Stop Hopping Like a Bunny

With the J-hop, you’ll clear obstacles smoothly

The bunny hop is a misleading name that can make getting into cycling harder than it needs to be. We tend to clip into our clipless pedals and try to lift both our wheels over obstacles. As a cycling skills coach, I spend a lot of time convincing athletes to stop lifting both wheels at the same time. I argue they should focus on the very functional front-wheel-first motion, which some call a “dolphin hop,” or in bmx terms, a “J-hop.” There are coaches and skilled riders out there who may disagree and find utility in the “both wheels up at the same time” hop, but let me show you the progressions you can use to boost your riding skill, regardless of what type of bike you are riding. Picture yourself riding along. If you’re a road rider, you see a pothole or curb coming up. If you’re a mountain biker, picture a log. The cyclocrosser should visualize a small barrier. All of these obstacles present the same challenge: you want to get over each one quickly without damaging your wheels or throwing yourself into a social-mediaworthy scorpion endo. If you opt for the bunny hop, you must get low and quickly hop by pulling up really hard with your arms and feet to cause both wheels to come off the ground. You must time this hop just before the front wheel hits the obstacle, and then hope that your rear wheel comes down on the ground past the obstacle. In short, you must get so much air at the start that the length of your bike sails completely over the pothole, log or barrier. That’s not an insignificant amount of air time.

The alternative is to perform a gentle wheelie by squatting down slightly and sliding your hips back, while keeping your arms and upper body strong to lift the front wheel. As the front wheel clears the obstacle, you then push the bars forward while jumping up in the air. Your front wheel is pushed down into the ground just after the obstacle while your rear wheel follows, landing in the same spot your front wheel has just rolled away from. This is the easier, more effective and a more transferrable way to hop an obstacle.

It is important to get the frontwheel-first motion because so many situations require this exact movement pattern. Initially, I have a rider learn to do the motion on a pump track and by rolling over increasingly bigger logs, speed bumps and ledges, while focusing on being quiet and smooth. Once the rider can transfer weight over these obstacles, we work on front-wheel lifts, or manuals. Then comes the rear-wheel lift before progressing to bigger logs, and eventually the front-wheel-first J-hop. This front-wheel-first motion is the foundation for jumping as the same motion becomes the popping action you use to get air off the lip of a jump. By using only the front-wheelfirst motion, you avoid confusion and delays in your skill development. So, hop to it.

“You want to get over quickly without damaging your wheels or throwing yourself into a social-media-worthy scorpion endo.”