and trying/practicing but they tend to be more a case of both wheels simultaneously than front wheel then back.

    Might go out with the kids at the weekend and do more practicing 🙂

    paulrockliffe
    Free Member

    Just put your SPDs back on, bunny hops are for people with the wrong pedals on their bike. 🙂

    AlexSimon
    Full Member

    These videos don’t seem to mention pushing forwards at the bars.
    That was the trick for me – pull up, then push forwards.

    ndthornton
    Free Member

    SPD
    Skill Prevention Device

    aracer
    Free Member

    If I learnt to bunny hop* in a couple of hours when nearly 40, then I reckon all you lot can too.

    *not claiming I can still do it – would need to practice a bit more

    johnnyboy666
    Free Member

    I think my first attempts were both wheeps off the ground together and landing together. Basically just experimented with jumping and trying to pull the bike up and sort of throwing it forwards whilst trying to scoop back and up on the pedals. They were pretty rubbish but someone I knew told me a technique to help with this and balance in general. He told me to practice standing on the spot and rocking the bike ie lifting front then bringing it down before lifting the back and bringing it down. You get used to picking the back up this way and although momentum helps you to start with you get to a stage where you cn pick up either end.

    footstomper
    Free Member

    I can do a very basic bunny hop but like most am a bit bothered about going ass over tit if I get it wrong at speed 😳

    I went on a mtb course with Ed Rock & we spent a little time trying to master this technique; some got it pretty quick but I really struggled in fact I ended up with the bike on top of me at one stage 😳 I made the mistake of going on the course with Flats instead of SPDs which I have always used. I am always trying to do them to get a little better but never when going fast or over rocky ground.

    Like others have said practice practice practice.

    tacopowell
    Free Member

    Update!
    First ride with flats today,
    Bunny Hop? Nailed it!
    Can’t stop doing them now! 😀

    singlespeedstu
    Full Member

    The first answer is the correct one.
    You can watch all the vids/read all the tips you want but it’ll be much quicker with someone showing you.

    mjsmke
    Full Member

    Update!
    First ride with flats today,
    Bunny Hop? Nailed it!
    Can’t stop doing them now!

    Cool! Now keep practicing. Use small sticks on the ground to practice hopping over and slowly practice on larger sticks/small logs. Anything that won’t cause a bad crash until you have the confidence to hop over obstacles on the trails.

    enfht
    Free Member

    I’m lucky I spent my entire childhood bunny hopping my bmx and building ramps etc. I find it really odd that other people can’t automatically be able to bunnyhop. Same goes for swimming. That said, I bought a bmx a couple of years back for a laugh, but riding it felt really weird and awkward and its sat in the shed unused ever since.

    So what you need is a time machine.

    xiphon
    Free Member

    I’m still “practising” bunny hops about 20 years after ‘learning’ how to do it.

    Same goes for wheelies, manuals, stoppies, endos, j-turns, crank-flips…

    stevomcd
    Free Member

    Practise, practise, practise!

    I was struggling with mine and had my SMBL exam looming (you need to both do and teach them for the exam!). I went out every day for about a month and just did bunny hops. Setting out markers or obstacles helps with timing and coordination.

    I was comfortably clearing 2-foot obstacles at the time, but I’ve regressed a bit now…

    im alright at buny hopping on a flat trail but when it comes to an obstacle i brick it for fear of smashing my bb

    Don’t worry – your chainring will die waaay before your BB

    butcher
    Full Member

    Don’t worry – your chainring will die waaay before your BB

    And probably your teeth.

Viewing 36 posts - 1 through 36 (of 36 total)

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