thats not a jump, more a curb...

Yeah but its a fair amount of air for a curb :-)

Not to mention it s a tutorial - always best to start small!

whats all the fuss about quite frankly if you dont kick the back out its not jumping. i want to see my back wheel out of the corner of my eye when im in the air. ;-)

It's not getting airborn I worry about, it's hitting the ground after! ;o)

Thanks for the comments. Ben - you're right, we don't use big jumps for coaching and both are just a foot high . One is straight edged, the other is curved to create a bit of extra kick. You can fairly easily jump 3 or 4 foot off the kicker, without hitting it at high speed. That's why we use them for coaching - to illustrate the power of pumping into the face.

As for hitting the ground, Pinkster, I know you're joking there but on a slightly serious note the usual problems we see with landing comes from poor body position on take off. By pumping to lift you are forcing the bike into the air beneath you, and that upwards force from bike into rider keeps the two tighter together than just riding at a lip, and you therefore stay more flexed and in a better position for a smooth landing.

Last session I did with a guy on jump skills I had to get out the video gear and prove to him how high he was going because this technique tends to make for really smooth landings, which was the thing he'd been struggling with. I'm not saying you aren't smooth Pinkie ;-) , but for anyone else reading this I hope the additional info is of some use.

yawn...

rapid_uphill = falls flat on his arse downhill...

lol

Big Thanks! I know it sounds stupid but keeping a straight line when airborne in the Blue Route in Glentress was my main problem - thus inhibiting me to try more demanding stuff... Now i have a clear idea of where to focus my practicing!!!

Cycleactive (or anyone else who thinks that they have the answer)

Is there any kind of enforced lift/spring/prejump involved after the pump phase of the jump? If i pump hard at the ramp, surely i'm gonna bottom out the suspension and spit myself over the bars as the ramp soaks everything up (this is a rather dramatic description of a possible scenario, but hopefully you get the point)

(hands up).... got a question to ask.

I realise the side twist tail problem too... but I thought we should have to toe down to 'grab' & 'lift' the tail off clear. I know both actions are contradicting each other... or am I doing things wrong?

@ Simon G - There is no need to lift the bike off the lip of the jump, as it is the rebound of the front then back wheel as they hit the face that causes the bike to lift. If you scroll up to those basic pictures showing angle of pump and angle of lift, that's what happens with the back wheel as well as the front one. If you also look at the top picture with the angle of pump, you'll notice that you're NOT pushing down into the suspension, but forwards into the face of the jump. This means you are unlikely to bottom out, but even if you do, the effect is not straightforward. One of the pics we took but didn't put up here (but I'll send through to see if we can get it added) was of Rich pumping hard down to quickly blow through the rear travel as he then pushes forwards into the ramp. This is a way of making a full sus bike take off a bit more like a hardtail, as all of the forwards pumping effort is going to be translated into lift, instead of absorbed.

Finally, just make sure your rear suspension is set up right. The only thing that is likely to ping you over the front is having too little damping, allowing the spring to quickly bounce back and throw you forwards when you perhaps least want it.

@armymankin - some of the above might be helpful, but the short answer is - no. If you are hopping the bike with no ramp to pump off then you'll need your heels down first as you do a big pumped manual off the ground (same as off a ramp, kind of, but the ground is now your ramp) but as the front wheel comes high you roll the feet over and use the toes down feet to push back and - as you said - grip and lift the back end. You don't need this to get the bike into the air off a jump - if you try to lift the bike you reduce the force into the ramp, which reduces rather than increases the lift. Only when the bike is airborne might you roll the feet forwards to level the bike out by lifting the back end, prior to landing. You'll see Rich's feet doing this in the last shot.

Does that help? I've gone into a lot of detail but I hope it's clear - if not, let me know and we'll try and get some more pics up to illustrate.

Chris@CycleActive

Chris@cycleactive - This advice certainly adds a new dimension and is quite the oppposite to the way that i have been approaching small jumps and natural lips/kickers over the years (not that i'm a dirt jumper or anything like that). I'll give this technnique a go next time i hit the trails and see how it goes. It's strange to imagine the lift coming so easily without some form of 'upward, pull' or 'pre-jump' - i hope to be amazed! Thanks for the extra clarification - very much appreciated.

Chris@CycleActive.

Big thanks to you for you detail answer. so much detail gone into that split second of movement... i will keep trying

Great article. I'm working on this stuff at the moment. I'm a really a beginner at wheels leaving the ground

First I'll make a point about the physics. If you were stood still and asked you to jump what would you do. Bend your knees get low and push on the ground hard. Obvious really. So its the same on a bike push down to go up. You don't jump in th air by pulling your feet off the ground

Now for a question. A couple of weeks ago I tried the dual Slalom course at Chicksands. You can just roll down so its good to learn on. I can pump throuh all the lower jumps. No idea if I'm air borne but I'm not feeling unbalanced and a bit out of control like before I learnt to pump.

The problem I have is the second jump where you go over a drop off. the take off and landing are both slopping down. I just can't imagine pushing forward onto the forks when they are already loaded by my body wait pitched forward onto them. Any advice. I've watched loads of people jump this and its clearly easy, but beyond me at the moment

Does anyone do this on a hardtail or am i just asking for a broken frame?

This has given me some food for thought as I really struggle to keep contact with the bike once I'm airborne - I'm probably pumping down to much so I go up as the bike takes off - rather than the bike following me.

That said, How can you pump [i]forward[/i] into a jump/lip/kicker if you're moving forward to start with?

Have you tried it clipped in or is it a crime? I rode flats for a while and was happy with jumping and felt pretty confident. However, when on the trails/runs you hit that sudden lip or drop off that you didn't have time to prepare for, this is where clipped in pay's off; as your still in control and feet position is there from the start. I dont find any issues with the bike drifting to one side and definiately dosent fall away when not hitting that take off properly as you can pull the bike up into yourself. Again its just a personal preference worth ago.

i really cant believe you asked that, npwell28.

have you ever heard of dirt jumping, because if you have, you'll notice that they all have full suspension bikes... no, wait.

im just joking, but full suspension is made to go over rocks and roots faster and smoother. The more you have, the smoother it gets. Think of your jump as a bump. A full sus will try and absorb it.

Hard tails are really the only option if you want to go down the jump road.

Of course there is the exception of slopestyle which kinda screws this up, but other than that if you want to jump, go for a hardtail, or something with little rear suspension.

I hope this helps. (p.s. front suspension is ok, but try and keep it around 100mm for jumping)