Bunnyhop skills

IDave

After learning to bunnyhop recently and reading the 'Carpark Captain' articles I was wondering a couple of things about bunnyhopping.

I can get the back wheel maybe 4 or 5 inches off the ground, barely enough to get up a kerb, how do I get more height?

Is it just a case of practice, practice and more practice?

Will it just come in time or are there any particular techniques I can use to get more height?

Cheers.

Chunkers1980

Depends on the bike - generally the same rider on a bmx will be able to get higher than on an mtb.

Practice will defo help.

Set your self up with a course - getting more difficult as you go along, like a couple of bricks to start with side by side then move to breeze blocks.

Power to weight is often a limiting factor too though.

IDave

Anyone else got any advice?

Anonymous

Once the rear is coming up, push the handlebars forwards as well. And scoop scoop scoop with your legs!

Davy-g

is this of any help to ya??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3DdkcX5o9w

xtreem

That video is all you need, and with your wrong technique (two wheels together) there is no way of improving your height.

First front wheel then back, and once you've dialed that technique, you'll be able to clear over 2ft in a matter of days.

And practise makes perfect.

Jedi

you dont scoop with your legs.

once the front is unwieghted you push the bars away again and bring your knees up to allow the rear wheel to follow the front wheels path.

miss notax

I can't seem to master bunnyhops at all.... Tried to bunnyhop over a massive furry catapillar (this is about my level.... :oops: ) at the weekend and cleared my front wheel but squashed it with my back wheel. My OH has made me promise not to try and hop over living things again.... :?

Thewaylander

miss notax wrote:

I can't seem to master bunnyhops at all.... Tried to bunnyhop over a massive furry catapillar (this is about my level.... :oops: ) at the weekend and cleared my front wheel but squashed it with my back wheel. My OH has made me promise not to try and hop over living things again.... :?

You killing stuff on my trail??? :P

Practice practice practice, i used to stack coke cans, when you can clear about 4-5 cans you winning :P

miss notax

Thewaylander wrote:

miss notax wrote:

I can't seem to master bunnyhops at all.... Tried to bunnyhop over a massive furry catapillar (this is about my level.... :oops: ) at the weekend and cleared my front wheel but squashed it with my back wheel. My OH has made me promise not to try and hop over living things again.... :?

You killing stuff on my trail??? :P

Practice practice practice, i used to stack coke cans, when you can clear about 4-5 cans you winning :P

Ha ha ha Just keeping local wildlife populations under control

More practice is definitely required (but not with living things!)!

Good to meet you at the weekend by the way

Thewaylander

It was nice to put a face to a name,

And handy on the climb when i couldn't tighten my chain ring back up with out a smaller tool Hope your down this way again soon, maybe we could meet up for a rride

miss notax

Sure, i'll give you a shout when we're in your direction again

*AJ*

Jedi wrote:

you dont scoop with your legs.

once the front is unwieghted you push the bars away again and bring your knees up to allow the rear wheel to follow the front wheels path.

exactly this, a lot of 'how2's' tend to say you scoop the rear up, but you dont. Not with a big bunny hop anyway.

Front wheel first then the rear wheel. Comes in handy when your flying down a fire road and theres a log vehicle barrier there....

Jedi

aj, fact!

supersonic

This is from Hans Rey:

1. Start out by trying to hop over a line on the ground, then move to a thin stick and progress from there.

2. Keep your cranks horizontal.

3. Angle the toes of your back foot toward the ground and keep your knees bent. This position looks similar to a sprinter crouching in the blocks.

4. Lean your upper body over the handlebars and keep your weight centered. (Image 1)

5. Roll up to the object at jogging speed and at a perpendicular angle. (Image 2)

6. Concentrate on the correct footwork for the jump. You actually push your feet down, back, then up in one dynamic motion.

7. Crouch down on the bike just before reaching the object.

8. Use the footwork and the compression of your tires to explode upward. (Image 3)

9. Absorb your landing in your arms and legs. "Land like a cat, not a sack of potatoes," says Hans

http://www.hansrey.com/lessons/bunny_hop.htm

IDave

Thanks for all the replies, I will get practising.

monkey186

Can you bunnyhop on any mountain bike, in terms of the bike's strength? Or are there limits in how high you can safely jump/land on say light-ish XC hardtail mtb?

