Blake's 6 Common Jumping Mistakes & How To Avoid Them

- For some of us, taking a breath is a little strange. We like to keep both wheels on the ground where it is safe and when we are not in the air. Because when you're in the air, everything panics. You see red. All the alarms go off because you start to panic, you start to freeze, you start to make

mistakes

. And that's not good. So in this video, I'm going to help you become a little more confident, equip you with those skills, so that when you find yourself in the air, you don't panic. (folk music) Well, this is a

common

size jump at a trail center like this.

It's very full. There are two rollers, so you can roll

them

. Or you can separate it. With the right technique you can jump it. Now, I'll start with some

mistakes

that some people tend to make when they are in the air. And I'll start with the misfire. Bad timing. You get too excited. You come in and see the gap, you're going to open it. You're like, yeah. And then you just jump right before takeoff. You're not going to let takeoff do all the work. Have you ever heard someone say: just pull on the bars to rise into the air?

Well, it's a little more complex than that. It's not just about pulling the bars because if you're just pulling the bars and you have arms like Arnie, you're just going to go like that. You're going to raise the front too much. You're not going to use your legs. You are going to be all bars in you. And it will be disastrous. Don't pull too hard on the bars. You have to let your lips do the talking. And the opposite is when you have too many legs and not enough arms. And you've got legs built like Sir Chris Hoye.

Too many legs cause the rear wheel to lift into the air. You leave the front wheel on the ground and that sends you into a tailspin. Well, this is the potato. And this one is directed at you, trimmed horsemen. So you've got those cut-out shoes, cut-out pedals. Basically, you rely on that cut-out shoe to get the rear bike up. To climb the entire bike. You're pulling, you're pulling your legs. You are putting yourself in this position. And you're probably arguing with me, yeah, you're

jumping

. Yes, you are in the air. But when it comes to pulling too hard on the rear wheel, relying on those clips will send you over the handlebars.

You're basically putting yourself in a box too. And what I mean by this is that you are braking because you are using those pedals. You are arriving. You are travelling. And you are landing. The dead sailor. Yes, imagine the captain of a ship saluting stiffly as the ship sinks. (growling) That's the noise you'll make when you're in the air. You're getting stiff. And you will find yourself stiff in the air, the panic stations will activate. You will favor one side, the strong side of your body. You will feel like you are pulling too much to one side.

And you're going to go sideways in the air. And you're going to land in disaster. And it will get you out of the way. That's the dead sailor. Well, this one is called stretching. Then you have enough speed. You are going to enter. And all you're going to do is lie down. And stretch. And to think that lip will shoot you into the stratosphere. But is not. Your bike will barely be able to leave the ground. And that's bad technique because you could bust your butt with that. That could stop. And you can throw yourself over the bars.

That's not good. Don't do the stretch. So there are some mistakes we tend to make when it comes to hitting the road. Now before we hit the road and start learning that technique, let me talk about body position and a little bit about bike setup. Body position, you want to adopt that attacking position. So what you want is to keep the pedals level on your bike. You want to have one foot down. You want to keep the pedals level. You want to bend your elbows. You want to look forward. And you want to bend your knees.

The other is in your bike setup, all you have to do is lower the saddle when you want to jump. Alright, let's talk technique and break it down. Then you are following the path. You are in that attacking position. When it comes to the jump in front of you, it all starts much earlier. On a bike, a bike and a half length just before takeoff. And that is, you want to lower your body weight onto your bike. Then bending your elbows and bending your knees. But you don't want to be above your chair. You want to push your hips back a little bit because you don't want that to hit you in the butt.

So you have lowered your body weight. And as you approach the lip you will find yourself leaning back. And that's perfect. You want to have that body weight a little bit above the rear wheel. Just to help the front wheel lift the air. You're in that attack position and you're letting the front wheel come into that takeoff. And one key thing here is not to lean back and stretch out those arms because that's where you're going to lose your power. And you will find yourself with too much body weight on the rear wheel and it will be quite difficult for you to project yourself over the jump.

So you want to keep those elbows bent. And you're looking forward. And you're lifting that front wheel into the air. And you will feel a little tug because you maintain that body position. You feel like you're pulling on the bars, which is good because you want that little pop from the front wheel to lift it into the air. Okay, now your front wheel is in the air. And I'll explain this a little bit. It's not about doing that. It is because your body weight is far behind the chair. So your body weight leans back and you have that nice, stiff riding position to keep the front wheel going up the edge.

Now it's all a matter of time. It's about making the rear wheel feel a little light and that's when you explode. And you bring the bike towards you with your hips. So you're not just going to do this. You're posing it as if you were standing. Look at this slow motion. I basically get off the pedals, explode into the air, and move forward. We're in the air, woo hoo. What do you do for a living? It's about relaxing right now. So what you need to do is extend your arms to level the bike. And what that essentially does is when you land it gives you more travel.

The more you ride on the front of your bike, the more you carry it in your arms because when you land, you can do this. Look how much of a trip that is. That's like 400 millimeters of travel, plus your knees. So you want to straighten your knees. You want to just relax and watch your landing. Well, the landing technique is, it's about taking off. It's about flying. But what it is about is getting a good landing. And this comes with a lot of practice because depending on the type of terrain or the type of landing you have, like this one here is quite short, so you have to land with the front wheel first because if you tend to land with the rear wheel, you are going to skip it. .

It's going to eat up all your speed and you won't have enough flow. So it's key that when you're in the air, you push forward a little further than you otherwise would. You're going to overdo it by pushing forward so you can drop your nose a little more. Put the front wheel in. And then let the rear wheel follow you. Very good, speed. Some people tend to think that it takes a lot of speed to clear a gap. But with the right technique, you can clear a gap. Since it's right in front of me, I can start from here, put some cranks on and I can clear that jump without much speed.

So, speed is surpassed by technique. Obviously, when you make a bigger jump you will have to go faster. But with the right technique, you don't tend to go too fast when

jumping

and make a mistake. So some turns on this jump. And I can delete it. Here's another jump, but this one is a little bigger. Bigger takeoff, bigger space, bigger landing. And its arc will also make you a little higher on that jump. But the same technique applies here as in a smaller jump. It's just that you're going to get there a little faster for this.

There you have it, some tips on how to get your bike up in the air. But stop there. Just continue practicing that technique on that jump you're practicing. Nail that thing. Because when you master this technique, you can find natural hits along the way. You find a log, you find a lump, you find a rock, you can hit it, jump over it, open it up to another part of that trail. Spice up that local trail of yours. Talk about bringing life to a trail, click here to watch this video here, it's all about how to find natural hits on the trail.

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