Riding over wet logs noob question
 

Have tried to several times but the double blip not working for me when logs are wet and at an angle. I know it should not work. The front tire goes over but when the rear tire touches to log, the bike slides....what's the trick? I know the rear tire should jump over the rear log....help! Thanks!

The trick is hours and hours of practice. How much air are in the tires? 6 in front and 4 in the back. How big of logs? Are you trail riding or trials riding? It is all about timing. The main thing with wet logs is to make sure you are unloading your own weight. You might quit the double blip and just bunny hop or jump over. The splatter would be more correct when wet, but might bring a fast fall !

Try
 

3Rd Gear.................

ice screws:D

Actually the worst are the small 2 inch ones. They catch you off guard !

:nod

The trick is you haven't learned how to hop the rear wheel up over or almost over the log. it's called "unloading the rear wheel". It's something that you might want to practice when it's not slippery, but the idea is to get all your weight off of the rear wheel before it hits the log, and actually do a bunnyhop over the log as much as you possibly can. It still may slip so what I usually do is pull clutch in some, at the same time I'm jumpin ( in the act of it) so that it doesn't have full power to the rear wheel, then it ( the rear tire ) can kind of grip.

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+1

Unloading or un-weighting the rear wheel is the way to go... not easy though.

As others have said, it's all in the unweight and the timing. I wouldn't worry about any other techniques at this point if you are a noob to trials. The little double-blip unweight will work when you get it right and the basic technique will eventually come easy for you. I'm a relative noob myself, just having finished my second year of riding. I'm amazed at the things that are now easy for me compared to when I started. I'm also amazed at how much better many riders are. :lol3

In the video below, you can see the steps for a basic rear wheel unweight to cross a small log. It doesn't take much - you just need to remove your own weight from the bike so that it effortlessly rolls over the log. When you do this, the rear wheel is much more likely to track straight over a wet/angled log. Note how when the rear wheel does hit the log, the knees are bending and allowing the bike to continue to come up instead of pushing downward on the pegs.

As the logs get bigger, the technique is the same - just bigger.

<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/EzmM3rnGVh4" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" width="640"></iframe>

Great video. Thanks.
I can see it helps to have a lot of room between your butt and the bike, as well as a bendable rear fender. I like to practice like that with my twin shock but have hit the rear frame loop, seat and/or fender more than once. :eek1

Thanks! Will practice unloading the rear wheel this weekend! Video was a huge help!

Search for some of 2-plys log crossing video's - he really breaks down the sequence (in slow motion) and also shows/talks about the important 2nd phase of the unload.

In general. the greasier the conditions, the more important the clean technique and exaggerated body motion. You can get away with alot in dry, high traction conditions - so practice in the wet is really a great way to learn. When you do it right, its amazing how much difference it makes. (on all levels)

heres a link to the thread (on TT) with lots of good log crossing info.

http://www.thumpertalk.com/topic/964...ing-technique/

Thanks for posting that - I was going to dig it up when I had a minute. 2 Ply is very good at explaining what's happening and making it make sense.

The single most important thing that doesnt seem to have been mentioned, is that pretty much all trials riding is directly related to good throttle control. Without this, even if your basic technique for different obstacles is pretty close to perfect, you are likely to fail an awful lot.