Mountain Biking - Bunny Hopping

Okay Guys and Mods and Gals


Maybe we should have this pinned for people who keep on bringing up old topics. Possibly merge this one with my other How do you bunny-hop? topic.


Well first thing's first, ALWAYS WEAR A BIKE HELMET. Safety is always first. Cool people who do stunts use helmets. The only thing about not wearing a helmet is uncool.

I would think your bike has to be less than half your body weight, no problem for most people here.

Now for the entire motion.

Basically, you have to lift with all your might, your front end. This will determine how high you CAN go. Then when your front is in midair, lean forward a bit and pretend that your bike is solid footing. Use your hands to push on the handle bars, so you're secured tightly and then point your toes down on the pedals and lift up, holding onto your handle bars.

So for the bike, this is how it should look:

Front goes up
Rider goes down, becomes a bit more tense
Pedals point down
Rear goes up

Practise and some strength is definetly required. Also, knowing how to do some other tricks like endoing helps. Gets some people to understand the flow of mountain biking. Also, my pedals are 100% plastic and have bigger stud, making the rear lifting easier. But I'm I also wearing basketball shoes, which evidently are not the best for biking. If you're not going to wear biking shoes, wear shoes with a lot of grooves so you can have your shoes hook into your pedals.

Endoing: www.bmxtrix.com - that website should basically answer EVERYTHING you want to know about bunnyhopping, but if you need more help, this is the place to do it. Basically endoing is when your rear wheel goes off the ground and your front stays down. Me, I had terrible front brakes, but they would still allow me to endo, so I switched to avid single digit 5's which made a world of difference.

Go forward at a slow speed. (Going fast could mean you go flying over the bars)

Jam the front brakes and use your body to push up and forward a bit.

If you're back wheel goes up, you have it. If you wanna go higher up, be warned you could fall over on your back.

For more height, use a stronger body motion and jam your brake harder and harder. You'll see what works out.

I don't know if it's my old push-up routine or not, but I had done push-ups for a while, not much only about 200 a day about 3-4 years ago everyday during the summer vacation. I didn't want to, but my dad did. So I did it.

Good body shaping really helps. If anyone else has better suggestions, go ahead and post. This should also be a bunnyhop help topic.

Finally,

PRACTISE MAKES PERFECT!! Just because you read this does not mean you can bunnyhop and endo right away. It takes time. As you learn to adjust yourself to your tricks, you begin to become clsoer to your goals, then one day, just one day, you will bunny-hop. If you practise well and listen to everyone's advice, you will bunny hop.

Maybe we should have this pinned for people who keep on bringing up old topics.

BWAAAHAHAHAHA!

What do you mean?

Search: Threads Started By: hooligan

I was laughing at the irony. Props to you for a good effort on the writeup, though.

I'd like to add a nuance or alternative explanation.

Most of us here know how to jump up without the bike. Standing on a solid surface like a b-ball court or the street or your living room, you 1) bend at the knees to dip down a bit, then 2) you spring up rapidly, and the upward momentum is enough to carry you off the ground. Furthermore, if you want to get even higher, you 3) then pull your legs up. We've been doing this since kindergarten P.E. class.

A bunnyhop is really nothing more than the act of YOU jumping up from a standing position -- except you happen to be on the bike at the time, and you bring the bike up with you.

Let's assume a worst case scenario -- platform pedals, no clips or straps, no clipless pedals -- nothing that will allow you to "cheat" by pulling up on the pedals. Is the bunnyhop possible? Yes! BMX'ers were doing high hops for decades before straps and clipples pedals.

For illustration, I will break it down into steps; however, the movement is all fairly fluid, so don't artificially separate the steps. They will need to flow or nothing will happen.

STEP 1: Compress.
Like OP said, you first lift up the front end a bit while simultaneously dipping your butt down. This serves several purposes: a) you are compressing and preparing to jump up, just as you would if jumping from a standing position without the bike, b) you are getting some of the bike's weight off the ground ahead of time, before you spring up, and c) you are gauging how high you must lift the back end to clear the obstacle before you (hint: pull up enough on the front that your front wheel will clear the obstacle).

STEP 2: Extend Legs as you Begin to Jump Up.
Here's where most beginners go wrong. They jump their body up, but the bike doesn't come with it. Or they just try to lean forward quickly, which isn't a fast enough movement (it wouldn't get your body off the ground from a standing position, would it?). The way you get the bike to follow you is you jump up and fslightly forward, quickly, while simultanously tensing your body from your arms down thru your torso. Your rigid arms will push forward/up on the bars, while bringing the rear end of the bike up along with your body. Remember, you are JUMPing, so the movement must be strong enough to get both you and the rear end of your bike off the ground. Your arms to your torso must become rigid, at least for an instant, kinda like bracing yourself, to transfer the up-energy from you to your bike.

STEP 3: Bring your legs up.
This is where you get much of your air. When you quickly extended your legs in Step 2 to spring upward, you started putting the up-energy into the bike. Now you have to get "out of the way" of the bike by unweighting the back end, allowing the back to come up. So as soon as you leap, you are going to bend at the knees again to pull your feet back up a bit, just like you would jumping from a standing position. You will get the feel for it - you unweight enough to allow the back end to come up, but not so much that your feet leave the pedals.

