BikeTrial Tutorial 5 - Rear Wheel Hop

The rear wheel hop was the technique that intrigued me the most when I first started learning BikeTrial. I never thought that such a move was even possible to do on a bicycle. And it was something that I had wanted to learn really badly during that time almost 8 years ago.

I was first introduced to BikeTrial while on a company trip to Krabi, Thailand, when a MTB friend showed me a video on his Windows mobile phone (yeah, before the Android and iPhone's time), Ryan Leech hopping on and over a hand railing on his Norco 26 inch bike. I was amazed and became a big fan of Ryan Leech's Mastering the Arts of Trials which I watched diligently on YouTube. The rest is history.

In this tutorial, I will share what I think is the fastest and quickest way to learn the rear wheel hop in a methodical way.

What you need to know

Before you can start to learn the rear wheel hop, you will need to have mastered track stand, pivoting and hopping. Without these 3 prerequisite skills, it will be a very painful learning process... LOL.

The Beginning

1. Practice balancing your front wheel resting on an object.

Position your bike with the front wheel resting on an object about 6 to 7 inches off the ground. Then start hopping on the spot to maintain balance and keep the front wheel on top of the object. Engage your brakes fully all the time when you are hopping. Also, lower your tire pressure. This will make hopping easier. See the animated photo below.

Rest the front wheel on the object. Next, align the wheels in a straight line. Similar to a track stand, with your favorite foot on the fore pedal, raise your left foot to the pedal and start hopping to maintain your balance.

Another way is to start off with a track stand, then quarter pedal down down to put the front wheel on the object. Next, start hopping and pivoting to maintain balance.

You can also use pivoting and hopping interchangeably to help with balancing the bike's front wheel on the object. Practice until you are very comfortable doing it. This will allow your body to remember and get used to the balancing and create the necessary muscle memories.

2. Practice balancing your front wheel resting on a object that is higher.

In this next step, you can raise the height of the front wheel by practicing on a larger or taller object about a foot or more off the ground. 

Similarly, rest the front wheel on the higher object. Next, align the wheels in a straight line. Similar to a track stand, with your favorite foot on the fore pedal, raise your left foot to the pedal and start hopping to maintain your balance.

The other way is to start off with a track stand, then quarter pedal down to raise the front wheel onto the object. Next, start hopping and pivoting to maintain balance.

This will allow you to get used to the height of your bike from the ground and how it feels to balance in an almost vertical position. Again, practice balancing by varying between pivoting and hopping. Practice until you are really comfortable and can do it at any time on demand.

3. The first rear wheel hop.

Now you are ready for the next step. Remember, do not disengage your brakes when doing this. Keep it on at all times!! Also, keep your tire pressure low to make hopping easier.

While in step 2 position on a higher object as described above, lean your body slightly backward when you are hopping. Lean until your front wheel is off the object and you are hopping on your rear wheel only. Then, rest the front wheel back on the object.

Lean your body backward while you are hopping on the object. This will allow you to only hop on the rear wheel. When you are done, rest the front wheel back on the object. Repeat this as many times as you like to let your body build up your muscle memories.

Keep practicing as you will need to be very comfortable with balancing on your rear wheel by hopping before we move to the next and final step.

Keep repeating the above move. Lean your body back to take the front wheel off the object and pull the handle slightly towards you, then rest the front wheel back on the object. Practice until you are very comfortable to hop on your rear wheel. The next and final step will be a dynamic pedal up to a rear wheel hop.

4. Use pivoting to transition to a rear wheel hop.

This next move will rely on pivoting and the "quarter pedal" to bring the front wheel up and into the rear wheel hop. See the following animated photo.

This is the most common way to transition into the rear wheel hop. Timing the braking and brake release is crucial to this technique.

Keep both your brakes engaged while pivoting. At the moment where you want to raise the front wheel, apply the "quarter pedaling" and release the rear brakes for a fraction of a second at the same time. Next, engage the rear brakes and start hopping on the rear wheel to maintain your balance. If you are very versed in the above step 2 and 3, hopping on the rear wheel will not be a problem.

That's it. That's all you need to know to get started on the rear wheel hop. Practice, practice practice. This is what you will need to do, to master this dynamic skill. It will be needed in many many situations and will be one of the most important BikeTrial skills that you have to master.

In the next tutorial, we will look at the "pedal hop". This is another useful and essential skill that will help you enjoy BikeTrial!

BikeTrial Tutorial 4 - Pedaling

Pedaling, seems like the easiest thing to do. Well, in BikeTrial, there are techniques to pedaling. But for the purpose of this tutorial, we will only discuss one of them.

Our goals in BikeTrial are to navigate and overcome obstacles when riding paths or sections. Sometimes we need to navigate very small and tight spaces. We must always be ready to move forward in an instance at anytime anywhere whenever we need to. We will ride methodically and with precision.

Frequently, for the inexperienced, when moving over and pass obstacles, our pedals will get caught, or be at the wrong position where we are unable to leverage the momentum or apply pressure correctly to cycle forward. This is why we need to know how to pedal the BikeTrial way, that will help us to overcome these challenges.

