Help jumping

Banxi

Well i feel iv got as far as i can witout a bit of help with jumping if read a fair amount about not pulling up on your bars to jump and im sure thats somthing i do. I ride a hard tail so do i still need to compress the fork when getting to the lip of the take off? Any help would be good thanks

adhallingno1

Push your bike into the lip of the jump to create compression into the jump, "pull up" using a bunny hop technique, relax, stay loose, spot your landing, level your bike out and land nice and smooth using your arms and legs to take some of the impact.

bennett_346

I guarantee nothing you read here will help you. You cannot learn to jump properly by reading how to, too many wording issues, and the fact that if you're consciously thinking all these things whilst doing the jump you're overthinking and will probably fall off. Either learn by practicing or have a skills coaching day.

cooldad

What Bennett said.
And bunny hopping off jumps might be fun in the skate park, but not really for jumps on a trail, unless you want to avoid them entirely.

Banxi

If i was to bunny hop off the end of the take off id be pulling up with my arms witch im not to do right?

cooldad

You don't bunny hop jumps, and you don't pull up with your arms.

grl

bennett_346 wrote:

I guarantee nothing you read here will help you. You cannot learn to jump properly by reading how to, too many wording issues, and the fact that if you're consciously thinking all these things whilst doing the jump you're overthinking and will probably fall off. Either learn by practicing or have a skills coaching day.

Absolutely agree with this. I had a lesson yesterday at Lee Quarry and gone from not having a clue to be able to clear a few feet along the ground. Invest in a skills session

1mancity2

Depends on the jump really but practice is the only way, find a small jump and session it, push your arms and feet into the take off, not really hard just a bit to get used to the kick, most trail jumps don't have a kicker to boost you up.

The "bunny hop" technique is more for boosting the lip for extra height and distance, pulling your knees up and tucking the bike high.

Coaching as already mentioned is a great way to improve

sandy771

Go and see Jedi - there is nothing like having someone who can "see" what you are doing wrong and pointing you in the right direction. I went and although, as expected, I never came away magically being able to jump every massive gap (I did comfortably clear the 6ft gap though), I now have the confidence to have a go and am slowly building my self up to bigger stuff - taking on jumps and drops, and pre jumping drops thayt i would never have tried before.

Took away a load more than jumps and drops as well - My cornering, looking, pumping and general riding is much better when I concentrate on what I am doing, although obviously some of it I find harder and need to work on it to do it subconciously. The whole experience was excellent and I was so impressed with how he managed to see exactly what I was doing wrong (hands/feet/body/looking..) where I would have just see a bloke riding past on a bike.

rockmonkeysc

Ignore anything you read on here. Some of it is complete rubbish. The best thing you can do is get some training from a professional instructor.
I used this instructor, he is quite good at jumping and not too expensive: http://www.chrissmithbikeschool.co.uk/

Anonymous

bennett_346 wrote:

I guarantee nothing you read here will help you. You cannot learn to jump properly by reading how to, too many wording issues, and the fact that if you're consciously thinking all these things whilst doing the jump you're overthinking and will probably fall off. Either learn by practicing or have a skills coaching day.

This

cooldad wrote:

You don't bunny hop jumps, and you don't pull up with your arms.

This

sandy771 wrote:

Go and see Jedi - there is nothing like having someone who can "see" what you are doing wrong and pointing you in the right direction.

and this.

End of.