Hi,
does anyone have tips for free mounting uphill on steep inclines? Anything over 5% seems impossible for me. I‘d appreciate helpful ideas! Thx in advance!
Hendrik
yes : you freemount downhill, you hop while rotating 180° and you ride.
Better than taking the risk of missing the freemount and being bitten by a pedal or crashing.
Or split the difference and mount sideways to the trail, and turn 90° with your first pedal stroke. That’s what I do, and I’ve seen lots of other folks do the same. It helps to start with your foot standing on the uphill side.
That’s right !
Running mount.
Static mount for flat or downhill, roll back mount when going uphill (or flat of course).
I usually mount facing downhill and then turn around. But, as a general recommendation, practice rolling mounts. Those let you use your momentum to get you started up the hill. (But still, that only works for me on slight uphill grades. Generally, my uphill mounts suck.)
Second thought: I once saw a guy who’s normal mount was “backwards.” He stood in front of the uni and used his weight on the leading pedal to force the saddle up under him. That would be a perfect uphill mount!
Cheers! 
I’ll be a little more specific. Any hill I want to ride up, I can mount on with a rolling/running mount. I tend to only ride hills where I am faster riding (with my 26") than walking. If, for some reason I want to ride something super steep, I’ll do the 90° turn.
Practice a running mount and then dial up the speed so you end up jumping up long before your pedal is near your receiving foot. Then take it to a hill for part two.
When you first start, the slower running mount will turn into a static mount that you end up riding away from. Lack of momentum here.
Get a running start and then run faster.
Now when you hit the running mount with more speed your momentum will help to keep the wheel moving uphill.
Here’s where your other foot has a job now. You have to try and land it immediately after the first foot hits to offer some much needed forward power.
It’s all timing.
When it comes together the wheel keeps moving and it’s like you never fellin the first place.
This is what works for me on my KH29.
Yep, someone asking this question confirms my fear that 27.5" is too unwieldly for muni. I’m not talking about downhill muni, and all that muni in the cool Vimeo and Youtube videos where people are rolling over rocks, branches 'n stuff downhill.
You know, slogging uphill until you run out of gas and fall off. Racing mountain bikers who are in their lowest gears uphill. Seems like the loss of control and torque with anything bigger than 26" is too much.
Funny, that’s exactly what I do on my 29.
Tholub, keep your keyboard shut.
I use two different approaches for mounts where I expect to start pedaling up the slope. Which version depends on how bumpy it is:
Not so bumpy:
My usual mount, which is sort of a rolling static mount. That’s an oxymoron, so maybe it’s more of a static mount with a big push (to get you up the hill part), and immediate cranking when you get up and in front of the balance point. On flat ground, I do the same thing but without as big of a push (because I don’t have to immediately start pushing up hill). Wheel stays put while I pop up there, get past the balance point, put my front put on and start pedaling.
More bumpy or steeper:
This is usually in the steeper places, or where there isn’t much room to get started. I face 90-ish degrees from my direction of travel, and often back the wheel against something to help keep it from rolling back. The rest is the same; a static mount into immediate pushing, with a little turn at the beginning.
Thanks for the useful advices. I think I‘ll try the 90-degree-version first. If this doesn‘t work out, the 180-hopping could probably do the job.
Not ready for jump mounts yet, but that‘s on the to-do-list for next year.
Hendrik
I did rolling mounts for a while, but now I just static mount facing in the direction I want to go and hop the wheel back under me. You can be a surprisingly long way behind the balance point and still hop the wheel back. No obvious advantage to the 180 or 90 degree hop - I can get on this way on hills I can’t start riding from hopping. In fact I think I can get on this way on any hill I can ride at all - though I should probably try rolling mounts again as they might help on the hills where I struggle to start the wheel rolling.
Currently on a 26, but I used the same method when I was riding a 29 regularly.
Started with my to-do-list 2018 today, following the advice of Canoeheadted.
Two-step Rolling mounts on flat surfaces work out surprisingly well (80% success). I could keep far more momentum than during a static mount. (My centre of gravity, I mean). Maybe in the end I will wind up doing a Foss-Mount uphill.
27.5" is fine for MUni. I use 29" for MUni all the time and I climb way more uphill than most people. And when I ride with groups of mountain bikers, I climb faster than 80% of them on long uphills.
As others have said, mounting sideways to the trail and then turning works. Or, standing on a higher point at the edge of the trail so you don’t have to hop up as much. Or on a curb if you’re on road.
I started doing that with my new KH 26". It’s bigger than I was expecting but I’m able to get on it by doing a half static, half rolling mount almost perpendicular to the trail. Not exactly perpendicular, maybe 20 - 30 degrees away from being perpendicular. Sometimes I’ll walk up to 20 feet back towards the way I came to get an easier mounting spot. Also standing on the higher edges of the trail works for me too