Rolling Hop technique?

Make sure your feet are 90 degrees behind the alignment of your normal
hop.

David

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darchibald said:

*Make sure your feet are 90 degrees behind the alignment of your
normal hop.*

So I would hop with the cranks vertical? How does the pedal launch me
then? Its motion has no vertical component at that moment. I thought the
thing with rolling hops as opposed to stationary hops is that you can
convert some of your forward momentum to upwards momentum.

Klaas Bil

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Sorry I worded that badly. Really badly. Also remember I'm not 100% on
what I'm saying is making sense. Anyway, thats
the position you are in when you start the jump. Before then you're
basically just driving. When you are there, (the position) push down on
the high pedal, simultaneously compressing the tire and giving the wheel
that extra boost. Bring your body low, then pop out. Remember a lot of
it is lifting the wheel too. I hope thats better. And maybe I'm
completely wrong and if I am someone has permission to attack. Its what
works for me anyways. I have a about 2' vertical rolling hop. But I'm
getting better.

David

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Try compressing your whole upper body down and forwards to compress the
tyre in one movement. I asked a similar Q a while ago and from the
results I decided that applying pressure to the cranks just before they
get to vertical works best for me.

See if you can find the frame-by-frame stills of Dan Heaton hopping onto
a car bonnet. That's really good to analyse. Andrew Carter has it on his
tips web site (which is very good BTW!). Good luck! 🙂

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I find rolling hops to be the hardest to explain. Thus, I won't try. If
you practice enough you'll get it. I remember having the same problems
you describe, but I got over them (I don't remember how).

I'm attempting to attach the frame-by-frame of Dan Heaton's hop. Hope it
works.

+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Attachment filename: heaton_up.jpg |
|Download attachment: http://www.unicyclist.com/attachment/217636|
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

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yay, it worked! That ought to clear up what darchibald was saying. This
is the picture he was talking about, too. Hope it helps.

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I SAID IT!!! 😄

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Sorry 🙁

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gerblefranklin said:

*yay, it worked! That ought to clear up what darchibald was saying.
This is the picture he was talking about, too. Hope it helps. *

That picture is in my 'Miscellaneous Stuff gallery'
(http://gallery.unicyclist.com/john_childs_misc) along with a short
video of the rolling hop.

The one thing missing in that frame by frame analysis is in frame 20.
Notice how Dan has dropped the heel of his bottom foot down. Dropping
the heel down like that helps you to lock the leg and get a stronger
spring up as the pedal comes up.

I was having problems with the rolling hop for a while. I usually point
my toe down at the bottom of the stroke because that makes for smoother
pedaling. That's the exact opposite of what you want to do when doing a
rolling hop. On that last turn of the wheel you want to drop the heel
of your rear foot and lock your leg as you spring up. Once I got the
hint to drop my heel my rolling hop started to come together. My
rolling hop still sucks (my jumping in general still sucks), but at
least it's happening.

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Yeah, I got that pic from your gallery, John. Sorry, I should've
credited you. Dropping the heel is an important thing indeed. I've never
thought about it, but that is a major part of rolling hops.

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What's interesting to note in than in frame 25, when he's still on the
ground but extended, see where his head is relative to the treeline, and
in the following shots as well. Clearly he's not jumping -- in terms of
actual vertical lift -- that far. He's massively sucking the uni up
beneath him and angling it out forward. IOW, a lot of the heigth is in
this mid-air accordian job he does to with body, like a skier sucking up
mogals. Going from full extention to hunched over crunch--while
angling the uni out in front--is a key part of this sequence. He'd
never gain this kind of altitude without that body English. There's a
lot of separate moves to all of this, and getting them all fluidly
synched up is the magic.

JL

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I agree that the tuck is really really important, but if you're going by
the height of his head it will look like his whole body is moving less
far vertically because he's tucking up. His hips tranvel quite a
distance vertically. Plus that's an old jump of his and these days he
seems to be going much higher still.

Andrew

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gerblefranklin said:

*Yeah, I got that pic from your gallery, John. Sorry, I should've
credited you. Dropping the heel is an important thing indeed. I've
never thought about it, but that is a major part of rolling hops. *

It's not an issue of me needing the credit. I just wanted to link to
the gallery so people could get the video too.

