I have made some progress with front wheel hopping, and I think the roll-back challenge was the catalyst. No video proof as I think it probably still looks embarrassing. But I’ve got 10 or 12 fairly good consecutive bounces which I’ve never done before. The key things: 1) A few people have said the secret to hops was to “snap the knees back”. So previously I was putting all my energy into the snap back, and I couldn’t get it. But now I am focussing on the push forward/down of the knees towards the front hub and feeling for the compression to stop firm, and pushing back against it, as per the roll back. I find it much easier focussing on the push down with the knees, and the snap back seems to happen without me focussing on it. And it slows things down because you're concentrating on pushing the next stroke to the bottom the same way. 2) Really holding hard onto the rear brake (as well as front brake). I was always rolling back a bit when trying to hop and I realized I was letting it go a bit. 3) Trying to grip the bars loosely. It helps me to make sure the legs are doing the work rather than trying to push up and down with the arms. 4) Correcting the balance a bit by pulling up on the hand that the bike is falling towards. I’m a total beginner with this but I can feel it working a bit. I tend to hop the front more to the left than the right (just a couple of cm each hop) without much control but that doesn’t worry me – at this stage I’m just concerned with getting the action right!

Posted by Andrew von Berky at 2021-09-26 02:50:23 UTC