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My technique for drops has always been let go of the brakes, hitting the drop at speed, compressing and pushing the bike away from me to keep the front wheel from dropping and then if possible squashing the bike (unless it's faster to launch over some of the terrain) to get it on the ground again as quickly as possible.
I never got round, in my teens to learning slow drops. Two things, I want to be able to track-stand next to vertical drops and launch myself off them like you can see the trials lads doing and I want to be able do a drop that is steep, just out of a slow switchback and so my speed would only be about 2/3 mph. The speed out is so slow I'm not confident that my wheel won't drop away.
I tried a very slow run up to an urban drop today as practice and splatted my face in the ground, so if anyone would care to enlighten me as to how to do it that would be great.
Thanks!
1 Lear to manual (at least a bit)
2 Start Small - Kerb size
Repeat lots
Like everything practice is key build up to it, also watch some of the video outtakes/crashes everyone gets it wrong.
Find a trail (mostly trail centre type) and do all the small drops with as much front wheel lift ie keeping the bike level till landing.
Build up to the big,tight,scary stuff
Failing that get some 1 to 1 help
Then there's the wheelie drop. I find this more likely to put me off balance on landing though.
Plus back in my youth (BMX, first time round!), I still remember the pain of my freewheel slipping...
Make sure you're in a high enough gear that a quick kick of the pedal is enough to get the front wheel up high enough for you to be able to 'hold' it three whilst you drop - don't want to stall 7 feet up in the air!
DrP
Slow drops of a few feet can easily be dispatched with a sort of controlled wheelie. Is not really a wheelie though, more that you are using the resistance of the forward pedal to keep the front wheel level while it's in thin air.
You then kind of hop forward as the back wheel leaves the drop and land nicely on both wheels or sometimes the back wheel momentarily.
Practise the feeling off curbs.
wheelie drop it.
practise by track standing on a pavement and wheelie-ing off the kerb. get this sussed and move onto bigger kerbs/walls.
you need to be able to get the front wheel up enough that you can hold it up long enough and get enough momentum that the rear doesn't stay hung up.
an annoying septic tells you what to do....
you need the bike in a gear that will kick in a quarter to half turn. draw back your lead foot to the top and push your arms way slightly as you press the lead pedal to 6 oclock
Ryan Leech is Canadian 😉
Learn to manual. As well as the front end coming up, you'll also kind of kick the back wheel forwards under you. If you approach a drop at slow speed (1-2mph) then this movement will put your back wheel closer to the edge, so you don't have to roll as far at the balance point. The better you are at manualing confidently and finding the balance point, the slower you can go. Get really good and it's possible to do it from a complete standstill with your front wheel at the edge of the drop - just body movement will do it.
Knowing how to wheelie drop is useful, but I almost never do it on trails. The time it's useful is when your slow-speed manual drops go a bit wrong (E.g. if your back wheel hooks up on a slight lip etc) and the front end starts to drop - a bit of a mash on the pedal can sometimes rescue the situation, so having that technique in your tool bag is worthwhile.
Brilliant thanks chaps, it was doing my head in trying to find tutorials! I kept finding them for normal drops taken at speed but not the others!