"How-To" - Land Safely

[The Snitz]

Ok, here's the 4 - 1 - 1... It seems to me there may be some myths out there about how to land safely on a jump, and what position your body should be in, and also how to crash as safely as possible.

Every jump is different, I realise that, but the basic principles of body position are fundamental knowledge and need to be known.

Foot Position on Foot Pegs
First off, foot position on the foot pegs has been highlighted as a problem area. In theory there are about 5 footpeg spaces that covers the bottom of most our feet, which means theres alot of area to place your feet.

Ideally you want the footpeg to be resting under your foot from the instep up to the ball of your foot. This is the perfect area for the footpeg to placed. This allows flex by your ankle to soak up impact, but not to much that your ankle will over flex and pull any muscles.

Here's a picture to illustrate where your foot should be on the footpeg. Keep the footpeg within the 2 red lines illustrated ----

[The Snitz]

Over shooting the downramp

I've heard a few people talking about Bailing off the bike in this situation, of going to far past the downramp. This is quite a silly thing to do, as has been explained many times before, the dirtbike's we're riding now-a-days have 100 years of technology designed into the suspension. The suspension on a bike is merely made up of metal and some oil and gas... compare that to the suspension in the human body - We have bones that break and crush, we have joints that dislocate, and spines that cage our spinal cord that passes all our nerves onto the body.

Now it doesn't take a rocket scientist or even an avid gardener to realise that landing on your dirt bike is going to save a hell of alot of pain than landing without a bike. You should very rarely need to bail off a bike in most circumstances.

When you realise you have jumped past the downramp and know you're going to land on the flat ground, maintain a rigid body, tense up your arms and legs and brace for impact, and make sure your neck muscles are tight to make sure your head doesn't do a big bounce onto the handlebars and fly back and get whiplash. As you get closer to the ground, when you're about 2 metres from the ground, rev the bike as hard as you can. When you do this, it puts alot of momentum on the back wheel to Drive out of the landing. The chain and sprockets will then take alot of the impact in the "Driving motion" but this will save your body and suspension alot of grief.

This picture shows me before I flatlanded. I am directly above the landing spot where this picture was taken, and I'm still about 4 metres high, I landed about 90 foot onto the flat. You can see I'm sitting back a little on the bike and bracing for impact, my arms are locked with a little bend at the elbows, but not too much. As I got closer to the ground, I revved hard and brought the front wheel up just before I hit the ground, and rode out of it sweet! All I did was broke the plastic brace holding my visor down, that's it :)

[GStylEr]

I'd just like to add a personal hint to the overjumping position, I feel that if you bring your butt back more, then as you land your head and torso will fold down a bit which will help with the impact, and because you're further back on the bike your head won't hit the handlebars, which I see as a bonus. Also use the position Steve described if you're going short, hopefully onto a safety deck of sorts. If you're going nose-first into the upside of the landing and you can't get the front back up, then you may consider bailing, only because you don't really want your bike to frontflip onto you, pretty dangerous stuff. If you're going to hit the safety deck, rev just as you would for an overshoot, otherwise you'll smack into the bars and go over the front or somewhere and thats not a lot of fun I tell you that.

[The Snitz]

Coming up Short

I think just about everyone has had this before. We've hit the ramp to slow and just couldn't make it over and have come up short and landed on top of the downramp on the safety or perhaps on the back-side of the downramp, which hurts the most.

When you leave the ramp and go to slow, you will almost know straight away that you are going to come up short. What you need to work out very quickly, is if your going to get the front wheel on the downramp and the back wheel on the safety, or if both wheels will land on top of the safety, or if you will be on the short side of the downramp that I call the Back-Side of the downramp.

If your front wheel is over the downramp and back wheel is on the safety, you don't have much to worry about, just make sure you brace your body a little and keep the revs up so the bike doesn't bounce forward into a front flip when you hit the downramp.

If both wheels land on top of the downramp (assuming you have a large safety) make sure you keep the front wheel up compared to the back wheel. Let the back suspension take the shock first before the front to prevent the bike front flipping on a bounce down to the bottom. When doing this, you may find you bounce from the safety all the way to the bottom of the downramp, so make sure you control the bike and keep the handlebars straight incase the bounce sends you haywire.

