spectastic

According to people on youtube, you're supposed to
1. lean back, to raise the wheel
2. lean forward to put weight on the front
3. extend your arms to drop the front, and clear the rear wheel

But when I try this, I can never clear the rear wheel. What am I likely doing wrong?

pallen

big john

practice

Homebrew01

Steps 1,2 and 3 sound wrong to me. Sounds more like jumping over a log on a mountain bike where it's one wheel at a time..

My body is stationary, just a quick pull up on the pedals and bars at the same time so both wheel clear the pothole.

clausen

Out of the saddle push up hard with your legs. Right before your legs are fully extended, pull up simultaneously with your arms lifting the front end and legs lifting the rear of the bike. On a road bike your not going for height mostly hang time. Once your good at it pot holes and rail crossing are easy.

island rider

I agree. Those instructions sound like a step by step on how to ride your bike up onto a picnic bench seat.

carpediemracing 

What you're describing is how to bunny hop on a bike without clipless pedals, like a BMX bike. Or a skateboard. Anything where your feet aren't attached to the thing you're on.

If you have clipless pedals or toe clips/straps then you just lift with your feet instead of rocking the back of the bike up.

hyhuu

Sounds like a J-hop instead of a bunny hop. Once the frontwheel has landed, you need to lift your back wheel up with your leg. J-hop is useful to clear tall obstable at slow speed.

spectastic

oh, well my commuter doesn't have clipless. Both my bikes have toestraps/clips right now

Homebrew01

Same thing, practically speaking, assuming the straps are tight.

cthenn

Yeah, but what about clearing curbs? I'm too chickensh** to try that at full speed. Yet I see it all the time in the pro peloton, I wonder if those Euro curbs are lower, they always seem to be hopping over traffic circle medians, I wonder if those are lower. Never seems like they are hopping up that high...

redlude97

go faster....

Phil_gretz

If you don't ride in a peleton, why would you need to hop a curb? Potholes and tracks, yes, curbs, not so much.

Start with a furring strip or yardstick laying in the road. See if you can clear it at speed. Practice. Next, maybe a length of 1/2 round baseboard trim. Practice some more. You should shoot for 2-3 inches of height, that and the wheel angle of attack should clear a euro-curb. Don't try this other than at a perpendicular approach to the curb, though.

This is where current/former MTB-ers have muscle memory that helps.

cvall91

If you skip to 1:06, you can see a perfectly executed bunny hop.

Elduderino2412

i know how to describe a j-hop, but i'm not really sure how i bunny hop. It just happens, and i've done it since i was a kid. Once you figure it out it's really easy. Pedals doesnt matter, i can do them with clipless just as well as plats. It's actually probably easier to learn on plats anyway.

chris675D

Screw bunny hopping! I tried to bunny hop a small water puddle because I'm way too lazy to clean my bike and I ended up almost endo'ing on the friggin bike! The back wheel lifted up at least a foot. Not sure if anyone else mentioned it but clipless pedals help.

gregf83 

I prefer to land on my tires when I bunny hop. Prevents road rash.

sosojeffcc

bingo.

also, to me a J-Hop is just an exaggerated bunny hop. On clipless pedals, no one really ever does a "true" bunny hop as it's so much easier to just lift up with your feet.

Brian Ratliff

Props on the dude for extending the bunny hop so his rear tire didn't land on the person's head. Blotched the landing because he came down hard on his front wheel.

sosojeffcc

damn did the car hit the guy or what happened?

cthenn

DAMN! Exactly, wtf was that car doing, obviously on the wrong side of the road. Then, why are the guys going one way at the beginning, then they are coming back the same way like a minute later? Nucking futs!!!

cthenn

Well this thread is about bunny hopping, so I wondered how many actually could jump curbs, for whatever reason. Just because I don't ride in the pro peloton has no bearing on hopping curbs or not. Sometimes I do have to mount a curb, but I slow way the fark down and hop up the front wheel then sort of ride up the curb with my back wheel while trying to take the weight off. Would be much cleaner if I could do it in one motion

gregf83 

It was a messed up course which would have worked OK but they didn't account for the breakaway group. As the breakaway group was coming back the marshal had to attempt to keep the peloton on one side of the road and one of the back riders in the peloton clipped her.

DinoShepherd

I can bunny hop any tall curb, log or cyclocross barrier on a mountain bike. On a mountain bike.

Curbs on a road bike scare me. Really scare me. I hop the front and then the rear at low speed.

I have, however, hopped a curb on a road bike once. Once. Portland mayors cup city block crit race. Many, many years ago. Second to last turn in the last lap and there is a huge crash in front of me. My options are to hit the crash or go into the curb. I take it to the curb and somehow execute a perfect hop over it at about twenty miles per hour. Back into the race for a top ten finish.

Pure instinct and adrenalin. Never done it before or since.

megalowmatt

I bunny hop for one reason or another on probably every ride. While the description in the OP doesn't seem right, it's hard to explain exactly how I do it. I think for me it's a matter of leaning forward to get more leverage on the bars while pulling up and jumping at the same time.