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 to hit the jump, pause for a brief moment until the bike is fully in the air and then I  take my feet off. Acting too early can have the effect of pulling the bike into a funny angle usually resulting in a wheelie landing. Also both feet have to come off at the same time with balanced motion. If your feet drag across the pedals or kick unevenly, that's when you can get your pedals or cranks spinning . 

But even if your cranks or pedals do move, it's not the end of the world. Your feet are very capable of making it back to the bike. Just bring them back in and they will find the pedals, I don't even look down at my feet. I trust they'll find something.

Another trick I'm proud of is the tire grab, this is something I started doing on the trick jump and now I've brought it to the dirt. I'm even doing it on a jump that is less than optimal. I say that because it's a left hand hip and just not naturally boosty for me. But it seems to be a good enough place for tire grabs.    

To be honest I've never actually stopped my tire and made a "grab." I'm jumping a 29" tire and it has a lot of momentum. I'm sure if I really tried I could, but it's still gratifying to just drag my fingers along the knobbys and get a nice buzz sound as I float through the air. When I do this trick on the dirt it has a funny way of making me do a little twist so I land slightly crooked. Not enough to crash, just enough to give it a little spice.

If you're gonna get into jumping you need to develop a taste for the spicy bits. These are the times when things don't go exactly as you planned but they still work out. Times when we encounter a moment of chaos, but you hold on and see what happens. The more this happens the more you start to understand that the envelope for success is wider than you first imagined.

My buddy Jesse made a video of him following his son through a big set of jumps and he got so close they accidentally buzzed tires in the air. On my New Years Day session I held a one-hander so long that I got my hand back to the grip right as the front wheel was hitting dirt. Dirt jumping is about embracing these beautiful moments of anarchy.

  

Something that definitely revived my love for jumping has been the introduction of "The Trick Jump." This is a special jump Gurion from 303Dirt designed at Valmont Bike Park. The jump is a wooden ramp to a step-up landing. Step-ups are naturally a good place to learn tricks because you have less distance back to earth if things go wrong. The landing of this jump is also coated in a thick plastic mat that absorbs a little bit of impact and it's very slippery. The concept is that, if you crash the force will be dissipated as you slide down the landing instead of slamming into the ground.

The trick jump gives me a feeling that the stakes aren't quite so high. I'm much more comfortable trying new things. The trick jump helped me unlock new tricks I had never tried before, including a "Nothing." I've only done two of these no-footed no-handers, but I want to do it again. Ideally, I can learn tricks on the special jump and then go do them on the dirt.

Another great part of being a 50 year-old dirt jumper is that I can rock a very carbon 29er with 140mm of travel. Is a steel 26" single speed dirt jumper a more practical bike for dirt jumping? Absolutely, but damn, I do love jumping this thing.

The other day I met a kid jumping his carbon trail bike. It was developing a crack at the shock mount and each time he took a lap down slopestyle the crack got a little bigger. I probably would have quit, but he was keeping an eye on it. We could actually hear it popping. It was unfortunate, but it certainly wasn't catastrophic. I keep checking mine for cracks, I also try to ride smoothly and not case landings. So far I've cracked a steel frame, and an aluminum frame. If this bike ends up cracking I'm just being a completist.

If you are considering dirt jumping, do it. I think more dirt jumpers are just what this country needs right now. Dirt jumping will teach you who you truly are and what you are actually capable of. The place where everyone hangs out waiting to drop in is the most honest place in the world. It will teach you that some things in this world are undeniably true, like gravity.

After 23 years of hucking my meat, I have some advice I always try to give new dirt jumpers. In a word it's TRICKS or, I guess STYLE, that could work too. What doesn't work is getting into it just to go BIG. If you hit a six foot double and you think the next step is a ten foot double and then after that you need to do a twenty foot gap your jumping career will resemble a midget body builder, short and hard.

Pause your advancement on the ten foot double and learn a decent one-hander or x-up or E.T.  Have at least one legit base level trick. My friend Bucky always did what we called the fart waver. Just a lazy one- handed wave behind his seat. 

Hitting a jump and just holding on for dear life is what we call a Dead Sailor. Taking your Dead Sailor off bigger and bigger jumps will build your confidence, but it really isn't adding any long term skills to your repertoire. Learning a trick helps the rider take control of the jump. Lots of jumpers believe they are dialing in the perfect whip or table. So they avoid pursuing any other variations of tricks. I think it's an excuse. Good whips and tables do look pretty sweet. But it's still just a stylized dead sailor. Be brave and take off a limb.