Can you Bunny hop a Rivbike?

[lum gim fong]

Trying to learn on my Bleriot and Rambouillet but can barely get the front end up. Any ideas?
I do have a handlebar bag.
Can you wheelie/ curb hop up with a front load of ~5 lbs. or is that my mistake?

[Reed Kennedy]

Sure can! I do all the time. Front load in a basket, often 10 lbs, sometimes more.

If you can jump while holding your bike you should be able to bunny-hop while riding your bike given enough practice. Clipless pedals do genuinely help here.

Do note: A wheelie, a bunny hop, and a curb hop are different things, at least to me.

A wheelie is lifting only the front of the bike, smoothly, and then balancing on the back wheel. I never learned that one.

A bunny hop is lifting both wheels simultaneously, generally at moderate to high speed, to clear a railroad track or branch or something.

A curb hop is generally lifting up one wheel at a time, usually at very low speed. Front up, pause, rear up when it gets to the curb.

Like I said, I can only do the latter two. They're similar, but they feel different when I do 'em. Which one is it you're working on?

Reed

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[Philip Williamson]

I can curb hop easily on my Quickbeam, even with a load in the basket. 

Push down on the handlebars before the curb, then pull up on the handlebars while shifting your butt backwards. As soon as the front wheel is up, stand up a little straighter on the bike to shift your weight forward and unweight the rear wheel so it can climb the curb easily. That's what I do, anyway. 

I can't bunny hop without being clipped in, or ride a wheelie in any circumstance. I'd like to learn, though!

Philip

www.biketinker.com 

[lum gim fong]

Like this:
https://youtu.be/Zv97WNg6FMU

Some routes I ride I always have to stop, get off my bike, stand in the street, walk the bike up the curb, remount the bike, and keep riding. I would like to be able to just curb hop so I can keep going without dismounting every time. Plus it will be fun.

But my bikes feel so heavy I can hardly get the front wheel off the ground for a split second before it slams down again. Or maybe I'm just too weak. I don't heavily load them. Just the front bag with 5 pounds or less in it.

[Reed Kennedy]

On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 1:35 PM, lum gim fong <john1...@gmail.com> wrote:

Like this:
https://youtu.be/Zv97WNg6FMU

Wow! Indeed, that is a bunny-hop up on to a curb. Done with grace and skill. Geez!

I have often -wanted- to do such a thing, but I've never tried it. I'm certain it is possible (I can do it on a unicycle) but am dissuaded by the high cost of failure. 

I'd say start by bunny-hopping over a piece of 2x4 lumber or somesuch with the lumber perpendicular to the bike. Then I'd try "jumping" over a flat painted line. Once comfortable with that, try jumping over the 2x4 with the lumber parallel to the bike, sorta like shown in the video. Practice should do it. Maybe I'll give this a go myself now...

Oh, and it helps to lift with your whole body, not just your arms. Otherwise you're literally trying to lift yourself!

Reed

[lum gim fong]

I don't ride clipped and I do flat pedals. Is this even possible without being clipped in?

[Reed Kennedy]

On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 1:51 PM, lum gim fong <john1...@gmail.com> wrote:

I don't ride clipped and I do flat pedals. Is this even possible without being clipped in?

That would certainly make it a lot harder.

Riding flat pedals I can still do a front-then-near curb hop. I can't lift without being clipped in, but I can still unload the pedals. That way there's less weight on the bike when the rear wheel bumps up on to the curb. 

But the sort of bunny-hop you showed in the video? I can't figure out how you'd do it without being clipped in. 

 

Reed

[Reed Kennedy]

Then again, this article says you can bunny hop with flat pedals, and recommends learning that way!

http://www.bicycling.com/training/skills/how-bunny-hop-boss

Please report back if you give it a try...

Reed

[Garth]

  You have bunnies on your roads, dang !  that must be neat to hop so many :-)

[lum gim fong]

That video was just an example. Most of the time I would bunny hop over a curb while riding directly at the curb because there are a lot of Street and trails connections where I have to jump over the curb at the end of the street to land on the trail like this:

at :59-1:07 point in video
https://youtu.be/iEb2KUhNuH4

[S. Greco]

I love this question! 

Totally do-able but always much harder with any rear-load (panniers etc.)

Always beware clipping the crank or extra long fenders on tall obstacles though - I've ridden off some curbs and had that rear fender clip on the way down and it is no fun.

[Patrick Moore]

I've never bunny hopped a Rivendell, but I recall one day bombing along on a flat, firm dirt path on my mountain bike, racing someone on a small motorized dirt bike, and suddenly finding a large hole right in front of me. I don't know if it was superbe reflexes, or Divine intervention, but whoop! I bunny hopped it cleanly.

