Jumping

Jumping

Leaving the ground off a take-off and landing smoothly on the far side. Good jumping is less about launching yourself than about letting the lip do the work and staying relaxed in the air.

Also known as: how to jump, jumps, jump technique

Key facts

Skill level
3/5
Risk
4/5
Terrain
tabletops, doubles, jump lines
Bike types
MTB

Approach, lip, air, landing

  1. Approach. Attack position, pedals level, off the brakes, at a speed you have tested.
  2. Lip. Compress into the take-off with legs and arms, then extend as the lip pushes you up — like a pump, not a pull.
  3. Air. Stay centred and loose; let the bike come up to you and look at the landing.
  4. Landing. Match the bike to the slope — both wheels together, or the rear a touch first — and absorb it.

Start on tables

Learn on small tabletops, where coming up short means rolling off the deck, not casing a gap. Build speed one run at a time. Doubles come later, when you can land the same table the same way every time.

Common mistakes

  • Pulling up on the bars at the lip: the front rises and you land on the rear.
  • Braking on the take-off: the bike nose-dives.
  • Stiff body: every mistake gets bigger. Wear a helmet you trust — a full-face for anything big.

Related articles

  • Freeride — Riding for the line rather than the clock: big drops, jumps and steep natural terrain, chosen and ridden with style. Judged on creativity and flow when it is raced at all.
  • Dirt jump (DJ) — Riding a line of hand-built dirt jumps on a small, stiff hardtail — for height, flow and tricks. Close to BMX in spirit, and where many riders learn to fly.
  • Full-face helmet — A helmet with a chin bar that protects the face and jaw as well as the head. Standard for downhill, bike parks and big jumps, and more and more common in enduro.
  • Bunny hop — Lifting both wheels off the ground without a ramp — front first, then the rear. It clears logs, roots and holes and is the base of every jump and trick.
  • Manual — Riding on the back wheel without pedalling, balanced by shifting your hips back. On the trail it lifts the front over holes and roots and smooths out drops and rollers.
  • Jump line — A trail made of jumps in a row, built so that one landing sets you up for the next take-off. Ridden at a steady speed, it feels like one long flight.
  • Drop — A vertical step down on the trail — a ledge, a rock or a built platform — where the ground falls away under the wheels. Small drops can be rolled; bigger ones need speed and a clean take-off.