Anonymous

You'll never bunnyhop high enough to wreck a mountain bike.

monkey186

cool, will start practising:)

x-isle

I'm glad that finally people are starting to realise that the well known "scoop" the rear up with your feet is actually not the way to get the back up.

I've been a firm believer for a long time that this technique that is so often taught or explained is not physics.

As already mentioned, where a manual (getting the front wheel to lift) is all about rapid movement of weight from front to back (and hence the front wheel lift), getting the rear wheel to lift is very similar, rapid shift of weight to the front. A little tip to help come forward on the bike is to roll your wrists forward which helps the movement of weight forward and hence the rear lifts.

Try this....... Stand to the side of your bike and hold the front wheel off the floor by the bars and suddenly push forward and see what happens, you should notice that the bike comes clean off the floor.

I just think that the good old "point your toes to the floor" and scoop just helps put your legs in a position where the rear has more clean space to rise.

Northwind

I think it's one of those things where people misunderstand what they're actually doing- if you try to"scoop" then you're probably lifting your knees and feet which allows the bike to do what it wants to do and have the rear wheel follow the front. It's not ideal but it ends up having the result people are after, it just doesn't do it how they think it's doing it.

x-isle

You probably right and I don't think that when moving your weight forward you have to "do something" with your feet and legs otherwise the rear can't move, so yes, I agree with you there. The only thing I see with this is spd'ers get lazy and start lifting with their feet. The issue with this is the headset then comes into play and the bike starts doing some crazy sideways movement as one leg is usually stronger then the other.

But as you say (and I've seen many times), the bunnyhop is something that people all do slightly different. I do, when I do the manual part, I don't tend to go fully straight armed, but leave a bit of a bend which helps me slot the second part (weight forward - rolling wrists and dipping shoulders for me) as one motion rather and two.

It's one of the hardest techniques to get without it being a speed hop, which I've seen a few techniques on the internet describing as a bunnyhop.

butcher of bakersfield

I used to be able to hop easily over 2 feet on a BMX, but I still think twice about hopping up a curb on an mtb. Drives me nuts knowing I can kinda do it, but really can't..

I think I'm making a bit of progress by pulling back on the bike, and actually leaning (like a manual) to get the front end high enough where I can then launch the rear. I don't know if that's how other people do it - I'm a bit puzzled to be honest. But it seems to be working a little.

Whereas the difference on a BMX is I could get the bike near vertical on the shorter wheel base with nothing but brute force, and then launch the rear wheel to the height of the front. Totally different.

x-isle

As you correctly say, bunnyhopping a BMX is far easier due to the shortwheel base. It doesn't require so much effort of weight shifting. BMX's are also a hell of a lot lighter too which means there's slightly less a need for so much weight transfer.

I keep saying that I'm going to get a BMX to mess around on as it seems like a great way to "chuck" a bike around.

butcher of bakersfield

I miss my old BMX sometimes. Migrating from an MTB to a BMX is horrible though, what with those tiny little wobbly wheels that none of us are used to. For that reason I quite fancy a street/jump MTB just for playing around on.

x-isle

...or even one of these! :P

http://www.bigbmx.com/

butcher of bakersfield

nah thanks

Dirtydog11

If anyone wants to learn the correct trail techniques I'd recommend the excellent Dirtschool DVD with Chris Ball, IMO its worth every penny of its £17.99 asking price.

http://www.dirtschool.co.uk/

Even if your planning on doing a skills course, it'll give you a good head start on use of correct technique.

Anonymous

Scooping does work. Try balancing on the rear wheel and hoiking just the back wheel up, it ain't going to happen without scooping your feet.

specialized989

what i found helped me was firstly to just try lifting the fron, then just the back, then put it together until its SMOOOOOTH.

Jedi

no, a bunny hop is too pushes. lol@scooping your feet