jacob429

Maybe my understanding was wrong! I thought for loose terrain you would weight the inside peg, lean the bike in, and lean your body out so that you can achieve the same turn radius with less handlebar turn, thus avoiding pushing the front along the ground and washing out.

Hey mcman, I'm new to trials and got my first bike back in February, so I'm learning myself. I found it easiest to learn the timing with flat ground bunny hops. I crouch into the pegs as I get on the throttle, then jump as I get off the throttle and pop the clutch, allowing the flywheel energy to propel the bike evenly off the ground. If the bike wheelies, it means you didn't get off the throttle soon enough. I'm on and off the throttle before the back tire even leaves the ground. I've seen footage of trials schools where instructors teach this method as well. Someone was asking me to try to get better shots of my hands doing this. This was the most recent video I recorded to try to show my timing. It may help. Spend your next session or two just doing flat ground bunny hops and you'll get the timing down. I'm already bottoming my too-soft suspension so if I want more lift I just give a bigger pop of the clutch at higher revs to dump all that stored energy instantly.

Good info jonny. You've been following this from my first post and you've been very helpful

Yeah I think I'm definitely not counter-leaning my body enough. I was wondering about peg pressure though. On the flat or uphill floaters with no obstacle, I know you need a jab of the inside peg. But for bouncing the wheel off, I've heard someone say to keep even peg pressure which seems odd to me. If you also jab the inside peg when bouncing off the obstacle, do you jab on initial wheelie, or jab after front wheel impact? I don't have any uphills to use to practice on either unfortunately.

Went through some footage from last Friday's practice, working on floaters and roll-ups. Also trying to work on that balance, I'd like to stop on top of the platform and balance. Also bonus clip of a crash while attempting to hold pressure. Then some footage testing my new action cam on a local trail with my dad and uncle.

Hey guys, Here's footage from my past 2 training sessions on Thursday and Saturday, now with more fail! (Funny crashes on the 2nd vid) I had a good long session with the trials on Saturday. For the first half of the session I was doing quite poor, checked the footage and caught myself not committing at all to the technique. Just a reminder how much of it is mental!

Ok, latest video progess.

Wow this poll is surprising. I'm 24 and just got my first trials bike. I'm actually into enduro racing, and a big fan of extreme enduro. Seeing as how enduro has actually made a comeback, I had kind of hoped trials would be up as well, considering how well the skills crossover to the enduro bikes. I will add that trials has been some of the most fun I've ever had. Got my first '08 Beta Rev 3 250 in January.

I got the first RY DVD! I agree, absolutely worth it! I just really like how he explains all the techniques. Really cool that he also has a section where he talks about strategy. I had another practice session yesterday on the truck tires from the very first vids. I'll work on uploading them probably tomorrow. Feeling way more confident and I think it's starting to show in my body positioning, which is also helping with consistency for sure. It's 80% mental I always like to say. Speaking of the mental battle, I wet myself at the thought of doing big splatters, but I definitely want to practice those eventually (except starting small). The tires aren't as high as the platform, but I had a blast. I'm getting more consistent with holding pressure and carrying the wheelie - and to my own surprise, getting on the rear brake when the wheelie is too high instead of looping the bike on top of the tires! This is something I hadn't really anticipated learning when I got started with trials, as in the enduro world this would be rarely be needed. And I always thought it would be so difficult to train my foot to get back over the rear brake after getting on top, with so much other stuff already happening... But a few flat ground wheelies and practicing taking my right foot from any position and getting on the rear brake, then doing it with the little log on the video. But dang is it fun.

Hey Jonny, Nah I'd be surprised if there was another trials bike within an hour drive of me. I live in low country where the nearest rock or hill is about 2 hour drive away, and the nearest trials training center is about 6.5hr drive. I may look at taking one of the 2-day courses they offer when budget allows for it. I'll be checking for connections on the large Facebook group for southeast USA, but that covers a huge range with several states. I figure the next best thing I can do without having someone to train with is film myself. Has its limitations but so far it's helped a lot.

Hey guys, Update on my most recent progress. Beginning of video is just some warmup routine. Getting better lift, bit more consistent, and making it up the platform almost every try. I found that my biggest problem I think was not jumping forward enough on the 2nd blip. Bit more practice and I may try it from the other side without the ramp.

Sorry for spam - it wouldn't let me edit my previous post.. EDIT: Pardon the lack of gloves.. It was kind of intentional to leave them off so I could replay and better see what my clutch hand was doing - which is good because I noticed after replay that a lot of the time I was pulling the clutch in right away after the second blip and not letting the flywheel carry the me the rest of the way up. EDIT: And I must say, the trails bike has been some of the most fun I've had.

Fellas, I'm doing well on my road to recovery from my injury and have awesome news to report. I did the right thing - GOT A TRIALS BIKE!! Had to drive 4.5hrs to North Carolina to pick it up, 08 Beta Rev 3. I also built another obstacle for training and finally got to use it on my 3rd training session on the new-to-me bike. Here are the results:

Thanks for the post Michael! I'll check it out when I get back on the pc. It's going to be minimum 2 months before I can practice the technique again because I popped my MCL on the 2nd day of my riding trip. Huge bummer, and will be the longest period of time off the bike yet. Will have to make the best of it by planning out some additions to the back yard obstacle course, and watching lots of riding vids! Probably going to invest in the Leatt c frame knee braces, too bad it takes a knee injury to pull the trigger. Edit: Checked out the vid. I always watch Ryan Young videos, dude is a beast!

You guys are the best. Next time I have a go, I'll give some of this a try and report back (with more video too!). It'll be at least several days since I am leaving on a riding trip soon. It is quite tricky for me to approach at a very slow speed, but I'll try to slow it down. jonny, that's a great point you made about stalling on top. Us enduro guys tend to try and blast over everything, but if I can achieve the level of control to come closer to stopping on top, then it should be easy to add in the momentum later on!

Solid advice. Thank you

EDIT: New progress video (filmed on Thursday) https://youtu.be/5W1FZOQqGi0 EDIT: Most recent progress video https://youtu.be/t4Y9m8tEYdo Hey guys! So the amount of crossover between trials and enduro seems debatable, but I'm a huge fan of both. Unfortunately, I can't afford a trials bike right now. So recently I have been working on a technique I believe to be called 'double blip'. I wasn't sure the difference between that and jap zap. Pretty much, I would like to get better at blipping to wheelie, punch obstacle with front wheel as I drop the clutch. I'm not too concerned with actually getting any rear wheel lift before contact, but I still need to know what I'm doing wrong in terms of timing, body position, weight/deweight, etc, because my last session had me getting bucked every time, and over the bars once. My objective is to use this to not only tackle larger obstacles, but also to just train clutch control and being able to confidently use small clutch drops in more situations. I have only pulled this off decently once, where I cleared the tires and landed even on the other side after rear wheel impact. It happened so fast I have no idea what I did, but I do know there was a big clutch drop (much more power than in the vid). In the first vid, I'm just warming up with punching through. Only the last 2 attempts are my attempt at a double blip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ib9rSBjqZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PL_gzVaXJEA Thanks y'all!

Greetings! A little about me.. I'm 24 years old, got into dirt riding about 2 years ago. I currently ride a 2000 ktm 300 exc which I recently upgraded from a 95 Honda XR200 which I rode for over a year. I am very much interested in learning trials type techniques and trying to adapt them to the heavy enduro bike. Can't wait to take a trip to a trials school for a couple days where I can practice on a real trials bike. Most of my friends just don't understand my fascination for slow techniques and control, and would rather be throwing roost! Anyway, looking forward to conversing with you guys! Jacob