Help With Pedal Kick

[Dave Sutton]

Ive been trying to learn pedal kicks for about a week and i still cant get it ive used all the tutorials on youtube and on trashzen but i still cant even do one. The problem im having is i cant get the back wheel off the ground when i lift it up. Can somebody help me?

Thanks

[matt.price]

it takes ages mate , took me a month or two , try hopping on the back wheel and adding a short crank turn in each one

[dandadude]

You might be jumping the gun a bit there, personally i think your best off learning to backhop first to help with balance. When your fairly competent with that start hopping and then drop the front of your bike and at the same time as letting of your rear brake give it a quick kick. You may only move forward a few inches at a time but keep at it and you will be kicking a couple feet in no time

[rupintart]

If you cant trackstand with the wheel turned either way, and with either foot forward preferably brakeless almost infinitely, you have no business being on the back wheel. i.e. learn to trackstand all those ways before even attempting things on the back, and you'll have NO PROBLEM learning anything on the back wheel. People get too anxious and get these horrible habits. It's much more fun if you hold off for awhile to get your balance down, because then everything comes so much easier.

[Jake.]

Took me a month after learning to hop on the rear wheel, its horrible I know but keep going. YOU CAN DO IT!

[matt.price]

endo then lift the front wheel up and give it a kick while reasling the brake

[willdudeXD]

If you cant trackstand with the wheel turned either way, and with either foot forward preferably brakeless almost infinitely, you have no business being on the back wheel. i.e. learn to trackstand all those ways before even attempting things on the back, and you'll have NO PROBLEM learning anything on the back wheel. People get too anxious and get these horrible habits. It's much more fun if you hold off for awhile to get your balance down, because then everything comes so much easier.

listen to him, i learnt to truck stand for like 5 seconds and then went straight to rear wheel hops and pedal kicks, now my balance when doing things like pallets is totally crap.

[chris4stars]

If you cant trackstand with the wheel turned either way, and with either foot forward preferably brakeless almost infinitely, you have no business being on the back wheel. i.e. learn to trackstand all those ways before even attempting things on the back, and you'll have NO PROBLEM learning anything on the back wheel. People get too anxious and get these horrible habits. It's much more fun if you hold off for awhile to get your balance down, because then everything comes so much easier.

well...to a point i agree, yes its helpful to get your balance dialed before you progress. but still, you need to keep in mind that riding is for fun..how much time do you want to spend mastering walking before trying to jog/run?

maybe it was because i was doing it on a different bike, but it only took a few hours for me. at the time, id got a trackstand dialed with my strong foot forward and bars turned one way. other variations i could hold, but it didnt feel half as comfortable. if balanace was lost, it was easy enough to hop to save it and get back to a trackstand position. if youre at this stage or close, you should be able to progress to a rear wheel hop with little effort.

if there are any nerves with the move, whilsting backhopping....perhaps let the front wheel fall a little further than usual before trying a pedal hop (in theory, if you were doing back hops, you would only have time to do one quick one before letting the front wheel hit the ground).

trying hops like this will let you land on the back wheel followed by the front wheel, famialising yourself with the pedal action. you can then try this letting the front wheel fall less before the pedal hop until you are landing comfortably on the rear wheel.

[TrialItAll]

Ive been trying to learn pedal kicks for about a week and i still cant get it ive used all the tutorials on youtube and on trashzen but i still cant even do one. The problem im having is i cant get the back wheel off the ground when i lift it up. Can somebody help me?

Thanks

Lol i swear 60% of all newbies including me post this topic on the TF as a new member to try to get validated. lol

[Ullapool Trials Rider]

On my first day on my trials bike to wheelie hop and 2 weeks to pedal kick.

Edited December 29, 2009 by onza_ardmair

[Dave Sutton]

I posted it because i need to learn it lol not so i can get validated

[rupintart]

well...to a point i agree, yes its helpful to get your balance dialed before you progress. but still, you need to keep in mind that riding is for fun..how much time do you want to spend mastering walking before trying to jog/run?

maybe it was because i was doing it on a different bike, but it only took a few hours for me. at the time, id got a trackstand dialed with my strong foot forward and bars turned one way. other variations i could hold, but it didnt feel half as comfortable. if balanace was lost, it was easy enough to hop to save it and get back to a trackstand position. if youre at this stage or close, you should be able to progress to a rear wheel hop with little effort.

if there are any nerves with the move, whilsting backhopping....perhaps let the front wheel fall a little further than usual before trying a pedal hop (in theory, if you were doing back hops, you would only have time to do one quick one before letting the front wheel hit the ground).

trying hops like this will let you land on the back wheel followed by the front wheel, famialising yourself with the pedal action. you can then try this letting the front wheel fall less before the pedal hop until you are landing comfortably on the rear wheel.

