Jumping
Jumping has to be one of the most coveted, most feared and least understood skills in mountain biking. Here’s a simple approach to getting air safely.
Warning: When you get good at jumping, it’s all you’ll want to do!
Pro enduro racer and LLBMTB student Syd Schulz with perfect flight.
Read this before you jump
How to jump – the essential technique
Step-ups vs. step-downs
Flying high vs. staying low
When good jumps go bad
Jumping: another perspective
Jumping hips
7 common jumping mistakes
Dangerous jumping advice
Teaching pro rider Dani Arman how to jump
Joy of Bike: How to jump
From pumping to jumping: a seasoned trail rider learns to fly NEW
KEO,
What a fantastic question. Here’s how I look at this:
– In a hop, you’re on flat ground, and you use a rowing motion to propel your bike into the air.
– On a jump, you do the same thing, but the lip of the jump adds power and pop. On a well-built jump, this timing is smooth and gradual.
– A bump jump — off, for example, a rock — is a combination of a hop and a jump. You’re generating most of your boost with a hopping motion, but when you hit the rock it adds more pop.
Compared jumping off a sweet lip, bump-jumping off a rock is likely to be less smooth and gradual. The impact will be harder and more sudden. This means your balance and timing have to be spot on.
The good news: That rock or root can add some serious lift to your hop/jump!
Does that make sense? This would be a cool lesson … and we have plenty of rocks around here in Colorado.
Lee
It makes sense in my mind, I will have to wait until the snow melts to see if my body can process it. Currently I practice the “get heavy (compress suspension) before rock and try and time getting light with hitting the rock” method. Thinking back I have had some sketchy dead sailor moments, but luckily no major crashes, using my current method.
And yes it would make a cool lesson!
KEO: The better you get at the row/anti-row style of jumping (and doing everything), the better this will work. The old get-heavy/get-light approach is pretty limited, especially when trying to jump off a small object.
https://www.llbmtb.com/lessons/jumping/howto-jump/
Lee, how does “bump jumping” (using a rock or root on the trail to jump) fit into jumping? Our wild it be a different lesson?