HOPS

When starting out, hopping on a trials bike feels insanely heavy — even though the bike itself for sure isn’t, and others make it look easy. Why?

Because you’re fighting against movement patterns that are not yet dialed in and incorrect timing in basic riding techniques.

Focus on the basics first, and wheel hops will come later much more easily.

What’s most important in your training before making the front or back wheel leave the ground is to understand how important the compression phase is.

We don’t want to pull our bike off the ground. We want to compress the suspension first and later use clutch pops to make it fly.

Right now, we can quickly develop a good feeling for our bike by doing drills that teach our body how to compress correctly and find the frequency of our suspension.

Hopping the front wheel, hopping both wheels, or moving the front wheel in a straight line is what comes first — and what you should practice now with good technique.

It will not only improve your wheel hopping skills, but also help you in obstacle techniques by teaching you correct loading and unloading of the wheels.

At this riding level, it is advisable to train hops while rolling and to focus on body movement alone.

You can help a bit by using kickers, which make your wheels take off at a specific point and improve your timing.

Also improve your throttle and brake control in isolation if you have a hard time getting the timing right.

After learning proper body movement and building up your clutch control, hops now start to feel light.

Just not so much when you are at a standstill.

Don’t worry about static hops yet & keep your focus on perfecting the technique while rolling.

Train in situations where balance is not the limiting factor, so you can fully focus on refining the movement itself and adjusting your clutch pops & brake control to match your body timing — without making things unnecessarily hard for yourself.

Last but not least, learn everything you can about all basic movement patterns (through general technique training and trials-specific fitness) and peg loading, so you are prepared for bigger hops - both upwards & sideways.