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If you do get a road bike, don't curb hob on it or you will destroy the wheels in no time! If you are not totally confident in bike handling you might be bette

by jiggy2011 14y ago

If you do get a road bike, don't curb hob on it or you will destroy the wheels in no time! If you are not totally confident in bike handling you might be better off with a hybrid model where you still have some of the comfort and control of a mountain bike but with slightly skinnier and slicker tyres. Road bikes go faster and destabilise much more suddenly ,especially in the wet.

jacquesm 14y ago
You can curb-hop without destroying the wheels but you'll likely mess up often enough that practising that is best done on a very old bike. Obviously hopping 'down' is no problem at all, hopping up the front wheel is easy (just pull up on the handlebars as you approach the kerb, shift weight backwards and push on the top pedal, then drop the front wheel which should have come off the ground by now on the kerb so it never sees the step and make the drop gentle). You can practice that just fine without a kerb. The rear wheel part of the gentle kerb hop is the tricky bit, I can do it with my eyes closed but describing it is a lot harder. The basic idea is to move your cog forward quickly while at the same time squeezing on the pedals inward. That way you can lift the rear end of the bike onto the kerb. If you flex your knees a bit then you can do this even onto substantial kerb heights. Once you've mastered that hopping down is mostly the reverse to spare the wheel from impacting too hard at the end of the drop. If you're really good you can do this at speed without any noticeable bounce. I'd hate to do this with my 120kg fully loaded 3 people bike ;)
- Luc 14y ago
  Great description. This reminds me of the guy who (basically) won the world championship cyclocross by being able to hop over the barriers instead of carrying his bike over: http://xxcmag.com/archives/8282 http://xxcmag.com/archives/8282

jacquesm 14y ago

You can curb-hop without destroying the wheels but you'll likely mess up often enough that practising that is best done on a very old bike. Obviously hopping 'down' is no problem at all, hopping up the front wheel is easy (just pull up on the handlebars as you approach the kerb, shift weight backwards and push on the top pedal, then drop the front wheel which should have come off the ground by now on the kerb so it never sees the step and make the drop gentle). You can practice that just fine without a kerb. The rear wheel part of the gentle kerb hop is the tricky bit, I can do it with my eyes closed but describing it is a lot harder. The basic idea is to move your cog forward quickly while at the same time squeezing on the pedals inward. That way you can lift the rear end of the bike onto the kerb. If you flex your knees a bit then you can do this even onto substantial kerb heights. Once you've mastered that hopping down is mostly the reverse to spare the wheel from impacting too hard at the end of the drop. If you're really good you can do this at speed without any noticeable bounce. I'd hate to do this with my 120kg fully loaded 3 people bike ;)

Luc 14y ago
Great description. This reminds me of the guy who (basically) won the world championship cyclocross by being able to hop over the barriers instead of carrying his bike over: http://xxcmag.com/archives/8282 http://xxcmag.com/archives/8282