I learned on the pump track. Everything made sense after spending months on the pump track.

Anything else would be uncivilized.

 

You all knew it was coming...

 

But what if we stand up with fear?

There's a touch more than just standing up to the jump. You also need to fart for that extra boost. The scarier the line, the bigger the fart...........or shart. Whichever comes first.

 

Here's one of the jump/drop lines I built myself up to do.
My advice, go to a shuttle bike park find a nice table top easy jump run and just lap it out practicing. Ideally take a mate or find someone who can jump and follow them and take tips from them.

Jumping is 70% commitment and relaxation and 30% skill. IE If you are relaxed and centered on the bike and flow at the trail speed, you will flow over the jump and all will be good.
If you are freaking out, stiff as a board and then hit jumps you will dead sailor over them into all sorts of wrong positions with a high likelyhood of crashing.

 

But here's pumping in a nutshell:

Once you learn how to pump, you will start seeing where you can throw a few jumps. The general motion helps me with movement over rollers on the trail. The general motion helped me figure out how to jump better too.

I'm working on this one!

 

All I know is, hitting a ramp is a hell of lot easier than hitting a proper jump with a lip.

 

Jumping a bike is all about Newton's third law, which states that for every object that exerts a force on another object, that second object exerts an equal force back on the first object. Newbies get this wrong by trying to yank the bars up into the air. If you do that, you will simply transfer that weight to the back wheel, and the back wheel will thus go even higher and buck you off the bars in a nice OTB. Jumping is counterintuitive and you actually must push the wheels down into the ground. If we trust Newton's laws, the ground will push back on your wheels and send you airborne. If your bike has suspension, you also must do some trial-and-error to learn exactly when to push down into the pedals (and thus suspension). The variables here are speed, jump face length, suspension setup, etc. so that is why you can't prescribe a specific point at which to do the compression. Think of the jump face like a trampoline. You don't jump on a trampoline by simply standing up and yanking your feet up in the air, which is the equivalent of what newbies do by yanking on the bars. You push down into it and let Newton do the work. Once you get it, and it will take some trial and error, it's almost effortless...just a little push down into the pedals and bars and boom you're airborne.

 

Did you all see Ben’s video on Pinkbike today?

 

 

I'm still mid-learning how to jump.

The "stand up to the jump" video helped, as did the though of "if I was running up to this jump, what would I do with my legs" (which made me think about preloading in a pretty intuitive way).

So far all of my success in jumping, has come from finding a jump that is appropriately sized for my skill level, and sessioning it. Like... a lot. A lot a lot. I did a very short (3 jumps) green jump line at Duthie for a few weeks in a row, until I did the below. I also have a new large tabletop line I've done ~150 laps on now (8 jumps per lap, so about 1200 reps of jumps alone on that trail now for me), where I'm applying the same logic, and also used it at Whistler (Crank it up was my trail of choice, I rode that trail 39 times in 3 days).

My personal progression "feeling" scale:

• Scared
  • I'm unfamiliar with the jump, and its making me scared.
  • That looks like going too slow, absorbing the lip so I don't pop enough (at all??!), more likely to dead sailor, and generally sucking at it.
• Getting comfortable
  • Starting to know/trust the shape of the jump/landing (oh, this one is the blind one, but remember its FINE), still a bit apprehensive, but getting there.
  • This usually means I'm increasing speed, and starting to focus on correct form, instead of bad defensive habbits.
• Comfortable
  • Starting to pretty regularly clear the jump
  • This feels like I'm Mentally excited to hit the jump again, the stoke is high, "feeling it", etc.
• Getting bored
  • I've done it enough times that I'm starting to find ways to make it more interesting. I'm trying to go slower/faster, trying to pump harder/get more pop.
  • When I get to this phase, I know I'm about ready to try a larger jump.

Anyway, thats just what has worked for me. It might or might not help anyone else .

 

I'm still mid-learning how to jump.

The "stand up to the jump" video helped, as did the though of "if I was running up to this jump, what would I do with my legs" (which made me think about preloading in a pretty intuitive way).

So far all of my success in jumping, has come from finding a jump that is appropriately sized for my skill level, and sessioning it. Like... a lot. A lot a lot. I did a very short (3 jumps) green jump line at Duthie for a few weeks in a row, until I did the below. I also have a new large tabletop line I've done ~150 laps on now (8 jumps per lap, so about 1200 reps of jumps alone on that trail now for me), where I'm applying the same logic, and also used it at Whistler (Crank it up was my trail of choice, I rode that trail 39 times in 3 days).

My personal progression "feeling" scale:

• Scared
  • I'm unfamiliar with the jump, and its making me scared.
  • That looks like going too slow, absorbing the lip so I don't pop enough (at all??!), more likely to dead sailor, and generally sucking at it.
• Getting comfortable
  • Starting to know/trust the shape of the jump/landing (oh, this one is the blind one, but remember its FINE), still a bit apprehensive, but getting there.
  • This usually means I'm increasing speed, and starting to focus on correct form, instead of bad defensive habbits.
• Comfortable
  • Starting to pretty regularly clear the jump
  • This feels like I'm Mentally excited to hit the jump again, the stoke is high, "feeling it", etc.
• Getting bored
  • I've done it enough times that I'm starting to find ways to make it more interesting. I'm trying to go slower/faster, trying to pump harder/get more pop.
  • When I get to this phase, I know I'm about ready to try a larger jump.