So how do we achieve this? How can we always be on the ready to instantly boost our movement forward?

In this tutorial, we will learn how to pedal with our feet always at the ready to give us that boosted forward movement instantly and on demand.

Feet and Pedals Position

The placement of the feet on the pedals is very important. Similar to the track stand, you will need to position your "favorite foot" on the fore or forward pedal. See the animated photo below.

Like the track stand, getting your favorite foot positioned correctly is the first step. My favorite foot is my right foot. If you are left footed, switch accordingly.

Pedaling

Typically, when we are cycling our bicycles, we will pedal the pedals at full revolution repeatedly to move forward and gain speed the faster we pedal. For the purpose of this tutorial, we do not want to pedal at full revolution. All we need is a quarter revolution (for the sake of easy reference in this tutorial, "quarter" revolution also means less or more than a quarter depending on your needs).

Pedaling at quarter revolution, more or less than a quarter, depends on your need.

With both pedals aligned parallel horizontally to the ground. The "favourite foot" will lead by pedaling down applying pressure only a quarter way and then releasing pressure to bring the fore pedal back up to it's original position. Repeat the whole process to move forward. Easy as pie.. lol.

By pedaling using this method, you will be surprise at how easy it will be, to navigate tight and small spaces. When not pedaling down, always maintain your pedals aligned parallel horizontally to the ground while coasting or rolling forward.

Quarter pedaling will prevent the pedals from getting caught by low-lying obstacles.

Quarter pedaling used with pivoting and hopping to ride a tight section.

The usefulness of quarter pedaling will become more apparent later when used with other techniques. E.g. pedal hop.

Caveat

Let me put forward a caveat, you do need to pedal full revolutions in BikeTrial as some of the advance techniques will require speed, momentum and agility. E.g. pedal up, pedal gap, bunny hops, etc.

In later tutorials, we will discuss and cover more on pedaling and pedal positioning for these more dynamic moves. If you have any questions, please feel free to post in the comment section below.

BikeTrial Tutorial 3 - Hopping

Hopping has got to be the most important of all the 3 fundamental skills. Whether hopping on 2 wheels or one wheel, hopping will literally let you boldly go where no bike has gone before... lol. Could not resist that being a Trekkie and all. Lol.

Well, it is mostly true. Hopping will let you climb stairs, balance on steep boulders, set up other sophisticated moves, climb tables, chairs, jump gaps, etc.

For now, the hopping skill used with the other fundamental skills like track stand and pivoting will allow you to climb and navigate out of tight spots, which can be very satisfying and motivating.

In this tutorial, we will focus on learning the basic two wheels hop. We will learn 2 variations of the 2 wheels hop. That is, from track stand into hopping on the same spot and hopping while coasting or rolling forward.

You should at least know how to track stand before attempting to learn hopping.

Feet and Pedal Positions

The placement of the feet on the pedals is very important. Similar to the track stand, you will need to position your "favorite foot" on the fore or forward pedal. See the animated photo below.

Like the track stand, getting your favorite foot positioned correctly is the first step. My favorite foot is my right foot. If you are left footed, switch accordingly.

You will need to maintain both pedals aligned parallel horizontally to the ground. Your feet should tilt down on the pedals slightly and push backward maintaining a "grip".

From Track Stand Into Hopping

Next, from a track stand position, straighten the front wheel and compress downward with your body weight (hands firmly gripping the handles, feet "gripping" the pedals, bend your elbow and knees on compression) and "jump up" or "lift up" the whole bike on the decompression.

While on the up, prepare to compress downward again. Repeat the whole process and get into the rhythm. For now, it is not about how high you can hop, it is about getting the feel (muscle memory) and rhythm of hopping. Remember to keep the front wheel in a straight alignment with your rear wheel.

Start off with the track stand, then lead into the hopping.

Learn hopping by using your body weight to compress downward before lifting the bike on decompression.

You will likely struggle with gripping the pedals with your feet while maintaining balance. But you will know when you get it right, as it will feel natural.

Remember to breathe.. lol. Hopping takes some energy, but well worth all the effort.

From Coasting Into Hopping

The other way to learn hopping is while coasting or rolling forward your bike. This technique is commonly used in mountain biking, hopping or bunny hopping over small gaps or obstacles.

For our purpose, coast at a slow speed and keep the front wheel in a straight alignment with your rear wheel. Next, compress downward with your body weight (hands firmly gripping the handles, feet "gripping" the pedals, bend your elbow and knees on compression) and "jump up" or "lift up" the whole bike on the decompression.

Learn hopping while coasting your bike.

While on the up, prepare to compress downward again. Repeat the whole process and get into the rhythm. For now, it is not about how high you can hop, it is about getting the feel (muscle memory) and rhythm of hopping.

Use this coasting method if you have not mastered the track stand and want to get a feel for hopping.

I hope this tutorial on hopping will help anyone trying to learn this skill. Use the compression and decompression (of the tires) to minimize the effort required for hopping.

The next tutorial will show how to learn the rear wheel hop. It took me a long time to learn it. I will illustrate a few methods that will speed up the learning process. Cheers.