I always say this to newbies because it eliminates many of the stupid questions down the road that involve needing good balance from the get go. There's no need to work harder than you have to. IMO atleast, I'd rather work and learn smarter that try to jump straight into things and have all these horrible habits because I skipped all the basics.

A perfect example is a handstand. How many people can handstand, and how many people can walk on their hands? More often than not (about 99% of people), people can walk on their hands, but not a handstand in one spot without wiggling all over the place or having to take small steps. i.e. just stand there on their hands. They don't really know how to handstand, they just know how to throw their weight in one direction and compensate by moving their hands to walk forward. It's not really walking on your hands, it's moving to keep yourself from falling.

It's like anything, if you take the time to learn how to do it properly the first time rather than take shortcuts, in the end, you'll be a lot better at it than the person who took all the shortcuts. And more often than not, in a shorter amount of time as you'll have a better, more thorough understanding. It just takes more patience. Something MANY people do not have.

I've noticed as of late, you have all these kids on these pogo sticks who can sidehop bar height, but can't ride across 5 parking blocks to save their lives because their balance is rubbish. So who's a better rider? The kid that can sidehop bar height, and that's about it, or the kid who has good balance and has a broader variety of skills. I vote the latter.

Edited December 30, 2009 by rupintart

[Revolver]

Go look in the Trials Forum wiki for the pedal kick tutorial.

[Dave Sutton]

Thanks didnt realise the Wiki was so much help!

Edited December 30, 2009 by wc99wcc

[Revolver]

I wrote the pedal-kick entry

[Borgschulze]

I think some good advice for most people is...

To learn the pedal stroke to get the bike on the back wheel... then learn hopping in place on the rear wheel... then try pedal kicks.

Should progress quickly with that method.

[Revolver]

This is true, but learning backhops seperately, and then wheelie-stop technique, is much more straight forwards as you learn the timing for letting go of the brake withouth having to concentrate on the jumping.

[Dave Sutton]

thats what ive been doing for a while i didnt really think it would help much though

[chris4stars]

I always say this to newbies because it eliminates many of the stupid questions down the road that involve needing good balance from the get go. There's no need to work harder than you have to. IMO atleast, I'd rather work and learn smarter that try to jump straight into things and have all these horrible habits because I skipped all the basics.

A perfect example is a handstand. How many people can handstand, and how many people can walk on their hands? More often than not (about 99% of people), people can walk on their hands, but not a handstand in one spot without wiggling all over the place or having to take small steps. i.e. just stand there on their hands. They don't really know how to handstand, they just know how to throw their weight in one direction and compensate by moving their hands to walk forward. It's not really walking on your hands, it's moving to keep yourself from falling.

It's like anything, if you take the time to learn how to do it properly the first time rather than take shortcuts, in the end, you'll be a lot better at it than the person who took all the shortcuts. And more often than not, in a shorter amount of time as you'll have a better, more thorough understanding. It just takes more patience. Something MANY people do not have.

I've noticed as of late, you have all these kids on these pogo sticks who can sidehop bar height, but can't ride across 5 parking blocks to save their lives because their balance is rubbish. So who's a better rider? The kid that can sidehop bar height, and that's about it, or the kid who has good balance and has a broader variety of skills. I vote the latter.

i do get what youre saying, and the analogies are true...but re-reading them, they dont really counter what i was saying! ive never claimed there to be shortcuts, or recommended that anyone should just ignore the basic skills...to re-iterate:

as i wrote in a very similar topic, try not to get bogged down with learning one thing before moving onto another. yes its very helpful to get the trackstand dialed, but i wouldnt recommend focusing solely on this - (unless trials is the one and only sport where this learning technique is used - im not sure)

im not saying try the big gaps etc, but keep your riding varied....try little drops or ledges etc and use the skills youve already learnt

a little hop onto a ledge for example...stopping before (practicing trackstand - killing two birds with one stone) and then using whatever method to get up (generally getting a feel for controlling the bike)....which in turn help with your trackstand and it all snowballs from there

quite often it helps to challenge yourself to try somthing harder from time to time....when you go back to the original skill, it can feel so much easier

when learning new skills, try to be efficient with your time...im not saying its ok to run before you can walk, but its ok to walk quickly from time to time

