Is it Pedal Up or Bunny Hop?

I was back at learning the pedal up again last Sunday. This time, I added an additional pallet, bringing the stack to 4 wooden pallets. The previous Sunday, I was training on 3 wooden pallets.

This time I was pretty single-minded. I did nothing but the pedal up. At first, it was difficult to get on top of 4 pallets, but once I could get up the first time, it was easier after that.

Learning to "pedal up" onto 4 wooden pallets.

After a while, I realised that I could not pedal up and land on just the rear wheel. It felt more like a bunny hop... except that I "pedal up" into the bunny hop, instead of "rolling" into a bunny hop. Did I say that correctly? Hmm...

How the heck do those guys do it? Here is a video of Wong Xu to show exactly what I want to be able to do... LOL.



And here is a video from Trashzen:



While writing this post and watching the videos, I realised that I was going about it all wrong! I should not be learning to pedal up higher, but rather lower, to get the technique correct first. Yes... nail that rear wheel down first!

I think that's what I am going to do this coming weekend :)

Paper Pallets For BikeTrial Training?

Never thought I would be interested in pallets, let alone those that are made of paper, which I thought was pretty damn cool! I saw an advert on this blog that promoted this company called DeFrazer that made compress paper pallets. They have offices in Malaysia and Singapore.

DeFrazer manufactures the Green Pallets, which they described as:

"It is with economically light and high strength quality using recycle paper, glue, and staples (when it is necessary).In addition, the outer layer of GREEN PALLET is made of craft paper and test liner which prevents moisture penetration What is more, we can also include an element that made out GREEN PALLET water proofing. The weight of GREEN PALLET is at approximately 8 to 12 kg which means lighter than wooden (range from 20 to 40 kg), plastic (range from 12 to 45 kg), and metal (more than 50 kg) pallet."

On their web site, they even have a DIY section, where they showed how a Green Pallet can be assembled.

Now if only I can get my hands on a few of these and test them out with my bike. First thoughts are that the Green Pallet will not last. The fact that the bike will pedal scratch and abuse the pallet with constant hammering and knocking, will probably turn the pallet into paper pulps in a couple of weeks... LOL.

As of now, more than half of the wooden pallets I have, had been repaired numerous times. Some of them have been infected with fungus, slowly eating the wood inside out. With the constant rain, the deterioration just gets worse... :-(

I guess it's time to call up my friends in Kepong to reserve some really nice wooden pallets for me... LOL.

A Sunday Afternoon Learning the Elusive Pedal Up

Last Sunday afternoon was a beautiful day. To me, a beautiful day is clear blue sky with partial cloud cover... LOL, but not the thunder storm-type of clouds. Just enough to provide more than an occasional shade from the Sun. In other words, it is a perfect day for BikeTrials!

I had not been training the pedal up for a long while now. My plan for that day was to get back to it. Up to now, the consistency in the pedal up is still elusive. The last time I trained the pedal up was back in September 2009.

And so that Sunday, I dedicated my time to the Pedal Up. This time, I up the ante a bit. I added another wooden pallet to make it 3 pallets high. But the wooden pallets kept shifting due to the enormous amount of pressure each time the rear wheel landed. So instead of just 3 pallets, I stacked up 8 pallets, 5 pallets at the back to support and prevent the pallets from moving. Check out the following video.


Relentless!

During the training, I discovered that there were two main things that affected my pedal up; the position of the hand brakes and the position of the handle bar. I will explain the details in a another blog post, but they sure affected my performance.


A Sunday afternoon of fun with BikeTrials.

It was a fun and satisfying afternoon. Looking forward to this coming weekend... LOL.

Related Post:

• The Elusive Pedal Up
• BikeTrials at Putrajaya Bike Park