Everyone that's into street riding (And any bike riding as a matter of a fact) wants to learn how to manual, as it's a great and rather easy trick to learn and will improve your balance in general.
Step 1: The hardest part about learning to manual is to find your balance point, most people when they first try to learn either pull to little or to much. This either causes the front end to drop immediatly or the person landing on their back from pulling to hard. A trick that really helped me improve my manualing was always having 1 finger on your brake and when your about to fall back to far give it a light tap.
Step 2: Pumping your legs. When you straighten your legs while manualing your front end will raise, when you bend your legs while manualing your front end will drop. This is a key part of the manual, as this is how you learn to keep balance on your rear wheel. Basically, if your about to go to far back while manualing simply bend your legs in and the front will begin to drop, if your front end is to close to dropping, begin to straighten your legs and it will rise again.
Step 3: No one wants to hear this but the most important part of learning to manual is PRACTICE! It took me around 2 months to get my manual to the point where I can pump my legs to keep control and hold a decent manual and I still have room for ALOT of improvment. Also, when manualing ALWAYS keep your cranks level, parallel to the ground.
I hope this helped, thanks for your time.
Also, a really good thing about learning to manual is you can practice whenever your riding a bike, whether it be on your way to school, work, your job, ect. Even if you have a mission to pull to get to your skatepark or dirt jumps or whatever you ride, manualing is always fun to practice especially once you start getting it
Watch this video, notice how while he is manualing he is bending his legs and then at points he makes them much straighter, that what i'm talking about.
I have a question. You guys are saying that you need to keep your cranks parallel to the ground, but watching the video, the guy has his cranks parallel to the top tube of his frame.
Everyone that's into street riding (And any bike riding as a matter of a fact) wants to learn how to manual, as it's a great and rather easy trick to learn and will improve your balance in general.
Step 1: The hardest part about learning to manual is to find your balance point, most people when they first try to learn either pull to little or to much. This either causes the front end to drop immediatly or the person landing on their back from pulling to hard. A trick that really helped me improve my manualing was always having 1 finger on your brake and when your about to fall back to far give it a light tap.
Step 2: Pumping your legs. When you straighten your legs while manualing your front end will raise, when you bend your legs while manualing your front end will drop. This is a key part of the manual, as this is how you learn to keep balance on your rear wheel. Basically, if your about to go to far back while manualing simply bend your legs in and the front will begin to drop, if your front end is to close to dropping, begin to straighten your legs and it will rise again.
Step 3: No one wants to hear this but the most important part of learning to manual is PRACTICE! It took me around 2 months to get my manual to the point where I can pump my legs to keep control and hold a decent manual and I still have room for ALOT of improvment. Also, when manualing ALWAYS keep your cranks level, parallel to the ground.
I hope this helped, thanks for your time.
Good advice. You should put together a video tutorial!
when i manual i do keep my pedals level with the top tube, i basically just keep them where it feels natural
something i can add: when i learned manual, what made it possible was seting goal. i would pick a couple cracks on the ground then try manual from one to the other. once i get that pick a bigger gap. this kept me motivated
thanks for the great tutorial. i think i was born with the worst balancing ability possible. my manual is pretty weak, but now i have some tips to work at it. what i have found really helped improve my balance is riding along curbs. and trying to keep balanced at slow speed and staying on the bike when i come to a stop. thanks again
I have a question. You guys are saying that you need to keep your cranks parallel to the ground, but watching the video, the guy has his cranks parallel to the top tube of his frame.
Well ya while he is manualing because his front end is up but when your getting ready to manual you want your cranks to be straight and level, you don't want to be in the middle of pedaling or something.