Having recently discovered a nifty little purpose-built downhill track in the woods near my house, I'd like to start giving it a go. Trouble is, I haven't actually jumped on a bike since I was about 12 years old. The track's a combo of little (2ft or so) mogul-style jumps with flattish landings, and a few wooden tracks with drops on the end. Any tips on techniques – speed, landing etc – would be welcome. I'm not on a full-suss either.

by best single tip for a flat lander is lean back a bit – stops you tipping over frontwards! Astart off small and don't try doubles until your confident you can do one 😉

NHS is great for aftercare 😉

Close your eyes?

There's some videos on youtube, and there's the Brian Lopes book with some advice as well. I'm not gonna try and explain cos I'm not very good at it anyway. 🙂

Anywhere good? I presume by “2ft Moguls with flat landings” you mean a 2ft kicker without any real landing, probably rollable, am I right?

If so just ride at them and roll through a few times, you’ll soon find you can go faster and faster just doing this, once you’re comfortable with the terrain and hitting it at speed, then just try letting the brakes off a touch more, putting in the odd pedal stroke and allow the bike to take off, just try to stay balanced (as you would normally on the ground) no need to lean further forwards or back, the whole point of getting the wheels off the ground is that you’re trying to take the “smoothest” most flowing line which happens to be off the ground, the bike will know where it wants to go so don’t fight it, just “guide” it…

Main thing is stay relaxed, and take as many runs as you need, no need to put lot’s of pressure on yourself, if you get tense and anxious, start over thinking things and running through all the possible ways to crash as you approach then you probably will, just think positive, you know your line, you can see where your going, everything is set, just ride it…

Good luck…

It all depends…. how fast you are going, whether you want to squash or launch, etc etc.

My biggest tips would be
1) make sure the rebound on your forks is not too quick – if it is its going to make it harder to stay tidy off the lip.
2) jumps to flat are ace because you can pick one and keep rolling it faster and faster until your wheels start to come off the ground, keep building it up. Feel the difference between sucking up the jump, and then "standing up into the face of the jump" which will mean you launch more.
3) practice bunny hopping, and try to get the feel for the same movement as you hit the launch. The faster you go, the less dramamtic this needs to be.

Do it again, and again, and again, and again………… have fun!

Lovely – thanks.

Sorry I said lean back – what I meant to say was try not to lean forward when you get air i.e. don't let the front drop – land flat.

don't pull up too much on the handle bars in an attempt to 'definitely clear it' otherwise you fall off the back and land on your back… 😳

Edit: and large bruises and broken bike follows

take your front brake off.

its a horrible feeling, and a definate loss of control, but when i kept chickening out of the bigger doubles at the uni jump spot, i found, winding my brakes in ment i couldnt drag the brakes subconciously.

just meant you HAD to go for it. (i knew i could do it, it was a psycological barrier, so no danger really)…… then i binned it and stopped 😉

P.s. when it comes to a double the key ingredient is belief that you will clear it, visualise sucess and go for it!