I’ve been searching around the forum, but couldn’t find an answer. I started to learn how to hop and jump a couple weeks ago. I read that the tire should not be full with air, that it should be a bit flat so that the tire gets more spring and covers more of the ground. But I haven’t re-filled my tire with air since I started let out air two weeks ago, and the tire has obviously gotten flatter. I am curious, how flat should I let the tire get, or how flat should it be kept at? Is there any long last damage that could be done to the tire or wheel frame by having it to flat?
I recently started jumping off of curbs, and when I am landing I can feel the frame bouncing off of the ground. Is this an issue as well?
As a rule you don’t want to bottom out so that your rim is hitting the ground, or pinching the tire. The actual pressure that you need depends on a lot of variables such as: your weight, how you ride, the size of the drops/hops, the width of the tire/rim, the weight of the tire…
So, most riders find the sweet spot through trial and error.
Depends on what you are doing. If you are on the street and jumping off things, you have to have it filled up enough so it doesn’t bottom out. I keep it just at that border.
Of course the higher you jump the more you have to fill it up. Also as the tire gets flatter, it gets harder to turn–so you may land a trick without bottoming out, but then you will have trouble riding out of the trick, which in my mind means you didn’t land it.
So I checked my tire and it is Min 40 - Max 65 PSI. I checked the current air pressure and my tire was at 19 PSI. Really low! So I re-filled it up to roughly 30 PSI. I did this really late last night so I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet. But I will later tonight and see how that feels.