I have been riding mountain bikes since 2005 and find that most people often question me when I start talking about hucking my bike.
Hucking is a term that is used across multiple sports but means the same thing. Hucking a mountain bike means dropping off of large objects on or off of a trail. When done right it leaves the rider with a great feeling, but when done wrong it can be really painful.
When done right, it can lead to an awesome YouTube video that you would love to share. When done wrong, it might be used by a friend as part of a viral video of Hucking fails. This is a skill that I am constantly working to improve. And let’s face it, it’s a fun phrase to say.
Below I will discuss how to build up the courage to successfully huckyour mountain bike while riding the trails with your friends. Once you master hucking your mountain bike, your next trail ride is bound to be much more exhilarating.
How to get over the anxiousness
There are often times on the trail where I have to lean on the breaks and take time to analyze the trail conditions. I have a tendency to be my own worst enemy on the trail as I over analyze the trail and tend to lean towards either the bail route or pick up the bike to traverse the obstacle.
I have found that the best way to build up this confidence is to practice more around the house. I don’t have the biggest lot in the neighborhood but there is enough space for me to practice these skills. Out of our handful of camping and mountain biking weekends, I definitely feel that I was able to get more out of the trips when I spent time before hand to focus on key mountain bike skills.
Start small and build up confidence
I am building a backyard trail for the kids and myself to build our skills in mountain biking. With this set of trails being on my .80 acres obviously they aren’t going to be really long, but the focus is on building key sections that will allow for building on specific skills.
In terms of Hucking, the key is building up from low level height to build up this confidence. This can be done in several ways. One of which is actually building from construction materials or you can build using what mother nature has left for you.
Take a look around your house and see if you see any of the following that might be used to build up your confidence;
- Culverts
- Logs
- Scrap building material
- Retaining wall
- Rocks and Boulders
Use existing features around the home
Jumping off different size culverts in my front yard. Why not right? My lot has two culverts of different heights being from the one that goes under the driveway and one that brings a ton of drainage from the rest of the neighborhood. Because it brings more drainage the piping is twice as tall.
The one off the drive way is 2’ from the top of the ground and the access to the jump is enough to build up any amount of speed that you would need. This gives you plenty of ability to adjust the speed accordingly and allows you to be able to test landing on a variety of slopes due to it being a small ditch in the front yard.
The second one runs perpendicular to the street is four feet from the top of the culvert. The difficulty of this one is that it has a much shorter distance from a straight angle without using a neighbor’s driveway. When attacking it from the road it adds a bit more difficulty as depending on how you angle the attack from the culvert you could land either on the side of the ditch or a flat landing in the center of the ditch.
Building materials around the house.
Some of the first ways I started building up my confidence was by building a kicker out of several left-over materials from other projects around the house. I am what some may call a hoarder in this regard but if something seems usable for future projects around the house.
For example, at our previous house I had bought some precast foundation pillars that had angled sides. This allowed me to place a scrap piece of plywood that I placed against it and instantly had a kicker built that I could place anywhere in the back yard.
This allows me to move it around if the grass takes a beating and needs a break as well as offers the ability of quick cleanup when I need to make the wife happy or make the yard presentable for a get together.
Building from mother nature
When our house was built, as well as some others in our neighborhood, there were several large slabs of rock that had been dug up in our yard. These can be used to add additional dirt underneath to raise it up from the ground to help give you a sharp drop off to practice with vs simply using a ramp.
Another obstacle produced by mother nature for hucking my mountain bike is a mound of dirt that was created when a storm toppled an old tree. This jump has worn down over time but its location on the backyard mountain bike trail had lead itself to a decent amount of speed to get some distance out of the attack.
In this same since of building bigger drop offs, we can use stacks of logs to help build up the height of various drop offs using dirt in between gaps to help smooth out the transition. For me this will be a pretty easy build as I currently have a ton of logs from pine trees that have been removed in my back yard to allow the hardwoods to thrive.
Practice, practice, practice!
One of the keys to building your confidence is to just keep practicing this skill. If you work on building up for a ride but then take several months off without touching your bike you might be back to the same spot you were before. If you have a setup in your back yard, even if it’s only one kicker you can periodically practice the approach to the jump/object as well as the launch point and body positioning for the launch point.
You want your body weight to be slightly over you rear axle with the hope of landing your rear wheel slightly before your front wheel on a flat surface or on a down slope. You want to ensure that you are not too far forward on the bike because you could end up going over the bars which depending on how you land could really suck. In the same regards you don’t want to be too far back because it could cause you to end up flipping the bike right out from under you leaving you to land hard on your rear, back or worse on your head.
Be prepared for some bumps and bruises
One of Jeremy’s favorite sayings is “You are not riding hard or fast enough if you haven’t fallen at least once during a ride.” As will probably happen on the trail, practicing hucking your mountain bike will more than likely also lead so some bumps and bruises. So, ensure to pace yourself while also ensuring you are wearing your helmet and other gear for protection whether it be full on body armor or simply adding knee and elbow guards.
Other helpful skills and techniques
Manuals, bunny hops, Pumping, Wheelies are just a few additional helpful skills and techniques that mountain bikers should be able to do to help them on the trails. These skills are also skills I am trying to conquer as well as Hucking in an effort to get more out of my trail rides.
Manuals are beneficial on downhill portion of the trails where you come upon rocks or roots or full on trees that are on the trail in which you need to lift the front wheel over the obstacle to keep your momentum on the trail and preventing the situation in which you could find yourself going over the bars.
Bunny hopping is the combination of the manual to get the front wheel over the obstacle and but after you clear the obstacle with the front wheel you then elevate your rear wheel to also clear the obstacle in order to prevent a jarring sensation which could lead to a dead stop. Depending on how close your riding partner is it could also lead to collision which could be pretty painful for both parties. To my knowledge the auto braking feature of automobiles has yet to be added to mountain bikes ;).
Pumping is an awesome technique that allows the mountain bike rider to be able to build up momentum on a pump section of a trail without having to pedal the bike. These sections are really nice when placed within a trail especially if they are in between tougher section of trails as it gives your legs and lungs a break. The key is to pump on the downside of the slope after feeling the front wheel dropping and crouching when you get to the crest.
Wheelies are a fun skill as way to show off when waiting for you buddies, but it is also very useful when on an uphill portion of a trail. It is similar to a manual, but you need the pedal power to help you when riding up slope and needing to clear an obstacle. It helps the rider to keep up their momentum going uphill as well as preventing jarring stops caused by changes in elevations in trail due to rocks, roots, erosion etc.
Thanks for reading, now get out there and remember to Keep Calm and Huck On!