LEARN TO WHIP AN MTB - OVER 40

Hey joyriders, welcome back to the channel. I am joined by my buddy Sean because today's video is about whips. And that's your favorite thing? It's my favorite thing, man. And he's really good at them. What is whip? It's simply throwing the bike sideways in the air. But this isn't about Sean's whip. Sean learned to whip in his 30s. Or my whip. I learned to whip in my early 50s. This is about your whip. And this tutorial is for people who haven't whipped. I used to call my whips whiplets. They're smaller than regular whips. Not 90 degree whips. They're whiplets. I got good news on top of good news on top of good news. First piece of good news is if you know how to jump, little jumps, and you know how to turn, you're ready to learn to whip. Sean said to me that he practiced turning in a parking lot to work on his whips. His whips, they're really good. It made me want to go to a parking lot and do the motion. Nice carving turns that really get sideways. And most importantly, keeping your head pointed in the direction that you're going. You're going to learn how to whip. That's the good news. The bad news is... You're going to be addicted to it. We all talk about it. It's like, I'd like to work on my suicide no-handers. I want to work on my no-footers. But you can't because every time you come towards the lip, you're just like, I just want to whip. Warning, learning whips can be detrimental to the rest of your riding. I got more good news. The universe wants you to whip. The universe has been designed to help you whip. The physics you need to get sideways and bring you back are built in. I made a little pivoting stand to show how you can steer your bike in the air. All we have to do is get the front wheel spinning. And you'll see how as you turn the bars, the front of the bike follows whatever direction you steer it. When you turn the bars, you're harnessing the gyroscopic effect of the wheel. And you're able to steer the bike. When you're suspended in the air, the gyroscopic effect works even better. Because the only friction you have is literally the friction of the atmosphere. Almost nothing. I remember the first time I came to understand that I could turn the bike in the air. I got in the air and someone must have dislodged a rock. It was about this big. And it was right where my front wheel was going to hit. Like there's no way that ends good. For some reason, I didn't panic or get stiff. I flicked the bars one way, back the other way. Didn't even come close to it. That was an epiphany for me. We're not only looking like we're turning in the air, we're really turning in the air. You can change lines in the air. If you get this down, it'll save your bacon. Absolutely. All right. What do you need if you want to learn to whip? A bike. What kind of bike? Any bike. You can really do it on anything. You do it on a full suspension. No way, bro. Hardtail? Even road bikes. I feel like somebody's whipped us. That's right. Cross country, any size wheels, BMX bikes, dirt jumpers. They all whip a little bit differently, but the fundamentals we're going to show today are exactly the same. The second thing that I think is helpful, but not mandatory. Oh, flat pedals. Flat pedals. Yeah. So you need flat pedals. My feet tend to shear. I just think it's going to make things a little bit easier. If you are wanting to whip, but you just dedicated clips, it'll work. All the techniques are going to work the same. No matter what bike, the techniques are going to work the same. No matter what pedals, the techniques are going to work the same. And that is it. You need a little joy in your heart. All right, man. Yeah, be excited. It's going to be a fun journey. That was wind-induced non-whippage. It's occasionally blowing gale forces right now. Whips are one of the best ways to manage the wind. I won't be doing suicide no-handers when it's windy. I won't be trying that. Take your wheels right out from under you. You need a jump. A step-up is the best kind of jump to learn really any trick. More upward trajectory is better, I think. Because you're throwing the bike sideways. It doesn't always come back. So the slower you're going when you land a little bit sideways, it's just going to be easier, better, safer. So find something small. Find something you're comfortable with already jumping. That's another good way to know it's the right jump. In general, you want to whip so that your back leg is pushing into the frame. This is true of any spinning trick, too. Then your rear foot, which is pushing, can't come off the pedal. When you whip the other way, the rear foot, I've done it, potentially rips off the pedal. But, and this is a huge but, the way you're most comfortable is the best. If it feels right, it is right. There are a lot of components to the whip. I was kind of counting up with Sean. There might be seven different elements to whipping when you're trying to whip really big. But the two most important elements are where we're going to focus because complexity is the enemy of execution. Yeah. We're going to put two things in your head that you'll be able to bring those into your frontal cortex. You'll be able to practice those. With repetition, these skills are going to move into your muscle memory or we'll often call your lizard brain, the amygdala. The amygdala shreds. The frontal cortex is a kook. So we're going to focus on two of the most fundamental movements and these will get you whipping. One, the angle of the bike and the carve as you're going up the face. It's very subtle. You're not going to need to do much at all. A little goes a long way. Number two, your bar turn as you leave the lip of the jump. The angling alone will give you a whip. The bar turn alone will give you a whip. Yep. Either one of those two elements will give you a whip and if you combine them, you can get a pretty sick whip. As you ride up the face of the jump, lean your bike just a little bit to the side you want to whip into. The front wheel will follow the turn and the back end will just naturally come out. You don't need a lot of lean or a lot of angle at all. So start really small. As you start to get more comfortable, just slowly add lean and carve. As the rear wheel leaves the lip, there's no longer any friction to hold the rear wheel in and it moves out almost like turning on ice. In this whip, we again lean and even carve a little, but to increase the whip angle just a little bit more, we actually add some bar turns and you can see how that throws the back end out just a little more. Okay, and here's the final bit of good news. Finishing the whip is as simple as turning the bars back the direction you want to go. It does work out even if you're a little sideways. You're shocked how sideways you can be and it works out. You're going to land both wheels at the same time or a little front heavy. Push into the bars so that that front end is tracking more than the back end. If the back end is trying to take your bike off one direction that you don't want to go and the front end is steering the direction you do want to go, you want more traction on that tire that is going the direction you want to go. It's a special day. The worst day ever to do a whip. This is the start hill for dirt jumps at Valmont and this is a Sunday. Shit, it tells you something right there. It's just too windy. No one is up here. That never happens, by the way. Thanks for joining us on this wonderful windy day of whips. It was quite the joy ride. I catwhipped. Yeah, I had fun. If you like this video, hit the like button, please. That helps a lot. And if you'd like to see more... Whip it sideways and smash that subscribe button. And ring that bell because if you don't ring the bell, the algorithm won't show you next week's video that we're already working on. And if you do hit the bell, we'll see you... That's how windy it is. I'm glad there are no rocks right there. Yeah. Is it windy enough to blow the camera off the tripod? Yes, it is.