i just recently picked up a fixie and im having the time of my like cruising round the city but i just cant get my bike to skid i need some tips or help!!!
any help would be greatly appreciated or maybe even if someone in sydney would be willing to let me ride with them and learn off them thatd be fukn rad too
peace.
Hey buddy, great to hear you having a ball.
To skid, picture yourself pretty much sitting on your stem top cap. Do this when the leg you skid with hits about 3 o’clock (right leg). Lock leg up and start square profiling that tyre! As you get more confident, you can not sit so far over the front wheel and still perform skids
Are you using drops or flat bars? The method above works best for flat bars.
Drop bars are easier if you put you head in line with the front wheel, with hands on the drops. Lock leg up and skid.
If all else fails, hit up youtube.
Lean forward (shift weight towards the bars), lock up the bag leg (your preferred leg at first) as it is coming up and pull up with the front leg. Then commit.
Try in the wet at first, it is easier and allows you to get the hang of it.
Make sure you aren’t geared too high either which will make it harder.
First way to learn is the “Balls to stem” as mentioned above… all your weight forward, then try stop the rotation of those cranks…
You’ll want to lower you gear ratio, if you’re running an OTP bike its probably stock with 48-16 ~80gi which will be a little high.
Ideally you want around 60-70 gear inches to start off with.
this is handy for that^^
im also still learning to skid, does/did anyone elses hands/wrists hurt from learning?
For me it was more mid quadriceps pain when learning the balls to stem method, but with drop bars, not much pain at all, you get used to it.
Some even end up with bruised belly buttons from pressing on the stem!
I strained my groin initially from the front leg pulling up, I think learning on 76 gear inches didn’t help.
Teabags on the counter…and practice.
If you wanna ride with some other kats come out to a wednesday ride. its real cruisy and you can have some beers. Everyone is super friendly and can help you out too. Check the thread in the events section or just come down. 7pm Wednesdays at the Cricketers Arms, Surry Hills.
you’re putting too much weight in your hands.
either:
too much weight pressing down(ONLY) on your BB/rear wheel (you’re too far back and not pulling up enough with your legs, so your wrist is taking all the brunt of the force coming up)
or
too much weight pulling up, and your wrist is taking all the weight pulling down, and your wrist is taking all the weight of your body as well as you trying to pull the skid off…
generally wrist problems mean that your gear inches are too high for the amount of power in your legs, or your technique isnt that good, but usually the former.
I’ve noticed that as my legs have been getting stronger, skidding is easier and the wrist pain is less.
I still get tendonitis in my wrists sometimes though, especially emergency skidding.
Apparantely practicing on grass can help you get the hang of it… but the point about the gearing is most relevant.
im running 48x17 which is around 75 i think. i can skid fine. if im on grass or turn off into the dirt off a path.
im gonna attempt to explain how my hands/wrists hurt. so my hands are on the top flat bits of drop bars, and then as my right pedal is at the bottom and about to come up i lean forward and try and lock up the right leg. so this means lots of my weight is on my wrists, but then also as the pedal keeps trying to move (and more often than not succeeds) they try to push my body forward, which my wrists try to counter by pushing back. fail?
basically you want to try to have the weight go through your legs, not your arms, balance pulling up with pushing down with your legs. your wrist isnt really meant for hideous amounts of force at odd angles. shifting my weight into my legs helped me a lot, but you need stronger legs to skid with more weight on the rear wheel
If you wrists hurt, maybe get a lower gear since you say you can only skid fine if you’re on grass or dirt?
I started off with 46x16 (about 76) and could only skid on grass or skip the back wheel on concrete and my wrists hurt too. I switched to 46x18 and have had no problems since.
Sore arms? Yes
Sore legs? Yes
Sore nuts from hitting the stem? Yes
But after some advice from a mate saying I should just change to a lower gear when learning, I picked it up straight away. Now, no more sore nuts arms or legs- everyones happy.
Just grip it and rip it!
Thats the thing though, do you really care about skidding so much that you should drop your gear down? ride fast or skid? id prefer to ride faster and use brakes, but i guess you could always raise your gear back again once you’ve got the hang of it
No, not really. I ride with brakes anyway. I just wanted to learn to skid. Since then (about a year ago) I’ve put my gear up. I ride down Footscray Rd to the city each day, and only being able to do 20km/hr and spinning like crazy on a low gear was really pissing me off. I’m back on my regular 48/16 and can skid fine, but I just dont see any point in it if im running brakes. Fast = 
Yeh i agree, i spin out enough just going down the uni end of swanston st to the city, thats not even steep. Even some chick on an old ladies cruiser coasted past me last week, meanwhile my legs are doing their best impression of the road runners.
I’ll keep my commuter geared like this but ill make my thrasher lower geared and learn on that once I get it finished. Just need a headset and seatpost…
Put down the gear to 45x17 and took it out brakeless.
now im skiddin all over the joint 8-). the rain yesterday also helped me master it. cheers for the tips! (despite this not being my thread…)