Blind jumps

When you’re riding a jump with a blind take-off, where you can’t see the landing before you’re on the lip, you need to look for it as soon as you can (having made sure to check the jump out on foot first). On the jump pictured here, the landing isn’t actually visible until after you’ve taken off. That means you need to be looking down quite a lot, trying to spot the point where you want to touch down.

NOSE IN

As you start to come down, shift your weight forwards to dip the nose of the bike into the landing. Keep your eyes focused on the landing until you’re confident of where you’re going.

TOUCHDOWN

As you come in to land, bend your legs and arms to soften the impact. Allow your hips to move down and back – you don’t want to be leaning forward when you’re trying to slow down after landing, or you’ll have no grip or stability. Once your wheels are on the ground, drop your heels, especially if it’s a rough landing.

SPOT THE LANDING

Once you’ve spotted the landing, allow your eyes to come up and look forward for the exit. Get your body ready for the landing, by flexing your arms and legs slightly, and keeping your hips in a neutral, central position on the bike. You need to be in a good, strong stance.

PUSH THEN POP

On the way up the take-off, push down into the bike to compress the suspension, and bend your arms and legs. Then, as you hit the lip, extend your arms and legs out straight to get maximum pop and pull your bike from the ground.

APPROACH

Set your approach speed so you know that when you pop you’ll comfortably clear the gap. As you get close to the lip, lower your body weight, supporting it through your feet, and focus on balance – just like you would if you were going to jump as high as you could.

POP

As you go up the lip, push through your feet and drive your hips up vertically. As the front wheel leaves the lip you still need to apply pressure so you can use the full height of the lip. To do this you need to pull up on the bar to keep the front wheel up.

GAPS & DOUBLES

Gap jumps and doubles found on black trails and in freeride parks can be daunting, and many riders resort to just using speed to clear them. Though this works sometimes, it’s a pretty dangerous approach and means you always have to ride flat-out to clear jumps. There are effectively three ways to clear a jump – squashing it, jumping off it and popping off it. Which one to use depends on the size of the jump and your speed. Popping is effectively jumping off the very last part of the lip to gain height, and is the method we’d recommend mastering before trying to clear doubles. Once you know you can pop, you’ll have the confidence and experience to start sending gap jumps.

LEVEL UP

Keep your head up and look for the landing. Allow your knees to bend and relax your arms so the bike can come up underneath you and level out. Staying relaxed after you pop will help keep you balanced.

LAND

Aim to land both wheels at the same time. This may mean you have to push the front end down a little bit. Think about landing on your feet and keeping your hands light.

ABSORB

Try to absorb the impact of landing with your legs and aim to return to your neutral position over the bike as quickly as possible.

STAY LOOSE TO STYLE IT

As you leave the lip, your bike will try to push up underneath you (it’s lighter so it wants to go higher). If you relax and allow it to come up with a little bit of lateral (side to side) guidance, it should look pretty stylish. Yanking the bike up off the lip to add some style will ruin your pop and look pretty awkward. Loosen up!