no one rides that kind of gear on the streets. Track racers have that kind of gear because they're riding on the track, where that kind of gearing makes sense.

Thats not going to help you stop.
Your gear ratio is fine. The best advice is to just keep practicing. You'll eventually get it. You have to unweight the rear wheel....not by much, and just for a split second to initiate the skid. If you are able to lift your rear wheel off the ground while riding (sort of like bunnyhopping the rear wheel a tiny bit), then you can easily learn to skidstop. Putting your balls to the stem is not the way to do it if your intension is to stop.

+1 for above, you can lean a lot further forward than you think

I learned to skid using 48/16, go out when the roads are wet, or get the hosepipe out :P, I found the wet tarmac helps you to learn what to do better

what do you mean by unweight the rear wwheel?

He means put your weight to the front to take the weight off the back wheel.

With a 70+ gear ratio, you aren't strong enough to lock the rear wheel with all your body weight on it. You have to temporarily remove weight from it, either by leaning forward, or some other type of body finesse to initiate the skid. A good cyclist should be able to temporarily hop the rear wheel from the ground, even without leaning forward much....sort of like a tiny bunnyhop of the rear wheel only. Once you can do that in a seated or near-seated position, you do basically the same thing to initiate a skid, but you don't actually have to pull the wheel completely off the ground.
Once the skid is initiated, the friction coefficient decreases, so it is easier to maintain the skid once your weight falls back onto the rear wheel.

In a skip stop you do this repeatedly in cycles....unweight-shortskid-unweight-skid-unweight-skid-----etc.
Its very easy learn to do this seated, or standing with ass above the saddle, but it takes a lot of strength, practice (and a lower gear) to really hold a seated skid.
If you just want to skid continuously, then just shift your weight as forward as possible (nuts-to-stem) to keep weight off the rear wheel. But thats not going to help you stop.

Edit: this all comes to me as second nature, and I don't think much about how its done. But I think I use the upward momentum of the crank during the backstroke by pressing against it (sort of like a spring) to help temporarily unweight the rear wheel without even having to leave the saddle. I'll think about this a bit as go out for a ride later today.

Too late. You posted on an internet forum asking about "skid stops".

Hurrrrrr

@mihlbach if you dont mind asking , its harder to skid on 70+ do you think a 18t cog will go good with my 48 chainring? to make it easier to skid in? and i'll try to put all my weight on the front today . Also how do you bunny hop on rear wheels i would love to know if its easier for me to skid with the ratio i have now

if you keep the 48 chain ring the 18 cog gives you only a few skid patches, go for the 19 cog (19 skid patches).

Man I wish people could use the search function, doing little seated skids (baby skids) are different that balls to stem skids, baby skids slow you down/ balls to stem skids look cool

ok i'll switch my cog out next week i'm gonna try to do this with my current raitio hopefully my skids will work D:

like i try to skid but the rear keeps pushing me to pedal

If you haven't really developed the skills, changing your gear ratio isn't going to change anything. Keep riding....you'll get it eventually even if you don't focus on it. It just comes with the territory.

Yeah, you'll be suprised how much riding helps this kind of stuff (skids, track stands, etc.) even if you don't practice all of the time riding alone will help you with it. Besides, skid stops are far overrated, they eat away your tires and all for the sake of looking cool, and trust me if you aren't even able to do it then it doesn't look cool. Just get a front brake and learn to use it. I'll admit skidding is sometimes fun but I rarely do it because I don't want to go through the trouble of buy and changing a rear tire all of the time.

I skid when its wet or through leaves, its fun and less damage to your tire.
I ride with a brake, cause no matter how good I get at skid stops my caliper will always stop me faster

Yes, I do this sometimes for fun, I actually live behind a car wash and the pavement is really smooth and every now and then I'll go back and ride around the back part where the pavement is wet. But yeah, I have a front brake and use it pretty much everytime I stop.

Oh I dunno. I have pretty much skid-stop to halt and go straight to track-stand anytime I want (my new trick!). I use a little bit of skip so I can keep balance at super low speed. I am no good, but I can come to dead-stop as fast as any braked bikes. ... You just need more practice.

And, what's wrong with trying to look cool? It's a good portion of fun in anything. Besides, tires will last few months and it isn't much of trouble to replace tires. ... I am donning a white tire next time around to look even more cooler. My rear wheel is white you see? :innocent:

I didn't say you couldn't stop efficiently without a brake, but you can stop more efficiently with one, rendering the need to skid stop useless, except for fun and coolness factor.

Dammit... my bull**** meter just exploded again.

If you've taken calculus, surely you've taken physics... ;)

Physics...

Braking 101

oh, fffff
http://a.deviantart.net/avatars/e/x/...ingheadplz.gif

Someone needs to do a video of a brakeless hipster doing a skid stop alongside a normal sane human being using just a front brake, and see who stops in the shortest distance. Then, maybe we can stop hearing all this nonsense being repeated over and over and over and.............

On flat ground I never really need to use a brake or skid..

Sounds like someones never used properly adjusted brakes. its not even comparable I don't care how many people say they can stop just as fast as someone with brakes (even just a front) its not true, you can stop your bike so fast you can actually send yourself flying over the handlebars if you are so inclined, until someone can do that on a fixie nothing will change my mind