Originally Posted by Expatriate
I saw one guy at our national qualifier that jumped all the double and triples, but barely comes off the ground. Instead of going for air, he maintains low forward momentum. Freakishly fast too.
Wouldn't it be high forward momentum? The idea of manualing instead of boosting rhythm sections is to keep your body moving forward while the bike moves underneath you. When you change direction and start heading skyward, even if your *speed* (scalar) doesn't change or increases slightly your forward velocity (vector) is reduced and you actually *lose* time.
Here's the caveat: by sucking the bike up just barely enough to clear the section you keep your body moving forward, but you have to be going extremely fast or you're gonna stack against the wrong side of your landing (or you need a high, velocity and forward momentum killing arc). It's scary, you have to commit 100% or depending on the section you're going to eat it hard. Never tried it on a bike, but the concept is identical to boardercross, something I *have* had some experience with. The way we practiced 'em was to start by skimming the rollers and tabletops first as fast and as *low* as possible without completely overshooting the landing or knuckling out on top. Then it was just a matter of taking the same skill to clearing doubles and buzzing over triples.