Dropping the heel is important enough that I just made a decision to
edit the frame by frame analysis picture to mention the dropping of the
heel in frame 20. I hope Rhysling doesn't mind. Go visit my
'Miscellaneous Stuff gallery'
(http://gallery.unicyclist.com/john_childs_misc) for the updated
picture. The file name and the link have stayed the same. Just the
text for frame 20 has changed.

I've been considering doing the same type of frame by frame analysis of
Dan's big jump on to the stack of pallets in Universe 2. I don't know
if I'll ever get around to it. Getting the frames off the DVD will give
a much cleaner set of pictures than the video of Dan jumping on the hood
of the car.

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Quoted message said:

I've been considering doing the same type of frame by frame analysis
of Dan's big jump on to the stack of pallets in Universe 2.

Is it possible to capture stuff from DVD onto MiniDV via my (pretty new)
digital video camera? If so I'd be willing to do that tomorrow.

Andrew

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andrew_carter said:

*Is it possible to capture stuff from DVD onto MiniDV via my (pretty
new) digital video camera? If so I'd be willing to do that
tomorrow.

Andrew *

My DVD player software on the computer can take snapshots of single
frames. All I've got to do is step through that sequence on the DVD and
hit the snapshot button on the DVD player. It's just a question of
taking the time to do it. If you get motivated first then go for it.
It's been on my todo list for a while.

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Quoted message said:

I've been considering doing the same type of frame by frame analysis
of Dan's big jump on to the stack of pallets in Universe 2. I don't
know if I'll ever get around to it. Getting the frames off the DVD
will give a much cleaner set of pictures than the video of Dan jumping
on the hood of the car.

I've just transferred this part of U2 onto my computer via my digital
video camera. I've set up the 9 key frames on top of each other but
haven't started writing the 'steps' for each one. I'd like to get Dan's
permission first as this is different from the free-for-all Lutkus
videos.

Andrew

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Klaas Bil said:

*So I would hop with the cranks vertical? How does the pedal launch me
then? Its motion has no vertical component at that moment. I thought
the thing with rolling hops as opposed to stationary hops is that you
can convert some of your forward momentum to upwards momentum.

Klaas Bil *

umm, i think what he's trying to say is that you need to hop at what you
think is the pedal vertical position, however by the time you actually
hop, your pedals will be at the perfect position to hop. i use this
technique in breaking for still-standing hops

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andrew_carter said:

*I've just transferred this part of U2 onto my computer via my digital
video camera. I've set up the 9 key frames on top of each other but
haven't started writing the 'steps' for each one. I'd like to get
Dan's permission first as this is different from the free-for-all
Lutkus videos.

Andrew *

Oh andrew you and your stories.

But It's not really different to the free for all video. Correct me if
I'm wrong but I believe that that particular part is on the trailer, so
you should be able to go straight ahead right?

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Klaas,

I recently started doing rolling hops, albeit with only some success.

Heres what seems to work for me in half my attempts. I first did it by
angling towards a curb, not riding directly at it (90 degrees to curb).
I angled towards the curb on my stronger hopping side. I tried
different angles of attack. I had a hard time getting any consitancy,
but it did work better than riding directly at the curb. Trying to be
aware of the leg position, I would move closer to the curb depending on
when I felt the time to be right. That "right" time is like what
vivalargo said, " It's magic to bring it all together. Sorry about
the poor description.

Another way to think about it might be this. I can time my rolling
hops OFF a curb better than when going up. I find a sidewalk that is
right next to the street. I then ride parallel to the street while on
the sidewalk. When I feel that same position of the legs that feels
like it's going to work, I make a sudden turn or angle into the street
and hope to time my pedals to a jump off the curb. I have had more
success with this way. I figured if I could time it going off the curb,
then I would think about it timing it up the curb. It seemed to work
today.

I can't analyze my pedal position worth [censored], but it's just been a lot
of time on the uni and then continuely trying. Oddly enough, I got the
some of the timing from riding off a 21" high drop. The lead up was
about two meters. I varied the distance to the approach until "it"
worked. Once I had the pedal position for landing, then I worked on
timing what I call the pull up on the seat. I can' sense the push down
of the tire yet. I did this slowly, just enough to keep momentum. I
put the pedal positioning together with the pull up of the seat and,
voilla.

Good luck!

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