What are some tips on how to absorb hard landings? There is a single at archers lodge that lands you hard on flat ground. My bike bottoms hard, and it hurts! I try to land front wheel 6 inches above the rear, and keep on the gas.
it might be better to land with the front slightly below the rear. just before impact with earth, crack the throttle hard, as this causes the rear end to stiffen up. in fact, it is a good idea to crack the throttle on all landings, because this way you will be accellerating as soon as possible. it is also easier on the bike, and yourself.
if you work on your jumping it'll make the landing a lot easier. try practicing to keep the bike lower in the air...the easiest way for me to keep the bike low is to lean the bike over going up the face and push down on the handlebars just as you leave the lip. it takes practice but it works
Hey Dell, I am with you on this subject, flat landings SUCK!
I have tried several different ways to land from singles etc. but regardlesss
of how I land, I always say the same thing to myself, why doesnt this jump
have a down side to land on!
How many feet is this single jump? Believe it or not I can almost bottom my
suspension front and rear on some singles. some as few as 35' it all depends
on the throttle control coming up the face. For a real hard landing try this, as
you are coming up the jump face, instead of way over jumping try preloading the forks by pushing down on them to really get some more air, and then chop the throttle, the bike will fall straight down, and land pretty hard.
One thing I have noticed on single jumps, is the face. Some of them have a real gradual ramp, these tend to shoot you out and give good distance, with
the gas on hard, the landing is not too bad.
Then there are the sharply angled faces, if you hit these w/ any real speed,
they shoot you more up than out, these are the ones that give you that
real HARD landing! you know the ones that cause you to land so hard that your
bike wants to jump up and typically at an angle! These are really fun!
As far as suspension revalving and so on, I have had my forks done by
MX Tech, and it still doesnt feel good.
I typically try to land on the down side of all jumps, but ocassionally you come
up short, and land flat,. especially on long table tops 60' or more. when I know that I am going to land short of the down side, I crank the throttle and then I move my body weight over the back of the seat, and then I try to land
on the rear wheel w, the front wheel a few inches higher. This seems to take
some of the harshness out of it, but it still does NOT feel good.
Every time I go to the track, I will try several different approaches to all of
the different jumps, and I am always lookiing for the same thing, to try to
land smoother and more in control.
Hope this helps you.
I would work on getting lower in the air, the way I look at it is the less you go up the less you fall, try coming into the jump standing up and absorb it so that by the time your leaving the lip of the jump you almost sitting, another technique would be to brake just before the jump, you will get less air time, but your only accelerating when your on the ground anyway....
Its about 35 feet from the face of the jump to where I land. It has a small kicker that wants to kick you off the bike. The bike dosent get away from me after landing, and the rebound isnt that bad, but the suspension bottoms and its a really annoying feeling to smash down like that. I absorb as much as I can with my body, but it is still a very hard landing. I do try and absorb as much of the face as I can with my body, but the more you absorb the more the bike has a tendancy to try and kick you over tyhe bars. I guess all i can do is run more compression damping... the spring rate is correct for my weight.
The jump face is about 5 feet high with a big lip, and I hit it 4th gear in the powerband. Its alot of fun, but that landing left me with a sore back!
there's a single at one of the tracks i ride at that launches you pretty far...ive gone 80ft before and seen guys on 250's go 100+ft. the landing isnt to bad though so the lip must not be as steep as the one youre having trouble with. if i can find a pic of it i'll post it in the photo album
Man, I wish I had some skills....
YoT, I watch this A rider often and he does a similar move for saving air time. He actually whips the bike, but he is utilizing technique rather than showin off. His landings are great to watch because he tries to stay flat until just...and I mean just past every lip. I've counted, and he is in the air close to a second less than others on the same triple.
I know this is off-topic, but I'm assuming that you are talking about a similar tech. yes, yot?
yeah jaybird thats exactly what i'm talking about except what i do is more laying the bike over than whipping it...ive never seen myself do it, but i'm sure the bike does whip out to an extent. depending on the angle of the lip you can stay very low off certain jumps and it does shave a lot of time if you do it consistantly
My technique is to be on the gas whenever I land. Right before I'm gonna hit the ground i jsut get on the throttle. It works for me, and makes the landing a lot smoother!
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