How to English bunnyhop a trials bike - MTB Trials for beginners
- 6 years ago
Next video: https://youtu.be/Lntt0Ar7FMU?list=PL5S7V5NhM8JQMDBn-phBthNl7pCdQrC46
In the last video in our mountain bike trials series, we learned how to stand in place without pedaling, otherwise known as a track stand. That’s going to come in handy, because today we’ll be learning the basics of hopping. For starters, we’ll learn an English Bunny Hop.
An english bunny hop is a small hop you can do by jumping up in the air and taking your bike with you. Beginners have a tough time understanding the physics of this, so let’s take a closer look. It’s obvious to most people that the handlebars can be used to get the front wheel off the ground, but how is the back wheel coming up without clips or straps?
Well first of all you can’t just lift your bars straight up, you need to apply force forwards too. It’s this forward force you put on your handlebars that holds your bike to your feet. Try angling your toes forwards for a “scooping” action on the rear of the bike. Now when you jump, your bike will come with you.
In learning an English bunny hop, I find it useful to practice the hopping motion gradually. Keep experimenting with this, and you should start getting the bike higher and higher off the ground. If you can only get the front wheel up and not the back wheel, try shifting more of your body weight forwards to lighten up the rear of your bike.
Once you nail the english bunny hop, you can stop calling it that. For the purpose of MTB trials, we’re just going to call it a hop, because going forwards we’re going to be doing so many different types of hops that trying to come up with a name for all of them would be pointless. Start practicing hops in all different directions, and you’ll be sore as fuck when you wake up tomorrow. It’ll make you stronger. With a little practice you can pivot, hop sideways, and even hop forwards.
Actually, do you remember the stairs video? You have everything you need now to hop up the steps one by one. Position yourself into a track stand, and bunny hop up each step. If you find yourself in the wrong position, you can just stand there and shift your bike into place. Now we’re starting to put these techniques together.
So now that you’ve learned to track stand and hop, you have two of the most important skills to know in trials. You could probably go out right now and apply some of these techniques without going any further, but we’re not stopping here. Next time, we’ll be learning how to get up really big stuff with advanced hopping techniques.
In the last video in our mountain bike trials series, we learned how to stand in place without pedaling, otherwise known as a track stand. That’s going to come in handy, because today we’ll be learning the basics of hopping. For starters, we’ll learn an English Bunny Hop.
An english bunny hop is a small hop you can do by jumping up in the air and taking your bike with you. Beginners have a tough time understanding the physics of this, so let’s take a closer look. It’s obvious to most people that the handlebars can be used to get the front wheel off the ground, but how is the back wheel coming up without clips or straps?
Well first of all you can’t just lift your bars straight up, you need to apply force forwards too. It’s this forward force you put on your handlebars that holds your bike to your feet. Try angling your toes forwards for a “scooping” action on the rear of the bike. Now when you jump, your bike will come with you.
In learning an English bunny hop, I find it useful to practice the hopping motion gradually. Keep experimenting with this, and you should start getting the bike higher and higher off the ground. If you can only get the front wheel up and not the back wheel, try shifting more of your body weight forwards to lighten up the rear of your bike.
Once you nail the english bunny hop, you can stop calling it that. For the purpose of MTB trials, we’re just going to call it a hop, because going forwards we’re going to be doing so many different types of hops that trying to come up with a name for all of them would be pointless. Start practicing hops in all different directions, and you’ll be sore as fuck when you wake up tomorrow. It’ll make you stronger. With a little practice you can pivot, hop sideways, and even hop forwards.
Actually, do you remember the stairs video? You have everything you need now to hop up the steps one by one. Position yourself into a track stand, and bunny hop up each step. If you find yourself in the wrong position, you can just stand there and shift your bike into place. Now we’re starting to put these techniques together.
So now that you’ve learned to track stand and hop, you have two of the most important skills to know in trials. You could probably go out right now and apply some of these techniques without going any further, but we’re not stopping here. Next time, we’ll be learning how to get up really big stuff with advanced hopping techniques.