Turn my bunny hops into rabbit hops

Lee,
I have your book and it greatly helped last year. I think the biggest thing is that I can go into a situation knowing what to do so I stay loose.

Anyways since its winter I figured I would work on some basic skills. For bunny hops I used to just weight the whole bike and make it hop. After your book I weight the front tire maybe a half second before the rear and have noticed an increase in height. Should I actually be busting into an actual manual or wheelie then weight the rear for the jump. If I try to do this my front tire violently slams down.

Thanks
Nate

ps because of your book a few friends started calling me a crazy rider. But they’re the ones who seem to wipe out more often. Thanks a lot.

Hey Nate,

Yes, you should begin your bunny hop with a manual.

– Start neutral.

– Pre-load forward.

– Rock back onto your rear wheel. Wait for the wheel to become loaded, then

– Explode upward by pushing down on your pedals. Magnify this effect by pulling the bars to your hips. This levers the rear wheel into the ground for more down-force — and more up-force.

– Suck the bike upward over the obstacle.

– Extend for landing.

Check out this 2.6MB video of Zach Lewis. His timing and form are basically perfect. And his pink wrist band … just precious.

Click the image for hot video action. Go frame by frame and watch Zach’s range of motion and timing.

The manual-hop is a 1-2 move. The timing depends on your speed. At low speed it’s like manual … hop. At high speed it’s more like manualhop!

If your front tire is slamming down, you’re either pushing with your arms, bringing your body forward, or both.

Try keeping your arms straight and landing on the back of the bike, like Curtis Keene does in this sequence (and Zach does in the video).

From Mastering Mountain Bike Skills. Click for big.

Oh yeah.

— Lee