Ok, someone spill the beans on how to perfect this wonderful skill. Stand or sit, what crank position to start in, how sharp to hold the handlebars…etc etc.
Me, I am sit down, and start at the 3 and 9 position, and seem to hold the bars pretty tight. But I can only roll one through every 10 tries (and only in my volleys).
Anyone care to share the tip?
I start from a sitting track-stand. But I learned to track-stand the wrong way, with my wheel pointing left and my right foot forward (lucky I don’t have any toe-overlap). From there, I do a slow rock back. The first hard part is to get one crank through the 6 o’clock position and then ditto for the other one. I find I need to get out of the saddle a bit to get my outside crank through 6 o’clock.
I try to keep the angle on the front wheel from getting too sharp, as when that happens I tend fall inwards as the front wheel slips out.
It took me a while to get it, but learning to track-stand in slightly different pedal positions helps as well. That all said, I still don’t land them everytime and if I’ve had a beer or two… well, I’m lucky to land one in ten.
OK, two good tips.
The first to to hold the handlebars in one position only (ie; try not to move the bars at all), thus keeping a nice ‘straight’ circle.
The second to go a little faster than you think you should, the speed keeps you upright and able to get through TDC alot easier.
Like juggling - practice. Try and whip one every time you stop at the lights. If like me you encounter 20+ sets of lights a day, you’ll master it in a week.
I’d been mentally toying around with a new idea but hadn’t had the balls to try it: no-handed backwards circles.
So there I was at the museum last night and these bmx kids were there doing flat-land tricks and making me look like shit. But, they did inspire me to explore my limits. So after rolling halfway through no-handed backwards circles for half an hour I managed to get a full one in! Bailing out of one can be a bit sketchy, but they’re possible with practice. I haven’t managed another one since, but they should get easier with time.
Another image demo.
Effortless backwards to back circle and then ride away:
Yeah that June dude has got some skills. There’s afew really nice vidoes of him on oldskooltrack … one where he pulls a series (yup a series) of smooth bunnyhops.
Too cool.
Rogaine and I spent Sat morning playing the backwards cirlces game, and we both regularly pulled complete circles, the key is just practise. Rogaine does his slow and controlled, while I seem to go fast and reply on that to keep the balance going. I played more while doing the weekly food shop, and in volleys (so i dono’t worry about being clipped in) I managed a full cirlce everytime, and worked myself up to around 3.5…now to take on the 10+ circle challenge.