I decided a few days ago to try to improve my rolling hop and i discovered that whenever i try to rolling hop up or over something, i cant do it without a prehop. The prehop is only a few inches and doesnt affect the hight of the hop. I am sure i can clear the hight of the thing i am hopping up but my instinct is to do a prehop first even when i dont want to. So my questions are is this a really bad thing that i need to fix? and how do i fix this?
I used to have the same problem. just tell yourself to jump. It took me a while though. what also causes that is the more distance away you are, the more you want to get closer, so naturally you solve this with a pre-hop. Its all about timing the pedals right. You also want to take off at the same distance as it is high.
Unless it is shorter than my tire, I always take off an equal distance from the object as it is high. So on a 2’ hop, I’ll tke off from 2’ or more away.
Prehops kill your height in rolling hops. Personally, I think a rolling hop isn’t a rolling hop if it has a prehop. The power of a rolling hop comes from you momentum. You don’t need a prehop in this case to preload you tire. The jump begins as your back pedal rises. You don’t get any power from this if you prehop.
Dubmuni’s advice was good. Try approaching from close enough that you can’t prehop. On a 12" hop, if you take off with the center of your tire 12" from the object, there’s no space to prehop. Try stuff like that, and most importantly practice.
When I was just learning them that normally meant I was going to fast. Slow it down a bit. My rolling hop is 26" almost 27", but I have different technique then everyone else it seems. I jump a lot closer to the object with not a lot of bend, and with a much slower approach speed. Its kinda like I jump straight up. If I could get that bend in obviously I’d have way more potential for a high hop. But I could be wrong and maybe I am just like everyone else but this is what I’ve noticed. I’ll have to get video and really analyse it. Sorry for the rant. Does anyone else hop my way?
David
Yes, I’ve done hops like that. I can only get about 28" best doing it, though. If you can get 26" like that, then you should be able to easily get 30" the normal way.