Help on my drops

if its a straight up drop, with a nice approach and "run off" after the landing, its simple, I'm not sure what sort of bike you ride, ie free ride/hard tail bla bla.. but basicly I'd approach it at a reasonable pace, pop the front wheel with a bit of time to spare (most of the pop should be in the pedals, ie wheelie) keep the pressure on the pedals until you know your rear wheel is about to leave the edge, this should set you up for a flat landing or tail first landing (aim for the later), keep you knees and elbows bent when you land.. or you will PAY for it .. 🙂..

thats the best I can describe anyhow..

for a good example.. go to www.mtbmovies.com and check out 'carls roof drop' .. also take note of his quality rear suspension.. aka .. the human Knee!!

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by bikeboyoriginal
There is a three-three and a half foot drop at a park I want to land but I'm scared $hi%le$$, How do I land the drop and look good doin it. Yeah I know i'm a wimp but any advise would be well taken.

How much travel suspension you have?

You can speed up and then pull up the front to drop if there is enough space to speed up.

Well I have a jamis dakar so I have quite a bit of travel, for an XC rig, but Ill try it. thanx.

You need to learn to to keep the front tire level after the drop. Practice on something little like a curb. When your front tire goes off the curb it shouldn't hit the ground it should keep going straight like it was on flat ground. When your back tire gets on the curb the back and front should land on the curb togather. If your front tire front tire rolls down when doing just a curb you'll hurt yourself on something 4 feet high. There was a construction area by me and the construction site was 4-8 feet lower then the road so there was a cement wall holding up the dirt for about 500 feet. I wanted to try it so I started at the 4 foot drop then moved down the road to where it was 5 feet. after about 20 times my handlebars on the BMX bike I was using started bending severly but it was all worth it. My friend was there every time I did it and everytime I did it I guess he wanted to try but was scared. One day he decided to so I jumped down and watched. He got a little speed and when his front tire came off the ledge it dropped straight down and then his back tire came off and the bike was past vertical. His face slammed right into the dusty sand and bounced right back up. Funniest thing ever 🙄 He's never done a drop but thats where I did my first ones also. I guess he didn't know to keep the bike level.

I tried to do a jump today...allow me to reiterate the point that you don't want to land on your front wheel. I did, and ended going over the handlebars. Luckily, no damage to bike or self. It wasn't even that high a drop (maybe a foot), but hey I'm very much a beginner in terms of mtb skills :p .

Maybe I should work on wheelies first...

A foot :p You should be able to roll over a foot drop if you screw up 😄

I suppose...like I said before, I need to work on lifting my front wheel.

how is 80 mm of travel? does that cut it for most drops and stuff?

well I measured the drop today, and it was actually more around 2 feet. So, I feel a little better failing...