STEP 4 (optional): Toe Strap and Clips or Clipless Pedals.
Now, add toe straps and clips or clipless pedals, and you can cheat a bit, so that in Step 3, you have room for error when you bring your feet up. Your feet won't leave the pedals because they are secured to your feet now, so you don't have to be as precise with how much you unweight.

Note: Although clips or clipless pedals might seem like an advantage, I think it makes us lazy as bunnhoppers, because we don't have to be as precise and can use our legs more and our arms less. I could hop much higher on my BMX bike and platform pedals. My advice is to still focus on tensing your arms/torso in Step 2, and rely less on your pedals, or else you may find your back end comes up higher than your front.

I was always missing step 3 so im guessing thats why i would only get or 6 inches of air.

Also..when doing number 3 do not push down on the bars. Its a common mistake to lift the rear and push down the front. You want to push the fron out and up

But won't you screw up on step 2. I mean if you bring your body up, how do you bring your rear up. That's where my toes point down . It grips the pedals.

I don't quite know what your are asking but the best bunny hoppers I have seen throw the bike forward and UP after step one and 2. I have even seen one where the seat hits his gut mid bunnyhop.

Also..when doing number 3 do not push down on the bars. Its a common mistake to lift the rear and push down the front. You want to push the fron out and up

Agreed. When most people explain the bunnyhop, they tend to focus on what the arms are doing. The arms don't do something magical, like push in some magical way that makes the bike levitate. They simply transfer energy from your body to bike as you leap forward/up. IMO.

I have even seen one where the seat hits his gut mid bunnyhop.

That's step 3, according to my explanation. That rider is unweighting to allow the seat to come all the way up to his gut.

But won't you screw up on step 2. I mean if you bring your body up, how do you bring your rear up. That's where my toes point down . It grips the pedals.

I edited the title of that step -- you are specifically extending your legs from the crouched position, like you would when squatting-then-straightening as you jump from the ground. Just remember, you are trying to jump your BODY up, and bring the bike along with. The legs may not straighten all the way, i'd have to think about that next time i do it.

Oh...

That seems to be harder for me to do. You would have to use a lot more force to bring the bike up because you're basically travelling as one. Pushing up and forard: wouldn't that just end up with a short wheelie? Or do you have to use a ton of strength.

My jump is basically 2 movements. 1 Lift front. 2 Point toes down, lift back. Yours seems to be more of a driving forward leap.

That's step 3, according to my explanation. That rider is unweighting to allow the seat to come all the way up to his gut.

YEah I was just giving an example of the extreme that some will go to hop. Definately not dispting what you wrote. Just trying to add to it ;)

Oh...

That seems to be harder for me to do. You would have to use a lot more force to bring the bike up because you're basically travelling as one. Pushing up and forard: wouldn't that just end up with a short wheelie? Or do you have to use a ton of strength.

My jump is basically 2 movements. 1 Lift front. 2 Point toes down, lift back. Yours seems to be more of a driving forward leap.

You are doing the same thing, just his is more extreme in the amount of lift and push. It seems like a lot but with practice it starts to come.

Oh...

That seems to be harder for me to do. You would have to use a lot more force to bring the bike up because you're basically travelling as one. Pushing up and forard: wouldn't that just end up with a short wheelie? Or do you have to use a ton of strength.

My jump is basically 2 movements. 1 Lift front. 2 Point toes down, lift back. Yours seems to be more of a driving forward leap.

Not sure. Our descriptions are going to be at least somewhat subjective -- you may be describing something in your words from your perception that may be pretty similar to what I am saying/doing.

Not sure I understand pointing the toes down. If I do it, it's not consciously...

It was a hint to him a long time ago to help dig the pins into his shoes...help keep him gripped on the bike without clips...it worked haha...

It was from people at www.bmxtrix.com. :S

Glad my site can help all forms of riding. ;) No really, it's always super cool when I hear of people in other countries and other sports getting some insight into riding and some inspiration. Some of the stuff I see referencing bmxtrix occassionally is kind of weird, but almost always appreciated. I think the how-to's have been translated into about 5 different languages now or something.

Basically the way I learned is you want to jump and pull the bike up with your arms (forward and up) to lock against your feet.

But if you were to lock it against your feet as you go up, wouldn't that slow your jump?

But if you were to lock it against your feet as you go up, wouldn't that slow your jump?

He's just saying your feet shouldn't leave the pedals I think.

The real key is you don't want to lift both wheels at once most of the time.

It's all about lifting the front wheel as high as possible, then lifting the rear wheel to match. That's why videos are so helpful. You want the front wheel so high that you almost loop out and fall backwards.

Then you lift the back end of the bike. The easy part is getting the front end up, the hard part is getting the back end up.

Some riders think that both wheels at the same time is the best way to bunnyhop, but they top out at maybe a foot or two, while peope that use the front wheel/rear wheel method can clear (on a bmx at least) upwards of 3 feet pretty easily.

3ft is doable on a mtb. I believe the record is in the 40 inch range. But I haven't been able to find the trials record listing in a while

You're not gonna pin this are you?

Make it sticky...:)

In the past it hasn't been done with other useful threads. I think if we pinned every thread that had something useful to say no one would need to ask anything and the first page would be full. So no I don't think this will end up a sticky :)