Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - Finally got the skip action happening.

i've been front brake dependent for the last year of riding fixed. skipping and skidding has seemed a recipe for disaster so far, but yesterday i was slowing down to a light standing up, did a little nose wheelie and heard a little chirp. tried it again. pretty soon i was able to slow really fast doing quick little unweights/pauses just skipping to a quick stop. suddenly the light came on that while i may never go brakeless i can now see how it's possible. i still can't skid much but after wiring the skipping i can see a solid skid coming next. towards the end of my ride i was doing a quick succesion of tiny skips where the wheel almost doesn't come off the ground just barely unweights. it was really cool and i'm psyched my skills took a step. fun stuff...

nice! well done

"did a little nose wheelie"?

Scary stuff. When I hear that, I picture this: http://home.vrweb.de/~k-d.redeker/abstieg/nose_wheelie.jpg


To "unweight" the back wheel is sort of like unweighting your left foot by shifting weight to your right foot WITHOUT lifting the left one off of the ground. The same technique is used to Moonwalk! :D

http://www.popandlock.com/moonwalk.jpg

Don't lift your rear wheel off of the ground.

Lifting the rear wheel off of the ground doesn't hurt anything...the real damage comes when it slams back down. If you get off easy, you throw your wheel out of true. If you get off hard, you slightly taco your wheel.

Practice on a wet road or in smooth, flat grass.

Good luck.

C

Hey, how much does your tire quality have to do with skidding and skipping? I've got a lot of, uh, ballast, and I would never rely on skidding or skipping to slow me down enough because it doesn't slow me down enough, fast enough. Part of it is that I don't yet have a total feel for or total control of backpedaling, but I've got Continental Ultrasports because they were 13 bucks and I didn't yet know what I wanted in a tire or how much wear I would get out of one. The one time I really needed to skid or skip (me and a car both ran stops simultaneously, not seeing each other) I was very lucky that the car braked and swerved. I swear my tire just wants to drag forever.

That's sweet. I still don't think I have the "skip" thing down, but I learned to skid last night. I tried it on wet grass, and was skidding all over the place. Then I tried it on pavement, and I've got it. I can lay down some long skids, and I don't get out of control.

I was so stoked last night learning how to do it, I was just skidding all over the place.

I'm never going brakeless though. I don't really see a need for it.

mmm. I ahd my first skip tonight too. Maybe 2 hours after reading this post. Unfortunately I was not able to recreate it.

I found it that it was a lot easier to get the hang of skipping when I was running a gray Conti Ultra3k, which isn't the grippiest tire in the world, especially in the wet. I got used to it, though, and did just fine when I switched back over to a regular black-rubber tire with more grip to it.

i got skips this morning too!. it really feels like skipping. i was able to get a few alternating foot ones n it was cool.