Anyway, thats just what has worked for me. It might or might not help anyone else .

Awesome post! I'm in the same boat regarding jumping skill and agree completely on repetition and incrementally increasing jump size. I go to Northstar and session Livewire which has about 45 jumps, so 10 laps gets you 450 jumps. Super for building skills and confidence. Also go to the jump line at the local bike park that doesn't have lifts but take the ebike to get in lots of jumps. Repeat until you're bored is the way to build skills.

 

Good video!

 

I've been practicing the 'Bunny Hop' almost everyday for 4 years. I am able to hop just about 15" . I know there's something wrong with my technique..

I can't also translate it to a jump. My method is far different. I just 'HOP' - both wheels up.

 

I've been practicing the 'Bunny Hop' almost everyday for 4 years. I am able to hop just about 15" . I know there's something wrong with my technique..

I can't also translate it to a jump. My method is far different. I just 'HOP' - both wheels up.

Try this:

Once I understood how this works, I translated it to jumping, pump track, and bunny hops.

 

Going back to the topic, I really can't apply the 'American Bunnyhop' on jumps - as advised by a lot of MTBers. It's easier for me to do just the 'english hop' on the lip.

 

I actually agree, with a caveat.

The caveat is I think its speed sensitive, at least for me. At high speeds, it does feel an aweful lot like an english bunnyhop. As the speed slows down, and the lips get steeper, it feels more and more American bunnyhop-ish.

*Disclaimer, I'm not the best at jumping either. It's a work in progress . I also have a tendency to do more of the "uniform press" on the lip (more english style), which leads at times to my rear tire coming off the lip before the end of the jump (making it harder to clear the jump).

 

LOLZ!! if you have no idea what TF you're talking about, maybe just don't talk...

Did you all see Ben’s video on Pinkbike today?

Well I guess you changed your post Loll but I kind of agree.

For me, the easiest are drops i.e. no lip, flat ramp. The landing part can be tricky, but the launching bit is the easiest.

Ramps are just inclined drops. The difficulty I find with them is the transition is abrupt. If it's a steep ramp, it's not as easy on a mtb to launch, if is a low ramp, it's like a drop IMO.

I think a quarter pipe up to flat or very mellow landings are easy. This is because typically the lip is vertical and the transition is smooth and your landing is very low consequence. Add a gap with a steep landing and it's a totally different story.

Lips are variable for me because I tend to absorb them (pump) instead of popping up. It depends on steepness and what I'm trying to clear but for me it's a difficult balance of height and distance off these kind of jumps.

 

In my opinion, all of those videos don't teach you how to jump (not exactly), I think they teach you how to be a better jumper. Let me explain. I started mtb when I was 50 and at 54 I decided I want to learn how to jump. A year and a half later with many hours of practice, I believe I finally got it so here is my take. Fundamentally, jumping is about riding the pressure wave in control, just like jumping on a trampoline or a pogo stick. Learning how to pump (into the face of the jump or anywhere) teaches you about pressure control and balance, practice teaches you about timing. With enough time practicing (meaning many many many hours), together they become a feeling. This is the point where you really get the fundamental and you will never be off balance in the air again (barring any mental breakdown), and all jumps will "look" the same regardless of lip angle. If you do it right, without doing anything to the bike in the air, it will land just fine, even perfectly. Don't believe me? Go watch a video of a suicide no hander. What does the rider do? Nothing. Having automatic control of the pressure wave underneath your feet allows you to do what you want with the bike. This is why you can carve the lip to whip and lay the bike over at the lip to scrub without losing balance. If you are having a hard time with steep lip jump, it's likely that you haven't really gotten the fundamental down yet. Personally, I think all of this bunny hop talk is detrimental for beginner trying to learn how to jump.

 

People say that a good rider can jump any bike, but I firmly believe that a person who doesn't know how to jump is going to be held back greatly by a bike that is bad at jumping. Yes, you can blame the bike for being bad at jumps, rather than call it simply a skill issue.

I had great jumping mojo with some 26" gravity bikes, but lost it until I rediscovered it again when I tried some modern 29 enduro bikes (e.g. SB150). Almost all the short travel 29ers I personally tried sucked at jumping--I can't help but have high attention to detail on how perfect I jump, wanting to land gracefully like a cat, and it was so hard to do this with such 29ers that I didn't feel confident going big due to the sketchiness/risk I felt, if my mind wasn't "in the game". I needed to make nuanced adaptations for everything (hard to call this a skill), as opposed to virtually effortless intuition that I feel on a bike that is great at jumping. It's not a case of throwing money at the problem, since there are bikes that do this at low cost, like the Marin Alpine Trail. Fair warning though, while this Marin and SB150 might work for me, I can't say it'll be dialed for whatever frame size, height, and weight, and cockpit setup you got. I'm currently riding the more premium version of the Marin Alpine Trail (Kona's 160mm FS).

 

I haven't put any time into learning to jump and I have a rate of 50% where I land jumps really nose-heavy. I think I'm actually not popping with my arms at all and just with my feet. But I don't know. That's my suspicion. Popping the feet means the back end comes up, and the front has just ridden off the lip casually, so then I tip forward.