*edit - reguardless of how you learn anything, the psychological barrier of learning that comes about when somthing becomes tedious/boring/frustrating etc is somthing that should be avoided! though this is obviously different for different people, variety is usually a good cure

Edited December 30, 2009 by chris4stars

[ant]

the best way to learn is get out and ride with other people especially advanced riders you will learn so much from just watching them and most people would be happy to help you and tell you were your going wrong.

[rupintart]

i do get what youre saying, and the analogies are true...but re-reading them, they dont really counter what i was saying! ive never claimed there to be shortcuts, or recommended that anyone should just ignore the basic skills...to re-iterate:

as i wrote in a very similar topic, try not to get bogged down with learning one thing before moving onto another. yes its very helpful to get the trackstand dialed, but i wouldnt recommend focusing solely on this - (unless trials is the one and only sport where this learning technique is used - im not sure)

im not saying try the big gaps etc, but keep your riding varied....try little drops or ledges etc and use the skills youve already learnt

a little hop onto a ledge for example...stopping before (practicing trackstand - killing two birds with one stone) and then using whatever method to get up (generally getting a feel for controlling the bike)....which in turn help with your trackstand and it all snowballs from there

quite often it helps to challenge yourself to try somthing harder from time to time....when you go back to the original skill, it can feel so much easier

when learning new skills, try to be efficient with your time...im not saying its ok to run before you can walk, but its ok to walk quickly from time to time

*edit - reguardless of how you learn anything, the psychological barrier of learning that comes about when somthing becomes tedious/boring/frustrating etc is somthing that should be avoided! though this is obviously different for different people, variety is usually a good cure

Oh, I wasn't nec arguing with you, but I was just saying there's alot of these newbies who have these huge sidehops, but can BARELY stand on the back wheel, and sometimes, barely trackstand. And if you notice, they're doing everything from flat to flat, i.e. ledges. They have no balance really, they're just trying to go as big as possible, but have hardly ANY of the fundamentals down. It makes you much more a of a solid rider to get those things down before trying anything on the rear, and when you finally get there, you won't have these questions like "how to I get the front wheel up?" or "I can't seem to stay on the rear long enough" or things of that nature. All those questions really go away with saddle time from practicing your balance.

Don't get me wrong, I actually prefer urban to rocks (most of the time, it is nice to change it up once in awhile), it's just painful to watch these people then later hear them gloating all over the forums about how big they can go etc. Maybe I'm just getting old, hahaha.

the best way to learn is get out and ride with other people especially advanced riders you will learn so much from just watching them and most people would be happy to help you and tell you were your going wrong.

Def a good tip. You'll learn so much more from just riding with people better than you. Tips, feedback, and live examples all murder any sort of intraweb-videoz analyzing. Case in point: go ride your bike.

[Lee09]

i,ve only been riding 7-8 months, and i spent my first 3 months learning to trackstand with wheels both ways and either foot forward, now coming to the stage where im trying to side hop onto things i feel its easier as i can balance pretty well. Take ur time it annoyed me at first but its paid off now and im enjoying it alot lot more.

hope i helped Lee.

[chris4stars]

you won't have these questions like "how to I get the front wheel up?" or "I can't seem to stay on the rear long enough" or things of that nature. All those questions really go away with saddle time from practicing your balance.

im with you 100% on that

its the same with everything i guess..if theres a possible shortcut or easy option, people will buy into it...only to be confused and disappointed to find out there is no substitue for hard work (and in relation to trials or any other sport - practice)

[jof]

I tried to shift my wait forward while on my back wheel I found this very hard and awkward but then I added the peddle kick once i had that to some sort of movment and it aint far but it definnatly helped.Try it with a curb as well it gave me some sort of baring

[chris4stars]

I tried to shift my wait forward while on my back wheel I found this very hard and awkward but then I added the peddle kick once i had that to some sort of movment and it aint far but it definnatly helped.Try it with a curb as well it gave me some sort of baring

???