Judging a rollable drop

paul.skibum

to me it looks like he doesnt even know its there - he definitely drops the front wheel into the gap before the natural transition, look slike he absorbs the take off so his forks have no spring to take him off the lip. Its all bad and he's probably going to hell now.

danlightbulb

Thanks there has been some great advice in this thread.

The guy in that video who crashed, he was actually carrying some decent speed though wasn't he? So why did he nose dive off the drop? Was it because he had all his weight on the bars, instead of (what I think you guys have been saying) is that you should have all your weight on your pedals and the bars light?

Thanks

Jedi

no, he sat back and held his arms straight at the lip

danlightbulb

I dont understand why he tipped forward then tbh. I may have to try that skills course but will it be full of people like me or people who are already jumping 20 ft?

cooldad

Jedi does one on one or small groups (of friends), so you won't have loads of people. Any course with loads of people wouldn't be worth the bother.

YeehaaMcgee

danlightbulb wrote:

I dont understand why he tipped forward then tbh. I may have to try that skills course but will it be full of people like me or people who are already jumping 20 ft?

As soon as an object loses contact with the ground, it begins to fall, immediately. So, the front wheel goes off the lip, and begins to fall, whilst the back wheel is still on the ground. This makes the bike rotate forward.
The rider doesn't counter it by doing a mini-manual, or anything else, and so the bike kicks him out of the front door.

danlightbulb

Well I've emailed the guy, so hopefully I'll be able to get on a course and sort the problem out! Fingers crossed.

Northwind

How to do a drop:


Ladder Drop Stack by 21reasons, on Flickr

jimothy78

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

As soon as an object loses contact with the ground, it begins to fall, immediately. So, the front wheel goes off the lip, and begins to fall, whilst the back wheel is still on the ground. This makes the bike rotate forward.

So, coming back to something that was touched on earlier, in a situation where you don't want to take the drop-off at speed - for reasons of tricky landing, obstacles, immediate tight turn etc... Would it be feasible to take it at walking speed, but putting in a powerful pedal stroke to lift the front wheel to counteract the natural forwards rotation work? Presumably this would be harder to judge corectly, but arguably, therefore, could be considered more skillful than just charging it?

Not trying to be argumentative, here - just trying to get my head round it...

YeehaaMcgee

jimothy78 wrote:

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

As soon as an object loses contact with the ground, it begins to fall, immediately. So, the front wheel goes off the lip, and begins to fall, whilst the back wheel is still on the ground. This makes the bike rotate forward.

So, coming back to something that was touched on earlier, in a situation where you don't want to take the drop-off at speed - for reasons of tricky landing, obstacles, immediate tight turn etc... Would it be feasible to take it at walking speed, but putting in a powerful pedal stroke to lift the front wheel to counteract the natural forwards rotation work?

Yes. You can see this done routinely by trials riders, for example.
In reality, if you're moving at all, then a simple manual-style raise of the front wheel is enough to keep the bike in balance. You'd need to be almost static to require a pedal stroke - but pedal strokes are ok.
It's also pretty easy to judge once you get the hang of it, you just get a sense of the "feel".
The goal isn't to raise the front, per se, it's just to keep the bike level.

If you've been doing it for a long while, until it becomes muscle memory, you may actually forget that you're doing it, it becomes subconscious.

paul.skibum

Find a flat bit of ground
Ride along at a steady pace
Compress the forks by pushing your weight down on the bike
Release weight on bars and feel the front lift slightly as the forks reset back up.

Try this again but with a slight up and back movement as you release, bikes front should rise up slightly more in a mini manual.

Do this several times getting comfortable with the feel of balancing the degree of movement required with the amount of lift required/expected.

Once confident find small trial obstacles to lift the front end off to drop - start with decent kerbs, steps etc build up trying each 3 or 4 times.

Keep playing with it until you are hucking 8 ft drops to good roll outs.

Await adulation of trail users and mountain biking public alike.

ilovedirt

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

jimothy78 wrote:

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

As soon as an object loses contact with the ground, it begins to fall, immediately. So, the front wheel goes off the lip, and begins to fall, whilst the back wheel is still on the ground. This makes the bike rotate forward.

So, coming back to something that was touched on earlier, in a situation where you don't want to take the drop-off at speed - for reasons of tricky landing, obstacles, immediate tight turn etc... Would it be feasible to take it at walking speed, but putting in a powerful pedal stroke to lift the front wheel to counteract the natural forwards rotation work?

Yes. You can see this done routinely by trials riders, for example.
In reality, if you're moving at all, then a simple manual-style raise of the front wheel is enough to keep the bike in balance. You'd need to be almost static to require a pedal stroke - but pedal strokes are ok.
It's also pretty easy to judge once you get the hang of it, you just get a sense of the "feel".
The goal isn't to raise the front, per se, it's just to keep the bike level.

If you've been doing it for a long while, until it becomes muscle memory, you may actually forget that you're doing it, it becomes subconscious.

aye, I do this all the time on steep techy downhill trails, just go at a slower speed and manual off it. Or if the drop is pretty small (10" maybe), just push the front down over it. Depends on a lot of different things though. You'll learn how to judge these things the more you ride.

And yeah, you're probably right about what my mate did, just didn't bother to push through it at all and the front dropped off. However I can confirm that he did know that it was there, having ridden it before.

cooldad

He was probably more intent on posing for the camera than concentrating on the ride. Amateur.

ilovedirt

Haha, I'm pretty good at messing up whatever it is I'm doing if there's a camera on me.