But If you come up so short that both wheels are on the backside of the downramp and you know you're going to case the bike very badly, this may be one of the few times I recommend bailing off the bike. So many times we've seen riders case so badly their wrists and ankles just snap instantly like a twig. I remember Pete McCann did this quite badly and has been in a few Videos, Home Grown 3 I think, and was in Freerider, and someone, maybe Mike Jones at X-Games in 99" I think.

The best way to survive this, when you reach the peak of your jump in the air, and realise your heading very short, try jump directly over the handlebars. You just might be able to push yourself enough to slide straight over the downramp and slide down it nicely. Make sure your feet are first and not head! Try lean your body to one side, so if you land, and your legs crumble under you, you are already leaning in one direction which will soak up a fall alot better. In Crusty 8 I think, a guy does just this at Ox's compound.. Watch Crusty 7 and 8 and you will see it, it's a great bit of footage!

But it's all up to you, once again it's only one time out of a very select few that Bailing off the bike will help, but If you don't agree and wish to ride your bike into the downramp, I would stick with that too, as like I have said, the bike has more suspension than our body, and possibly just enough to soften the blow to not break any bones.

[NOLIMITS]

There is a really bad example of what happens when you come up short at the end of Moto XXX 3. The guy landed straight on top of the downie, cased, broke his back and died... I still maintain that if it's going pear shapped follow Steve's advise above..

[meesh]

hey steve are you talking about when pastor bails over his hangers and slides down the downy on his side/back sort of, then proceeds to get up and walk away?? lol. thats crusty eight.

i've come up a couple of times on a double thankfully my front suspension soaked it up okay, mind you they werent large jumps but enough to give me a nice bit of whiplash, i reckon (depending on where you are in the air) trying to bail over the hangers and sort of to the side of the bike a bit more would minimise the danger of gettin a bike on top of ya.

[Tanti]

Thanks for posting this up Steve good on ya m8!!!!! Its all sweet.

[yamaha_54]

wat about if u land a bit sideways? wat should u do then?

[Robbo66]

Hold the throttle wide open. This slowly puts the bike back into the general direction it is going. And if you are lucky enough, as you land, the bike will take off, and prevent going side to side, and throwing you over.

And most importantly, Look the way you want to go, not the way you are going. And also, use your legs and arms to push the bike back to where it should be.

Hope that helps. Snitz will probably go into a little more detail;)

[5th pinned]

if the bike is leaning one way lean the other way.

[I_Bleed_blue]

lol 5th pinned, thatd prob work, y didnt i think of that:d
( u might think im being a tard and being sarcastic but im not ok lol)

[kyle]

lol sorry steve, but when i read the title of the thread "how to land safely" i laughed so hard and so long ohhh funny shit, i think i have sustained brain damage from loss of air supply to the brain.

[Robbo66]

We can only hope.

[GStylEr]

If you'd seen the theories some people had about landing Kyle you'd realise how needed this thread actually was... It was crazy I tell you.

As for landing sideways, try to get your front wheel down first, pointing it in the direction you are travelling. This will pull the back end around and you be able to land fine from a fairly large angle sideways. What you don't wanna do is let the back wheel hit first. This changes your direction of travel because the wheel is driving, so once your front wheel hits things can get ugly. Just ask d_da_g on here... Few months ago he failed to bring a turndown all the way back, big concussion.

[NOLIMITS]

I agree with GStylEr get thwe front end in first and the back will follow the front... If you are way sideways and the backend comes in first I'd think about a quick word with God as he/she is the only one able to help you in this situation...

Ok, if that doesn't work then pin it (not too much as you don't want to flip it) as the back wheel lands so it starts driving you forward and minimizes the chance of a high side.. If you want tips on avoiding high sides then GP riders are the best to talk too as they spend most of their time sideways and the same rules of physics apply..

[milo24]

Check out pete mc canns stack in the warpt big gap challenge at jezzas place he gets wailed and his response when asked how he feels is quite funny.Pretty nasty stack though.

[5th pinned]

Originally posted by I_Bleed_blue
lol 5th pinned, thatd prob work, y didnt i think of that:d
( u might think im being a tard and being sarcastic but im not ok lol)

Lol na man i dont think that... The only reson i know that is my mate sam told me... So yeah we all learn these things from different people...
Adam.

