- This is another episode of "Crash Course",
coming at you from a wet and windy,
miserable forest in the UK.
This is Rogate Bike Park.
I'm going to check out your crash videos,
and try and let you know where I think you've gone wrong.
(thudding)
This first one comes from Nejc,
who's in Slovenia at the pump track,
and check this out, this is quite nasty crash onto tarmac.
(speaks in foreign language)
So what you've done is overshot the jump.
As you can see, you land completely sideways,
but whipped out the wrong way.
So you want to sort of hip into the bank obviously,
and you've hipped the other way,
which sort of exaggerates the overshoot,
landed sideways, kablooie, big crash.
So the idea with hipping, we've got a nice little one here,
is sort of making a jump into a turn.
So actually this take-off is really nicely banked,
so it's super easy to lean in.
The big thing, sort of like the corner as well,
is to look at where you're going to land
'cause that sort of influences
how much you're going to turn into the hip.
Next one from Jamie who's riding
his Giant Reign in the Queen Elizabeth Country Park,
which is just down the road from here actually.
Me and a few mates decided a long jump competition
on a gravel jump was a good idea.
A stick on the jump marked the point
we had to get past so it counts.
You made it.
Got away with only a graze,
so this is a big old crash actually.
Super slow-mo looking amazing, proper big launch,
and this is a bit like the first one.
You landed a bit sideways into the bank,
and then you explode basically.
So you can see your weight starting to go right
if you go back to the slow-mo, as you take off,
the weight starts going off
to the right hand side of the bike,
then when you land that pedal completely drops
'cause you know, your weight is just off the side the bike.
So I know you're there to have fun and launch,
and it looked really good,
just try and make sure you are landing straight.
So that all comes in the take-off,
making sure you're really, weight is over the bike
when you hit the take-off,
and you get away with a big flat landing
as long as you're pretty central to the bike.
Next one is from Ben on his Norco Fluid in Pitch Hill,
which is also not so far from this place.
He says he was out with his dad,
and he stops to take vids of me trying to do this.
Check this one out.
So you're absolutely bombing into this skinny.
I would say slow is down a bit.
This is a corner coming onto it,
so make sure you're sorted for that corner first,
and then come nice and slowly on
'cause what happens is your back wheel comes off,
and then that drags you off and spins you around.
Obviously when riding a round log like this,
there's only sort of that much of it is rideable
'cause especially in conditions like this,
it's super wet and there's mud coming on,
you can have very little grip,
so you just got to stay in the middle.
So yeah, slow, get the corner nailed,
and I'm sure you'll nail it.
I mean, you look like you're a good rider.
I'm going to try this one out.
I'm not sure I can nail it.
Nail it first time!
That's so easy.
Woo!
Oh!
Ben, I've just found the skinny that you fell off on,
and I've just fallen off on it as well.
And now I know why.
Because there's like this bit of an off camber ledge there,
and I just hit that and fell off
and that's where your back wheel
just doesn't come up onto this bit
and goes (blows) down you go.
So it's easily done, the thing to do here
is come up a bit wide and try
and ride on over this lump here,
but don't hit that edge either.
I'll have another go.
Here goes nothing.
Second time lucky.
Oh, slippy!
This is Hayden riding a Marin in Wellington, New Zealand.
Description says out exploring new trails
and having fun learning new techniques, and then bam.
Yeah, you had a slide a long way down here,
so it's obviously steeper than it looks.
I know cameras never make it look steep so.
Definitely too much front brake in this situation,
so obviously as soon as you start going
you stay on the front brake and boom,
over you go and start sliding down.
So when it is steep, it's trying to rely on
getting to the back of the bike,
which really means your rear tires doing the stopping.
So think about dropping your hips down to the back tire,
keeping your head off as well.
So soon as you start dropping your head,
actually brings the weight forward a bit.
So head up, heels down to bring it to the back of the bike,
so you're really relying on that rear tire
to dig in and stop you.
So also, it's important to have a really grippy back tire.
(brake squealing)
Last but not least, this is Luis,
who is riding in Brisbane Australia.
Check this out, this is a perfect example
of pulling the bike into the air,
like I always go on about in jumping
and bunny hop videos.
You can see how your wheels,
if you can imagine the two axle points coming up like that,
straight up into the air, and drawing like a square,
you just go up and along.
It's the rear tire, rear wheel,
doesn't get anywhere near the edge of the take-off
before it's lifted into the air,
and that's where I always talk about
doing a nice bunny hop with your weight
so your front wheel goes and then the back wheel goes after.
So all about drawing a nice shape through the air.
That's what you need for a jump.
That's why I always talk about bunny hops and jumps
kind of being the same thing.
So you're popping the front wheel, then the back wheel,
and then you get a much bigger jump as well.
What can be quite difficult about fixing this,
is it can be a bit frustrating.
I would say it's really good to get rid of the clips,
go back onto flat pedals,
and then try and learn the proper bunny hop.
And that's probably going to mean you're going to go backwards
a little bit in skills to begin with,
'cause you'll feel like you can't hop
or you'll be jumping off your pedals or lifting off.
So you've got to take it really step-by-step.
Learn the bunny hop on flats, then go back to clips
and you'll find that it really transforms
the way you ride a bike 'cause you'll be unweighting
the bike completely differently,
and it's really going to make you
get better at riding technical stuff and jumping.
Right, there you go.
Hopefully I've helped some of you guys
stop crashing quite as much.
Keep sending your fails and bails in.
Use the uploader down below,
and for a previous edition of this video,
then up there for that one.
For more fixes, down there,
for an in-depth video for how to bunny hop
if you're struggling with that one.
Give us thumbs up if you enjoyed this video.
Thanks very much.