No-Handers, still a great trick

Hello beautiful people. I promise this is still a mountain biking blog. I won't force my fiction writing on you very often. I have a lot of stories that I start and then they just fizzle out. So I though if I posted the first chapters on here I would have to commit to finishing it.

Since I spent my weekend mornings writing, and not hiking into the woods for trail maintenance, I'm very out of shape. Mountain biking is sort of like a deal with the devil. It will keep you healthy and happy, but the catch is you can never stop. Any time I break from mountain biking physical fitness, the years come flooding in and I begin to feel my actual age.

I'm trying to get back at it. The smart thing to do would be to start with a strong cardio base and work from there introducing new challenges. Instead I wanted to make sure I could still dirt jump and do wheelies. Each new year I worry if I've lost any dirt jumping tricks. So I'm always happy to throw the first no-hander of the year.

This year it was at Erie Singletrack. We had made several runs and it was quite windy. Then as the sun sank to the horizon the wind quit. Aki was dropping in right behind me and a few people were hanging out at the top. I knew it was time. I'm telling you it is such a great feeling to be approaching a jump and confidently tell yourself, I'm going to pinch the seat with my knees then take both hands off and swing them way out to the side.

I bet Brandon Semenuk has his own version of that thought process. Except his is more like, I'm going to pull hard to initiate the backflip, then do a tailwhip clockwise, after that one, I'll stop the rotation and tailwhip counterclockwise, by then the flip will be completed and I can still toss in an bar spin.

Whips are cool, tabletops are cool. But I promise they are a dead end to your trick bag if they are all a dirt jumper focuses on. Taking off your hands or feet are the first step to all the bigger tricks. You can't bar spin with out no-handers. You can't tailwhip without no-footers.

Do yourself a favor make '24 the year you learn a pinch no-hander. I say pinch-no because they are easier than tuck-no. Pinch is only two ingredients, 1 pinch the seat, 2 no-hands. A tuck is three ingredients, 1 pull bike up, 2 tuck into your chest 3 no-hands.

If a trick has less ingredients it;s easier to make it a go-to trick. Also the pinch allows more room for variations. Happy '24 everyone let's ride!

Comments

The White Room (a short story)

FRIDAY After a short struggle I located Cliff at the airport. It was good to see him again. I had my bag packed and my skis on the rack of my Audi. Instead of going back to my house, we blew past the exit and cruised through Denver. We made a quick stop at a dispensary, then started climbing into the mountains. Five hours later we rolled into the town of Crested Butte. Matt had driven out from Arkansas the day before and we all converged on Kevin’s house. This was a reunion almost thirty years in the making. We pulled into Kevin’s driveway, kid’s bikes and other toys were poking out from the snow in the yard. A master bedroom had been added to the house, but it still lacked siding, leaving the insulation exposed. Kevin came out to greet us wearing slippers, jeans and a tee shirt. He gave us each a hug. Nice addition Kev, that’s new since the last time I was here. Cliff said. Yeah I started it four years ago, maybe in another four I’ll finish it. Kevin’s just doing what he can...

2025 Goal: keep dirt jumping

I think I mentioned that I bought my first mountain bike in 1994, then I got my first dirt jumping bike in 2002. As I roll into my 50th year I gotta say I'm pretty happy with the dirt jumping aspects of my life. Instead of slowing down, I'm actually learning new tricks and getting them dialed in. No-footers have been a struggle for me, they seem to come and go. I find them to be much less dependable than no-handers. So I set a goal for 2025 to dial in my no-footers on the dirt. A good friend met me on New years Day and we got after it. I made one warm up lap, then I started throwing one no-footer after another. I probably did about ten of them. Some were a little weak, but a few I was pretty happy with. The no-footer is one of the foundational tricks. It's the first step to higher level tricks like no-foot cans, supermans and even the tailwhip. There are a few tips I use for this trick. The biggest one for me is to not take my feet off too early. I make a real effort t...

Classic Sci-Fi coming true

I love to read, lately I've been rereading my way through some of the classic dystopian future books predicting how things would be in our time. It's fun to see what predictions were way off, and which ones we are currently living with. Fahrenheit 451 (1953) actually nailed air pods. The author Ray Bradbury described tiny "seashell" speakers that fit hidden in the ear. The protagonist starts talking to his wife, but she is oblivious because she has tiny speakers hidden in her ears. The wife in the book is also addicted to a screen that constantly shows a senseless barrage of images and short clips that are mostly incoherent. The protagonist watches it for a few seconds and a scene appears with two people in the middle of an argument. No context is given, but the actors are in a disagreement. Montag, the protagonist suggests they turn it off, but his wife says, "no I want to see who wins the argument." Montag says, "but you don't even know what the...

3CogBlog.com

Search This Blog