Pick up any freeride DVD out there, and you’ll see the biggest and most technical tricks being executed with a level of fluidity that borders on perfection. The stuff at the absolute limits of a pretty talented freerider looks like absolute child’s play when executed by the world’s best.
It’s pretty tempting to hop on your bike after the end credits, head to the dirt jumps, and throw down something that you just witnessed for the fist time. Later that day, while you’re downing painkillers like it’s your job, you may wonder how the pros go out and stick tricks so easily. The truth is that they practice like mad, bringing each trick through a progression of low- to high-commitment settings until they finally bring it to dirt. If you want to learn something new and stay in one piece, take the trick through the paces. Here’s how:
Foam Pit:
This is the most obvious place to start. Nothing gives you confidence to take it way beyond the limit like hucking into a giant expanse of fluffy foam blocks. If you can find a foam pit in your area, it’s well worth whatever it costs to use it. If you have to build one, they ain’t cheap. First of all, you have to build a pit big enough to jump into. Then you have to fill it with foam. Blocks designed for a foam pit are about a buck each, and you should expect to buy several thousand of them, even for a small pit. Pillows and couch cushions work (though not as well), but it’s hard to find enough. Either way, wear a helmet to protect your noggin and knee/shin guards to keep your legs from getting sliced up on pedals and other bike parts. Foam pits aren’t without their risks. If you miss the pit, you’re done for. And if you have to ditch your bike in mid-air, make sure you don’t toss it into your landing zone and end up falling on a tangled mess of pedals, bars, and spokes instead of the soft stuff.
Water Ramp:
This is the poor-man’s foam pit. All you need is a body of water. Since the world is about 70% water, this shouldn’t be too hard to come by. Put a ramp at the edge, and you’re good to go. All foam pit safety rules apply, but there are a few key items for water jumping. First off, you need a bike that you don’t mind sacrificing. By the end of a sesh, the whole frame will be full of water, and it’ll drip from your bottom bracket for days. Get some friends together, pool some old parts, and build yourselves a lake-jumper. Now you need a way to get the bike back after you huck it into the lake. My suggestion, wrap a dog life jacket around the front triangle. It works great.
Trampoline:
It’s amazing how far your tricks can progress with nothing more than a trampoline. Like the water ramp, using a trampoline requires a specially built bike. Luckily, it’s pretty cheap. You just need a hard-tail frame with a fork and bars. Nothing else. Wrap every edge in padding and duct tape to keep from puncturing the tramp or yourself. Straddle the bike as you bounce, and throw your trick when you’re in the air. Just make sure you stay in the middle and don’t end up going off the end when you try a flip-whip for the first time.
Mulch Landing:
Once your trick comes along far enough that you’re landing rubber down most of the time, it’s time to take it to the next step. Build a normal jump, but make the landing with a big mulch pile that’s sloped on the back to mimic a dirt landing. You can also get away with turned up, soft dirt instead of mulch, but you have to basically plow the landing every few goes. The point is that you can land it and ride away like a regular landing, but if you screw it up you have something relatively soft to land on.
Step-Up:
The beauty of a step-up is that you can have a pretty big jump with lots of air time to get a trick dialed, but you’re not falling from 20-feet up in the air if you blow it. Even better, put a mulch or soft-dirt landing at the top of a big step-up and you can get pretty aggro with little risk of really hurting yourself.
Dirt:
All right. Time for the big show. You’ve done your homework and taken your new trick through the paces. Now it’s time to put all that hard work to the test and bring that thing to dirt. Good luck.
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Tags: biking, freeriding