by Shane Watts
- Enter the whoop section as “straight on” to the face of the bumps as possible, being in the standing position and gripping the motorcycle with your knees. These three points help immensely with the stability of your machine. Also, look ahead to help with your balance and ability to scan the trail so as to allow as much time as possible on how best to react to what obstacles are coming up.
- Be in a higher gear than you would for the same speed on flat ground, lean back and apply the throttle at a slightly higher but constant setting so as to get the front end light, trying to focus on skimming the front wheel across the top of each bump. Being in the higher gear gives the bike a better possibility of continuing to accelerate, helping you in skimming that front wheel and the bike powering (tracking straight) through the sand whoops.
- If the front wheel does dive deep into a whoop, you want to get on the throttle harder trying to utilize the face of that bump as a small jump. This limits your chances of going over the handlebars. Generally this then results in your machine slightly launching/jumping out of that bump. This is good as it can help you get back easier into the preferred “skimming” position. As you are jumping through the air, focus on adjusting your body position and trajectory of the motorcycle so as that you land rear wheel first, with the power on aggressively. From there you want to carry the front wheel in a short wheelie slowly lowering it until it starts skimming across the top of the remaining bumps. If you instead drop the front wheel back down into the bumps you again risk being sent over the hangers, or having to use excess body energy to “launch” out of possible disaster again.
- The key is to keep the throttle on in a fairly constant position for the whole length of the whoop section, just slightly adjusting the amount of throttle and your body position to control the height of that front wheel to be skimming across the top of the bumps.
- Also remember to be looking ahead to try and find a smoother line or a section of the bumps that have a more continuous rolling rhythm to them, e.g. it doesn’t have an unusually deep hole in the middle of the set of whoops.
