Mountain Biking - need advise on drops to flat landing!

well i have done my biggest drop to flat today .it was a really high loading dock ,about 5 feet .
problem was that i had little room to speed up .i landed it perfectly ,but the impact was too deeern hard and the bike slammed to the side .i think it also had something to with the road ,it was like packed dirt with loose gravel .
i didn't try it again because i wasn't wearing any guards but plan on going again tomorrow.
how can lessen the impact ?on what angle should the bike hit the ground ,and does more speed help me out?

Loosen the body up.

Slow drops it really helps to land rear way first, and kona's advice is VERY valuable. Gotta loosen up, even if you're on a double pogo stick with 30 inches of travel each way. Well... ;)

Here's a video of me doing a little 2' drop a while back, the way I did it in the vid it felt pretty smooth/easy. If you go faster, landing flat seems to be alright, and landing rear first is a little scary since you might turn a little after you land and come close to tipping over. If you watch trials riders hopping off stuff from a standstill, they shove the back wheel under them and then land the front down. On trails where you're going fast, landing flat isn't a huge deal...

Don't depend on the fork to absorb the impact much, but it will anyway.
http://jonbuder.com/videos/little_drop.wmv

yeah on the smaler drops i land exactly like you and i am lose too .those are not a problem ,but the prop i was doing was at least twice as high ,and the impact just shattered my bike .there wasn't much i could losen up ,but iam getting the point .it rfeally helps if you flowing with your body into the landing ,i have that pritty much figured out.
maybe i should lose some air in the back?

heh, I don't have the balls for a 5 foot to flat drop atm. I've done a fairly big huck to a semi-flat landing, I just landed front first on that and it seemed alright...

You said it shattered your bike - did it break any stuff on it? Or just surprise you how sudden it was..?

http://jonbuder.com/videos/little_drop.wmv

The slowmo is not necessary. Its not like you did the jah drop, and it adds to the "noobness" of the video http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/images/smilies/haha.gif

ah cmon dirtbike .don't be so hypercritical.man man is just trying to help out .
when i mean shattered ,it didn't brake anything but i thought it did .it was like i hit the ground and i flew somewhere and the bike somewhere else .was like an explosion on impact.

Hey, gimme a break, I just learned how to do that in movie maker. So i took every opportunity to do so. lol


EDIT: That was from last year, by the way... didn't just now learn that

The slowmo is not necessary. Its not like you did the jah drop, and it adds to the "noobness" of the video http://www.xboxaddict.com/forums/images/smilies/haha.gif
Lets see a video of you doing a drop then.

At least he's contributing something valuable to the thread.

Lets see a video of you doing a drop then.

At least he's contributing something valuable to the thread.
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The biggest I've done to flat was 3-4 foot and what I did was:
Approach at a medium speed.
As the front wheel got close to the "lip" I compressed the fork and when it rebounded I pulled up and tried to land with the back wheel first. Not too heavily, mind you, but rear first.
If you have no room to speed up then I'd suggest wheelieing into the drop; this does the pulling up part automaticaly. ;)

Good luck.

Yes, If you have no room, do a small wheelie, then pedal backwards in the air to striaghten your crank/pedal out. 5 feet to flat is fairly high. The highest I have done is 4 feet, but mind you thats on a park bleacher starting from a standstill because I have to lift my bike up to it.

O and this has nothin to do with drops, but I was priity happy today. I can now do No footed stopies, wigh I could do for a while actually, stopie heel clickers (where your feet dont actualy go over the bars, they go over the top pf the fork and under the bars, and can ballance with my front end up in the air while hanging on to my front tire. It is neat. What my friends thought was cool was when I would stopie no-footed, then put my feet back on the pedals, lift the front end up in the air right when the back touches the ground, then tap the front tire while the front end is up there, then drop it and ride away. Really cool lol.
And if you are bored try this: COme up and ride into a sitting down trackstand (ballancing while not moving forward) then let go with your right hand, turn the bars 90 degrese, and put your feet on the front tire, moving it side to side. Once you get it, you can balance like that, because if you begin to fall, you you move your feet side to side accordingly, straightening you out. Hard to explain, but it is cool if you can ride into that, then ride out of it.
Sorry this had nothin to do with drops but o well.

O priity . o .
Normally I'm not a big stickler on spelling but how the *************ing hell do you misspell "Oh"? That post wasn't pretty by any standard

ridehard, you should get a flatland bike. Seems that's what you're aspiring to, and it's sure a crowd pleaser. I can't do all of what you can yet, but I'm working on low speed wheelies and such...

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Hahahha, I dont know if that was a joke but if it was thats the first one Ive laughed at.

Madman, I dont know if this will help you out, but when you are trying to do low speed wheelies, always keep your finger on the back break, ready to use it, and actually go somewhat passed your ballance point. I can get them so slow by doing that that if I am going up a hill I can come to a complete stop sitting down with my front end up in the air right at my ballance point. But that takes practice. And if you really trust your back break, you can actually power wheelly very fast, then flip your bike up over your ballance point. But MAKE SURE you drap the back break if you do this or it will not be PRITTY(lol raiyn).

I'm trying to learn them without using brakes so I can be 1337.

I tried it with the brake, and it does help, but I usually come to a stop after that since I associate brakes with stopping pedaling...

I was proud of myself, I wheelied for a good 10 strokes/40 feet the other day, then set it down almost as if I knew what I was doing.