[phat_pat]

Having a debate with some gay fella the other night.

He said you should always land front-wheel first no matter what situation even on overjumps. He says this because there's 2 shocky's as opposed to one on the back and also because of the front end slapping down after the back hits.

I think that it is best to land backwheel first or both wheels all the time, what are your thoughts on this and who is right?

[fmx_06]

ive always heard and thought that u should land back wheel first or at the same time. it makes sense, lol.

[allbonesbroken]

oooo sooo u land on the slope bit i thought u landed on the top pad silly me so tahts y i came off for titititit where were u steve when i need some advice

[The Snitz]

Me?? haha I was at my place thinking I didn't like the look of that downramp, and telling you the same :p Can't say me and Pete didn't give you the advice lol

[#000]

He said you should always land front-wheel first no matter what situation even on overjumps.



Hahaha, yeah ask him to demonstrate this for you and make sure you video tape it and have an ambo on stand by lol...

Serriosly if this sorta shit is an issue for any of you make sure you spend a lil more time on the track before you get to the ramps, by the time your hitting ramps this sorta shit has to be second nature...

Oh and always remeber, "When in doubt, PIN IT!!"

Luv Joel.

[M.r Mulisha]

I rekon its better t land back wheel first because it kinda pulls you outta the jump instead of sticking so much on you front wheel because the rim and spokes are bigger abd they would break easier
my 2 cents

[phat_pat]

Hahaha, yeah ask him to demonstrate this for you and make sure you video tape it and have an ambo on stand by lol...

Serriosly if this sorta shit is an issue for any of you make sure you spend a lil more time on the track before you get to the ramps, by the time your hitting ramps this sorta shit has to be second nature...

Oh and always remeber, "When in doubt, PIN IT!!"

Luv Joel.
Yeah thanks for that, just wanted to clear that up. the prick wouldn't listen.

I'll ask him for a demo next time he goes out haha.

Cheers, Pat.

[^_^]

hmm yeah i realise that people have already said to hold the throttle wide open to make sure you dont crash if your a bit sideways, but i gotta ask, when i jump my bike every now and then kinda whips out at the back and i dont even realise it, i was doing a little jump with my bro (got bout a metre up and went bout 2 metres across) and my bro said i whipped the bike out, i didnt even feel it! is there any way to stop it from whipping out? i guess i could try holding tight with my knees? would that help?

[CD_kap_kid]

at the crusty's 10th anniversary seth told trigger & link not to land on the front wheel because of the amount of force because of the big jump nd they wouldnt be able 2 hold it

[mso_rider]

hey i would like to know something im a newbie and havent ridden much before and have never jumped a motorbike before and i was wandering if i do some small jumps when i land do i hold in clutch or let bike idle when landing.

Thanks

[trashthumpy]

just land with the bike on idle or land with revs to pull u out of the jump better

[_fmx_]

if your going to over/under jump, primary rule is: your bike has suspension, u dont! use that suspension!

[rm_man]

hmm yeah i realise that people have already said to hold the throttle wide open to make sure you dont crash if your a bit sideways, but i gotta ask, when i jump my bike every now and then kinda whips out at the back and i dont even realise it, i was doing a little jump with my bro (got bout a metre up and went bout 2 metres across) and my bro said i whipped the bike out, i didnt even feel it! is there any way to stop it from whipping out? i guess i could try holding tight with my knees? would that help?
ur probaly leaning when ur coming up the face of the jump, or was it windy?

[__PETEY__]

or if ther a rut in the jump u culd be crossrutting.

[FmxJoshie]

ive had my fair share of spills with regards to overjumping... and putting the back wheel first with some throttle is the best way to go to help ease the impact aswell as limit the instance of you headbutting the bars.... if you have gone possibly too far, try to limit the chance of you whiplashing into the bars and where possible use a bar pad even if it is zip tied tight as impact with even a slight pad is better than bear metal itself trust me bones wont win

when comming up short, mainly from a trick perspective... try to attain both feet on the pegs before impact with a bit of an aggresive position... if you cant do this effectively it is also the better bet is to hit the ground on the second impact ie.. bouncing off rather than hittin flat on the first impact, alot more force is projected through the first impact with the dirt which makes the second alot softer as the majority of the force was lost during the first 'bounce'...

hopefully i have explained myself thoroughly