Originally Posted by crashing_sux
What I do remember from my bmx days though is that if you start to get 180's, land with your rear tire down and your rear brake on or in a low enough gear that you can keep the pedals from turning backwards and you can continue the spin on your rear wheel through a full 360. Feels pretty good when you get it.
Oooooh yeah! Classic old school Bob Haro/R.L. Osborne freestyling (I'm giving away age
). That would require a true bunny-hop where you must pop your front wheel up first, then push your bars to get a nice parabola arc, and tuck your knees up to get your rear wheel to follow. Almost like a skateboard "ollie".
I find that hard to do on an MTB with the higher center of gravity, and squatter bars over a BMX. Then again I've practiced, but I haven't yet practice, practice, practiced...
Another tip that a friend of mine -- who can do a lot of the trials type tricks (backwheel hops, one handed wheelies, etc.) -- told me about (which I've never tried) was lowering the air pressure in your tires for some types of tricks. I suppose it's like lowering your air pressure for wet slippery trails for traction since it will give you more surface area. When he was doing back wheel hops, his tire almost looked flat.