SIF hopping:Tucking?? help? [Archive]

TrialsUni

2008-02-23, 01:49 PM

you should be able to find a lot of information when you use the search feature.

but, i'll help you out with an older post of mine:

One of the biggest things, that someone already said, but I'll reinforce is confidence. Tell yourself that you can do it, convince your mind that what ever you're hopping on is not as big as your mind wants you to think because of a lack of confidence.

A hop is basically you pulling your knees up to your chest. This is what's called tuck. What helps you be able to tuck the uni underneath you is your sense of timing. As Zack Baldwin used to say, it's all about TUCK and TIMING. The quicker you force compression (the push off from the ground you make before you go into the air), and then suck the uni up under you, the higher you'll go more than likely.

The more you practice, the better your sense of timing gets.

When you start hopping onto bigger stuff, get that extra boost with a pre-hop.

NOTE: this is all for SIF hopping. I'm not sure how you hop.

For seat-in-front practice, just ride around with the seat out in front of you.

Try not to let the seat push against your legs, but just brush up against your legs. Relax your arm that's holding onto your seat. Put only as much pressure as you need to hold onto it. Use your other arm, that's not holding the seat, for balance.

As you get better, trying riding seat-in-front up hills, down hills, backwards, turning both directions. You can also try to ride forward, and see how far you can hold the seat out in front of you. The more you practice, and comfortable you get with seat-out riding, you'll be able to hold the seat really far out in front of you while riding.

I'm so comfortable riding seat-out, that it sometimes feels weird riding seat-in. As a matter of fact, I rarely do anything trials seat-in, anymore.

I suggest you get comfortable sif riding, before you start sif hopping, which is called jumping. But, practice hopping seat in, in the meantime, since it involves similar techniques and principles.

AND, here's a whole thread about tucking SIF: http://www.unicyclist.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53019&highlight=high+hops

I hope this helps. And it's never too early to learn how to use the search feature.

evan