I can't 180 if I kick the pedals.
How I learnt is by not having a front brake. Find some loose small stones, like a driveway or something, and learn to 180 endo....while rolling, doesn't matter if you don't make it as the stones will let your wheel skid and not buckle. Once I could get these most of the way round I then progressed to doing 180's from a flat bunnyhop on the stones, try not to worry too much if you find it hard to get out of them, as long as you can muscle your bike round most of the spin. Try to really prewind for the trick and roll in an S shape before doing it, I find it gives me a little more momentum for the spin.
Once you have pretty much got this, I found a small slope from a flat and 180'd down this, the drop will give you that little extra you need to land perfectly backwards, your wheel should automatically turn to let you fakie out the way of the spin. Once you can do these then flat ground await. This way (In my opinion) looks the best way to do 180's when pedaling round a 180 it looks forced and takes away from the fluidity of such a smooth and flowing trick.
To try Steve-A style 180 to backwards manual 180 out's it requires a different technique to this which will be slightly harder to learn, you must sort of manual into the trick and take away the swinging of the trick, the more vertical your bike is, the faster the spin will end, as you spin in the air try to land with your backwheel a bit below the balance point and your legs bent and ready to pedal backwards. The momentum of the spin will keep the bike spinning on the backwheel, the hardest part will be to pedal backwards while doing so and takes alot of practice, once you have spun around 90degree of the outing of the trick, you must quickly kick the pedals, which keeps the front end up and the manual going.
Hope you found this helpful.
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