3 Easy Ways To Jump - How To Jump A Bike

hey what's up guys today we're gonna do a how to jump video we've been getting a lot of requests for this but we've been trying to figure out how to go about it because the very first thing i ever helped april learn was how to jump i wanted her to be safe out on the trails when she comes into a jump know what to do and so instead of doing like a better in one day video like we've been doing a lot of today is going to be more of an overview of the different types of jumps you'll encounter on the trail and different techniques to tackle those there's three main types of jumps you'll encounter on a trail each one of those requires a little different technique to get through them i hear a lot of people say that you need to learn how to bunny hop before you can learn how to jump and while bunny hopping will help you with jumping it's not necessary to clear every jump and a lot of times it's not even the best way to go about it the techniques we're going to go over today will apply equally on both a hard tail mountain bike and a full suspension mountain bike a lot of people find it slightly easier to learn on a hard tail or a dirt jumper because the timing is a bit more precise but you can learn on both and so with that being said let's go ahead and jump into it and start talking about how to do it so let's talk about the three main types of jumps we will encounter in the wild first we have the flat takeoff jump these jumps will not assist you with very much vertical lift at all and generally on these jumps you will be creating all the lift by doing a bunny hop motion on these jumps you'll be traveling much further horizontally than you'll be traveling vertically then we have the mild kicker these jumps are designed to assist you and your bike with getting some lift as you go off the jump so you'll generally still be traveling further horizontally than vertically but you'll have more height than on a flat takeoff this is generally the most common jump you'll encounter and the easiest one to learn and finally we have the boosty kicker these jumps are designed to give you maximum vertical lift and height but also require the best timing and technique generally with this style of jump you'll be traveling at least as high vertically as you will be going horizontally there are some other less common jump types you may come across but in this video we are going to focus on how to jump these three main styles one quick note too i like to have my tires aired up about 20 percent more than normal when jumping just to reduce tire squirm and then i also recommend having your seat as low as possible just to give you the most movement on the bike all right so let's start out with how to hit jumps with a flat takeoff first the nice thing about jumps with the flatter takeoff is that these jumps have a much lower tendency of causing the dreaded nose dive because these jumps don't really offer any lift or kick they are very predictable the downside of these jumps is that if you do want to catch air you are going to need to create all the vertical lift on your own and this makes these jumps much more difficult for most people compared to the more common mild kicker creating all this lift on your own takes a lot of energy and the most consistent way to create that vertical lift is by performing a traditional j-hop or bunny hop as you reach the end of the jump i know this can be very intimidating for a lot of people but hang in there because the mile kicker will require a little bit less complicated technique the good news for learning flatter takeoffs is that you can practice these almost anywhere and start very small the key to these jumps is to create the lift with your front wheel just before your front tire goes off the end of the jump and then to scoop and lift the rear wheel just as it leaves the end of the jump the goal is to get both tires to use as much of the jump as possible before lifting them off the ground the timing on this can be difficult to learn but eventually learning it will help you progress your riding a lot and we have a whole video on how to do bunny hops in the description next up we have the mild kicker these jumps are designed to assist you with some vertical lift as you hit the jump face and the benefit of this is that you don't need to create as much of the lift on your own that means that this jump will require a lot less energy than a similar jump with a flat takeoff the downfall of the mild kicker is in its name the lift that these jumps provide will often have a tendency to cause a slight nosedive as you go off the jump the smoother the radius of the kicker the less it will cause a nosedive and the sharper the radius the more it will naturally cause the rear end to kick up and cause the nose dive sounds sketchy right well the good news is that there is a solution to keep your bike in control if you use your body weight to create some upward momentum as you go off the end of the jump you can get your bike which is just a fraction of the weight of your body to follow the path of that momentum and you can actually negate the bike's natural tendency to kick forward the technique i like to use for these mild kicker jumps is like a slightly easier bunny hop i like to call it a pop on a standard bunny hop you first generate lift on the front wheel by shifting your weight backwards and using your extended arms to pull the front end up then you generate lift on the rear wheel by shifting your weight forward and scooping the back end of the bike up and underneath you the bunny hop is a great technique for generating maximum lift on flatter takeoffs and for getting maximum height on some kickers but for most jumps i prefer to use the pop method to get comfortable doing a pop motion you can actually practice on flat ground you'll start out by coasting at a slightly above walking speed with your body in a neutral riding position and your crank's level then you'll crouch down slightly with your arms and legs to pre-load your body and next you'll drive your body weight up using your legs this motion should be very smooth and it will cause your arms and legs to extend at a similar rate just as your arms and legs get to the end of extension you will point your toes down towards the ground and use a little bit of back pressure on your pedals to get the bike to come up with your body weight if you do forget to point your toes it's very likely that your feet will want to come off the pedals in the