Mountain Biking - My bunny hop playground

So I got those clipless pedals on now and it made me really want to go ride my bike more, so much infact I didnt go to bed last night and went riding 3 times today!

On my early ride (6:00am) I ran across the old K-mart parking lot that is now empty and noticed wow! what a great place to practice my bunny hop technique. Sure enough it was I spent a good hour there hoping over the parking stone things and all the islands. Bunny hoping with clipless is cool stuff I can almost just jump with the bike if I wanted too. I got the rear up abit too high a few times almost came down into an endo.

Anyways I just wanted to share the story because I know we have alot of people trying to learn how to bunny hop correctly and need a good way to practice. Get up early and find a big parklot and have fun!

Some pics, as you can see some of them are much higher than others so you can start on small ones if you need to and then try the big ones, or if you do it for an hour straight like me, you get kinda tired and have to move to the small ones :P

http://www.photodump.com/direct/VciousXUSMC/bunnygroundsmall.jpg

http://www.photodump.com/direct/VciousXUSMC/bunnyground2small.jpg

people will criticize you for learning to bunny hop with clipless

It's always nice to come up upon curbs, people, logpiles on the trail, etc. and just bunnyhop them without even breaking your speed.

I envy a person that gets to ride 3 times in a day! haha

Edit: True, you might get harassed for doing b hops with clipless. The real art is doing them on platform pedals. But a good argument is that you might be a xc rider that prefers clipless....and still being able to bunnyhop is a necessity. So it's all good!

lol i heard some were on this forum that hoping with cliped pedals (and cleats) was cheating... i think NOT.
But the thing is when i hop the chain hits the frame pretty hard (on landing), its not ONLY when i hop but when i do tiny drops too...

EDIT: earlier posts didnt show up, 599 is right lol i saw it happen...

If you guys read the thead about when I got my clipless I was asking if I should hon my skills more on my platforms or go clipless. it was full out go clipless not one vote for stay on the platforms.

Just so ya know I do know how to bunny hop on my platforms, I am just saying you can do it diffrently with the clipless, and for riding as a whole I am having alot more fun on the clipless. Probably the same kind of feeling the fixed gear single speeders have about being "one with the bike"

It's no more cheating that duct taping your hands to the bars would be. However, if you rely on the clipless to dictate your technique, then you are never going to get very high.

I use a mix of both. I yank up on the top bars, push forward and pull with my legs while clipped in.

I can do the same on platforms, but for understandable reasons I get more clearance with clipless pedals.

My bunny hop playground is any long curb. I just go at a near parallell angle and hop on and down till I get tired. Then I go to the elementary school across the screet and jump down stairs! YAY!

In front of 4-5th graders, it gets attention :)