Another instance, closer to home on a roadified '92 XO-1: I was keeping up with traffic near an intersection on a large urban boulevard, without much room to maneuver, and found the approaching pavement buckled. I did an impromptu bunnyhop to the right to clear a pavement ridge. I was impressed with myself (enough to remember it, apparently, since it was also entirely impromptu). This one wasn't as life threatening as the hole in the path, but I saved myself some rough pavement.

The most notable case of bunny hopping I've ever seen, though, was 30+ years ago along the K street corridor in Washington, DC, where bike messengers were still common. A messenger on a road bike with 20 mm tires hurtled at speed directly toward the curb and without slowing jumped the curb and tore down the sidewalk. I know that, if I had planned a bunny hop of that sort, I'd have dangerously flubbed it. Apart from harmless practice on open road with foot retention and fat, soft tires -- it's not hard to do in such circumstances -- mine have all been unthinking.

Come to think of it, I wonder if you really need retention; I think it's much more a trick of weighting the tires heavily and then releasing all weight on the pedals while, perhaps, lifting the bar. Note that in a real bunny hop, both wheels come off the ground, not just the front. But I've never done it except with retention Can anyone correct or confirm?

All my Rivendells are fixies and afaik you can't bunny hop, strictu sensu, unless you can pause pedals while moving. If anyone knows how to bunnyhop on a fixie, I'd like to hear about it.

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[Jim M.]

On Monday, July 17, 2017 at 3:23:41 PM UTC-7, Patrick Moore wrote:

If anyone knows how to bunnyhop on a fixie, I'd like to hear about it.

Poor photography but here's one example: https://youtu.be/gcX0aSmkEIM?t=26

Curb hopping can be done at a slower speed. It takes some strength to lift the wheel, but it's mostly coordinating your weight shift and unloading the wheel at the same time. Like any skill, practice helps. I'd suggest finding a curb and doing it unweighted until you're comfortable with it, and then add the bag.

jim m

wc ca

 

[Patrick Moore]

Impressive.

[RJM]

Oh yes, it's actually somewhat of a crutch to lift up while clipped in and the proper technique to bunny hop doesn't work that way. If you learn to bunny hop using flat pedals, you can get more air and bunny hop higher objects compared to just lifting up the rear wheel with you clipped in.

Check this video out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WImyDu450Q

and this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdUGWeRQ2IU

On Monday, July 17, 2017 at 3:51:12 PM UTC-5, lum gim fong wrote:

[lum gim fong]

Today I tried again. Instead of thinking so much about the directions I read online and saw on the videos I just tried to do it. I did step one I guess easily which would be raising the front wheel over objects and letting the back wheel just roll along. Seemed easier to get the front wheel up. I "jumped" the manhole covers in the 'hood as I rode around. Had fun. Felt like maybe the rear wheel was following the front wheel up in the air a bit when I went fast. I will have to videotape to see what is happening.

It will be nice when I no longer have to dismount and walk my bike up and down curbs.

I was wondering if the SON hub 36 spoke wheels and Noodles/stem and brake levers will be ok with all this clumsy yanking up and bouncy handling I am doing with them now to learn this.

[Patrick Moore]

I think that the best way to practice is to do so on a flat road with no traffic. Ride at a comfortable pace, stand, position pedals at 3 and 9 o'clock, push down on pedals, then lift body and bar -- the result, one hopes, is that the entire bike, and not just the front wheel, will lift. Must try this myself today.

Lifting the front wheel, which even I can do slowly, is different: slow down, put weight way back, lift bar gently over obstacle, then rotate weight forward to unweight back wheel.

Unless you are very heavy, 36 spokes ought to stand up to much more than you can throw at it by curb hopping. And the technique does not involve yanking very hard on the bar; "lifting" in conjunction with body weight shift is more like it. And in any event, if Noodles and Nitto stems can't stand up to a bit of yanking, they don't deserve to be on the market.

My brother, back when he was a fit and merely 190-200 lb or so, commuted daily on potholed LA streets on a XO-2 with 15-20 lb in his courier bag on 28 spoke Michelin wheels and 26" X 1.25" tires. He'd bunny hop just for fun and never, ever broke a spoke or put a wheel out of true.

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[Philip Williamson]

That's great! It's the fun that will create the reward circuit to get you doing it enough to gain proficiency. I hop curbs and "jump" speed bumps every chance I get.

I have no fear of you breaking those parts. I'm 230 lbs, and ride Schmidt hubs and Nitto bars off-road.

Philip
www.biketinker.com