Taps?

[matt.price]

Hey guys,

just want to learn how to tap,

can someone give me a step by step guide and some advice/tips please?

cheers

matt

[Sam T]

It's just like a pedal up but you tap your front wheel into the wall. Although i ride mod.. It's pretty fun to do and definetly helps it certain situations.

[i like cunning stunts]

I find your pedal rotation is the key, i find if you judge your run up perfect with your rotation it helps a lot as you get a lot more momentum which is what you want. So to start practising i would try one full pedal rotation, to do this you have to be quite close and the proper technique is to start with your fav foot forward and as your other foot is coming round in the roation this is when you should start lifting the front wheel so by the time you fav foot comes round to the horizontal positon you are 'tapping' the wall / object.. Its hard to explain and even harder to learn it was one of the key things we all used to practise and now its second nature but that technique you want to start learning.. Heres an example take notice of the crank rotaion / front wheel lift.

Slow it down at 1:36 giacomo best in the world at it.

Edited March 12, 2011 by Jake-Ansell

[liam n]

i ride mod so its a bit different for you ...alll i do is go up to the object as you would when rolling up same pedal stroke etc. all you do is go faster than a rollup and you aim your wheel so just below the wheel's axel hits the corner of the object (or just below)then lift the bike up using your feet and arms pushing your body to the backwheel(like you would when up to back) and land your back wheel on the object.

here's vid of me doing so...i uploaded it especially for you ... it's kind of hard to notice me hitting my front wheel, as it doesn't look like it makes much difference on an an object that small , but it just gives u a little boost and lifts your front up with less effort as you can see in the slow mo

hope this helps

Edited March 12, 2011 by liam n

[matt.price]

cheers for all comments.

that really helped liam

and f**k you've gone too good now .

[liam n]

cheers for all comments.

that really helped liam

and f**k you've gone too good now .

s'okay...and thanks it's all those pallets and all that commitment

[bikeperson45]

The best way to do them is more like the Øhler method .

Which is basically doing a pedalup with a slight touch by the frontwheel.

This is a much more predictable technique and works best most of the times.

Basic mistakes when doing a tap:

Not bending knees before jump.

Jumping too late.

Pushing the bars in wrong angle.

Not extending and following through.

Not beeing able to jump/or hard enough.

Half a stroke tap is a easier way but requires heavier gear, its easier because you dont have to calculate the stroke lenghts as much, and it might be easier to bend knees. But if your going uphill, or want to do a rear tap this is not a good way to do it. This method is best for street.

1 stroke tap is more common and seemed as "the right way", this is where you lift with your bad foot. It requires more calculation of when you are going to start pedaling, but everything are supposed to be done with short runup, so you SHOULD be pedaling the whole way . Because your pedaling all the way this is the best way to do uphill taps and rear wheel taps aswell.

Basic tips on taps:

Finish pedaling and then jump with both feets.

Start jumping before your frontwheel hits.

Push bars down and towards you.

How you should tap varies from the object your climbing.

Straight edge tap:

Go for 1.5 stroke , here you have about 0.75 stroke to gain most of the speed, rest of the strokes is used more for the lift.

Make sure you have bent legs all the way , your albows should only have a slight angle as you lift , this will give you more "room" to absorb the impact and to throw yourself forward. Your body should be tilting forward so your ready to hit the wall and push feets down, dont lay back, this will result in kicking the bike forward. So near straight arms and body tilt at forward.

You are using both bad foot and good foot to lift the frontwheel.

As you are finished pedaling you have to make sure you start jumping BEFORE you hit the frontwheel into the wall, rear tire should lift off the ground just as frontwheel hits wall. Jumping means basically that your straightning out your knees, this takes a certain amount of time, but as the frontwheel is tapped until it shoots up takes just about NO time at all. So its only logic you have to start jumping BEFORE you hit !

Pushing the bars in right direction is critical, do not push them away from you, this might create height but you wont land on top of the wall.

Best is to basically pushing DOWN to create a good smack but not loosing too much speed, but as you have pushed DOWN you pull the towards you which will throw you longer forward and land more ontop of the wall.

At times pulling the bars more towards you then down is a good thing, this is mostly if you have SLOW speed or your tapping objects like a fence.

Hit the frontwheel "semi low" onto the wall , for best heights you need to hit it quite hard ! But this also stops you more, so the harder you hit the more SPEED you need to have. At great heights you might even try to "roll" up the wall just a little on frontwheel, REALLY hard on straight edges.

As your flying up the wall you should be leaning forward and then pull the bike up under you as you tuck in.

If the wall is very high you might want to try and "go to the side" , pick the side which suits you the best, i suggest right side for left footers. This technique should be planned so on the way up your already starting to go to the side, your landing with stretched out arms and ass on the side of the wheel, and then as your rear wheel has touched the ground you "twist" yourself and try to move your whole body and not just a mega tuck in. Because then your moving the center point of your body more forward and creating a stronger pivot point .

Slainted surfaces:

If you have a weak slaint you can fast get ALOT higher, because your frontwheel rolls easier up and your not loosing speed as fast , it doesnt go to a dead holdt. The more slaint you have the lower and harder you need/could hit with the frontwheel . Its also much more predictable.

With slaint you can throw yourself and lean more forward

If you have a medium slaint its time to think about REAR WHEEL TAPPING.

Hitting the rear wheel can/will propel you higher and push you more forward.

Still you should be finished pedaling before you jump, but you jump later and you pull bars more towards you, this will smack the rear wheel into the wall.

But with a medium slaint your front wheel should also be smacked medium hard. Also on this kind of slaint and more slaint you should push yourself forward and try to "roll" up the wall on your front wheel as your laying forward , you are WAITING until you loose speed and THEN you tuck the bike under you. This is more a mototrials technique which works really well!

If you have a big slaint you should focus more about only tapping the rear wheel, but not only that, you can also PEDAL on the bottom, this means that you can pedal further . So you should start later to pedal so cranks are NOT at the "right angle" as your hitting the wall, so your jumping and pedaling at the same time. You should throw yourself much more forward here as you hit then on other taps, get your weight onto the front wheel and roll up as you wait until you loose speed to tuck the bike in under you.

Very logically is it that the harder you jump the higher you will get , the harder you smack frontwheel the higher you get.

But It is more technique then how fast you can jump and how hard you can smack, The harder you jump/smack the harder the tap gets and the easier it is to f**k up.

And the more bent legs you have the earlier you need to start jumping as it takes more time.

There are also more ways to do taps, such as straight edge taps but you also use an obecjt infront of the wall to propell your rear wheel more up.

This is like a jump ONLY for rear wheel . You can not hit front wheel as hard here , then you might loose some teeths

I have NOT mentioned taps on low objects or half stroke taps from stand still.

This is the first edit and i did it at school so it might not be perfect and i might change it some at later times.

Download videos of Giacomo Coustellier, Vincent hermance and Thomas Øhler, look closely and you will find all my points in these taps.