air if you do have good technique you can jump with just about any shoe and pedal combo and not have an issue with grip before taking this to a jump i like people to practice this technique on flat ground to get more comfortable with the motion your legs should be driving everything if you have a good technique it will almost feel like the front end of your bike and your arms are just along for the ride it shouldn't feel like an aggressive pull on the handlebars and a lot of times when people get into trouble and feel like they're falling to one side in the air or dead sailoring it's because they pulled up with their arms instead of driving their body weight up with their legs once you get the pop motion down on flat ground you can start playing around with it on a small jump that you feel comfortable with the key to hitting a mile kicker with ease is to be very patient and to do a smooth pop motion just as you go off the jump you really want to time it so that your legs are extending and giving you that little bit of pop just before your front tire leaves the end of the jump if you do it too early you'll lose most of the lift that you generate before you go off the ramp and you won't get very much height a lot of times i will see people with poor technique attack jumps with extra speed to clear them instead of using proper technique to get height and clear them the thing about going extra fast is that it puts more force into your bike on the lip and that can make things a little sketchy from time to time having a good technique will allow you to clear jumps at a much more controlled speed with more style and less risk when popping on a mild kicker your weight should usually be driven about 70 vertical and 30 forward that can vary a little bit depending on the angle of the jump but a key thing to remember is that you really want your body weight to be at least centered over the bike if you do this correctly you will feel your weight be slightly heavier in your feet than on your hands if you go too far back on the bike and get your weight more towards the rear axle the likelihood of doing a dead sailor increases drastically a well executed pop will feel very easy controlled and consistent and this technique is by far my favorite it has helped april become a very confident jumper in the past year and using this technique she was able to clear many jumps with ease before developing the skill of a standard bunny hop okay and last but definitely not least we'll talk about how to hit a boosty kicker i consider a boosty kicker to be a jump that sends you very high for the given distance a lot of times these jumps will be at least a full wheelbase in length these jumps have a strong natural tendency to cause a nose dive if you use improper technique when you go off the jump the main reason for this is because the lip is so tall and steep you're fighting gravity as you go up the ramp and your bike is actually experiencing a little bit of deceleration this slight bit of deceleration will cause the front end to start dropping before your rear tire goes off the ramp and it will basically send you into a nose dive the good news though is that we do have a solution for this and you already learned the base of the technique on these jumps because your bike is slightly decelerating as it goes up the ramp we need to create a little bit of vertical acceleration with our body weight to keep the bike from wanting to nosedive the technique will be almost identical to the pop from the mild kicker and the only real difference is that you'll want to pop more vertically to match the angle of the jump and cancel out that deceleration on a steeper jump this will require you to stay a little bit more relaxed and be further over the front of the bike as you go to do the pop motion the timing will be almost identical to that of a mild kicker however you will come in in a nice pre-loaded position ride up the ramp and then try to time it so your legs extend your toes point down and you get that little pop right as your front wheel leaves the ramp again too early and you won't get as high too late and it might cause a little bit more of a nose dive sometimes people like to do more of a bunny hop method on jumps like this and that is totally fine too it just causes you to go a little bit higher but not travel quite as far on a mountain bike i almost always choose the pop method just because i find it to be a little bit easier the main takeaway with jumping any style of jump is really trying to be confident in your technique and staying relaxed coming in with a plan and understanding the forces that are going on will help you to be much more consistent with jumping the worst thing you can do is to get tense as you go off the jump and forget to do anything that almost always results in a nose dive instead of just going fast and hoping for the best start small focus on your timing and practice your pop and you'll be flying in no time all right guys i hope this video was helpful for you our main goal today was to show you how different jumps can sometimes require different techniques on really flat jumps it's really helpful to learn how to bunny hop that way you can get some lift and clear them with ease and on jumps that are already designed to give your bike lift your job is basically creating just enough upward momentum to counteract the bike wanting to rotate forward just try to remember the most important part of jumping is staying relaxed loose and confident your bike is only a fraction of your body weight and it'll respond to the input you give it so just try to stay calm and tell your bike what to do if you tell it to do the right thing you'll be fine thank you guys so much for watching really appreciate it if you found some value in this video if you could like it and subscribe to our channel that'd be super helpful huge thanks to our patreon crew for always making this possible and uh yeah i hope you guys have fun out on the trails keep shredding and hopefully this helps you jump a little bit better so talk to you guys next time so see ya that was hard

Channel: Kyle & April - Ride MTB

Views: 1,156,384

Keywords: mountain biking, kyle warner, ridemtb.com, ridemtb, ride mtb, ride mtb podcast, ride mtb coaching, how to mountain bike, april zastrow, Kyleandapril, how to jump a bike, how to jump, jumping a bike, mountain bike jumps, better jumps in 1 day

Id: OSGJqFXrEdU

Length: 12min 10sec (730 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 30 2020