Mountain Biking - Drops and Manuals

These are two of my favorite things to do street wise mountainbiking. Could someone please post a tutorial on either or both because frankly im not too good at either. Thanks alot!

http://vpfree.pinkbike.com:/bb/viewtopic.php?t=86153&sid=b69e9a364b31058fb584fb2ba9297cb9 That is for drops. i think there is one on Pinkmonkey about manuals too.

Drops don't need a tutorial. They need guts. There are really two methods for doing the drop. Wheelie drop is doing a wheelie near the lip and landing the drop or pulling a manual at the end of the drop. Easiest way to learn to get the guts is to go fast and just lean back. That will get you used to the height, then slowly slow down your speed and practice slow manual drops. At really slow speeds you come to the lip and you are actually lifting the front and throwing the bike over the front (look at superT or Wade simmons for how useful slow drops are)

As for the landing, you have flat and tranny. Tranny you wanna match the wheels up. The way to get good at this is actually going to a bmx track and learning to jump. When you learn to jump on a good dj track you learn how to match your wheels to the tranny. When you understand how to maneuver the bike to do this, drops to tranny are like butta...

Drops to flat you want to land a little rear heavy. No way to explain to do this but practice.

Drops don't take skill...ever. You practice and its easy. Its the nuts that matter. The real key if confidence (know you can hit it), comittment (when you are doing it, finish it, don't second guess yourself) and control (don't let the bike control you, you have to control the bike)

Manuals, whats there to explain. Lift the front, find the balance point and move your body back and forth and side to side to keep the front up. Practice practice practice. The only real key is, smaller bikes make this easier to learn, and doing this on duallies is doubly difficult because the suspension adds and off aspect to body movement. Also learning a manual up hill is a little easier I find.

I am just learning to manual...I pedal and do a wheelie and then just stop pedalling..and balance frome there...even then I only get a few feet out of it, but Im learning, Im no where near just yankin the front end up and gettin a manual, thatll be a while :D

i have a norco tactik with the smaller 24 inch wheel in the back... does this make it easier or harder to manual?..or does it matter?.

It would likely be easier. :)


Snake, thats a coaster wheelie. Manual kinda means you have to be standing.

Cool, maelstrom, are you ever active round here, i dont think i have ever had a thread you avent posted in. Mind you, i dont think i have ever even read a thread that you havent commented i. Thanks for all the input

manual/coaster.........meh.....i was still stoked when I did it, and to the ladies on campus its a manual ;)

I don't post in anything xc related. Clipless, light parts etc. I don't know diddly about that side of things.

i guess what i meant was in mountainbiking. still quite a commitment

I think it's easier to learn manuals/coaster wheelies going down hills.

the reason is, you can drag your brakes ALOT and gravity keeps you rolling downhill.

actually, I have no idea if it's easier or not but it's a good way to practice finding the balance point. because of the gravity assist....

It's definitely easier to manual going downhill, fast. So there's a 'balls' factor involved with manualing also.


More importantly, risk of ridicule is higher with the manual. If you crash off a drop and get hurt, meh. But looping out a manual onto your back in front of a bunch of babes can cause you emotional trauma as well. :D

I can't manual downhill...really I can't manual for long enough to call it a manual. I manual just long enough to drop off the end of crap haha

haha me too, Like in urban assault and junk I can just huck the front up for a sec. and land rear wheel first...........sometimes I dont have the umph and I land retardedly front wheel first with my rear wheel still in the air/ or on the obstacle......heh heh

hahaha yeah im still on the learning curve, sometimes i dont pull up enough on a drop and land way too far forward and go right over my handle bar. Then i get up and make sure no one saw... thn i look around again to make sure no one saw me looking to see if anyone saw!!! its funy how that works

Maunaling will take a lot of pracitine to get it right. I have started to really practice for about 2 or three months and I still dont have it. I can find my balance point but then Ifall to the side. What you need to do is just kean back, get your arse over the rear wheel and when you think you are about to fall over backwards you have found your balance point.

With dropping to make it smoother hit it with as much speed as possible without over shooting the landing.

try pulling up really hard on a steep downhill. use your brakes to keep from looping out. you don't have to be going fast.

Hey LeviPounds, I just realized your in Barrie. Have you ever been to Hardwood hills? Anyways, just keep practicing, I have noticed that I have better balance towards riding the manual after practicing for hours. Knowing some trials balancing seems to help too.

I guess I'm confused.
Whats the difference between a manual and coaster wheelie?

I guess I'm confused.
Whats the difference between a manual and coaster wheelie?

nothing really.

the term 'manual' comes from skateboarding. coaster wheelie comes from bmx (unless it was called that from motorcycles before then?).

to me they are the same thing, coasting on your rear wheel...
some say you sit for one and stand for the other but I wouldn't.

right on, thanks.

Real men ride nose down!!

Sorry couldn't help myself. Mountainbike Mike said it in a movie one time. :-D

Real men ride nose down!!

Meaning stoppies/nose manuals?

haha, not quite. What he was talking about it the movie was that everyone was airing out and these guys thought it was a fad that would blow over in a year or two. So their motto was "nose down" whenever they would come up to the ledge or whatnot.

For the record, I could never learn to roll on the back wheel, (standing or seated, call it what you like) until I got a rear disc brake. The reason being that my rear rim was always so beat up. I could never feather the rim brakes to keep the bike up when it was behind the balance point without these big surges of braking from rim dings that would snap the front end back down.

Discs allow smooth braking on bent rims. I know there are some BMX types who manual without ever using the back brakes, but that's beyond the scope of any riding I will ever do.