The past few days or so I've been focusing most of my riding on slow, balancy wheelies up slopes. Trying to just hold the wheel in the air against the hill, as suggested by Neil to progress my back wheel hops. It's been amazingly educational. Already my clutch control around the slip point and my balance on the back wheel has improved considerably, along with better awareness of where I'm positioned over the bike. I've only had a couple of brief plays with actually moving it into a hop, but there is definitely the feel that I've now got far more time to coordinate things. Completely weird is that today I could hop the entire bike (front & back wheels together) and move it sideways to keep balance for the first time ever. I've no clue if one relates to the other or if it's purely coincidental. For some reason the camera stopped filming after the first lap so this is not my best effort, but it gives the idea. Later I managed a couple where I could pause at a complete stop with wheel in the air, then move forward again. What a great exercise! Dead keen to spend a lot more time doing this.

Posted by Peter Mack at 2021-11-26 06:38:35 UTC