I’ve recently been working on my SIF hops and when it comes to side hops I find it difficult to stop to pull my seat out and then jump. Does anyone have any advice on how to keep steady enough to give me time to pull my seat out and start hopping to I can jump?
I know all the tucking stuff I just need help with the preparing for the jump part.
Thanks
Learn to ride sif as well as you can ride seat in to get started. Then it comes just by practice, you’ll get used to not have seat under yourself. By searching you can also find several similar threads.
If you aren’t steady enough to pull your seat out for a SIF hop, then you need more practice. In order to improve SIF hops specifically, practice the following:
1- Ride SIF anywhere and everywhere until your legs give out… This will build leg strength and improve your control of the UNI while the seat is in front. I started out riding SIF for 20-30 feet at a time. Now I ride SIF for the length of a professional Soccer field and could still go further.
2- SIF squats. This also builds some leg strength, balance control and just gets you familiar with the tucking position of a good SIF hop.
3- Find a grass hill with an average slope to it, then practice SIF hopping up the side of the hill. This will provide you good hopping practice with almost no risk of injury.
3- Practice SIF hopping onto small targets. The more you practice hopping onto small objects, the more comfortable it will get and the better your control and accuracy will get. A side benefit of this is also improving your stillstand ability.
You may be riding with the seat to high, try riding with it lower and practice riding while standing on the pedals instead of sitting on the seat
You can also just free-mount to SIF, and then there’s no need to transition from seat in to seat out. But I’d have to second the recommendation on learning to ride SIF really well as it will come in handy later.