Today we’re going to teach you one of the most fun, versatile and fundamental tricks on a BMX bike. and that’s of course the manual stick around because this is one you definitely want to learn.

So, the manual, probably one of the easiest tricks to actually try, but it is hard to perfect as with most balancing tricks is definitely not something that you’re going to get overnight, but with some practice, you’ll be able to get it and you’ll start doing it everywhere. It’ll become like second nature.

First Step

So first up, let’s just get this out of the way for anybody who may be confused between the two, a manual is not really.

You need to pull the front wheel up and you’re actually peddling to keep that front end up on a manual. You strictly pull up and use your balance point to keep that front wheel up, making it much harder than a wheelie.

So, one of the best things about learning manuals is you can learn them just about anywhere, but a smooth flat surface or a giant parking lot that’s definitely going to be ideal.

Now a question may be coming to your mind if I own an adult BMX bike then is it going easy for me? The answer is all the process is the same, there are no differences at all.

Roll out a moderate speed when you’re first starting out too slow, and it’s harder to balance. Now, pull up on the front end and somewhat throw your backend out and away from the bike.

Practice, pulling up on the front end in a smooth and consistent manner just to get used to the motion.

Now, everyone has a slightly different balance point when it comes to manuals, but ideally, you want the front wheel up just high enough to where you can modulate that front wheel up and down, not too low to where you’re actually hitting on the ground as you’re balancing and not too high, cause that’s just gonna make it a lot harder for you.

So somewhere right around here, again, just Neff to Rican, a modulator that front wheel up and down as you’re balancing.

Another thing is you want to make sure that your arms are slightly bent. That’s just going to help you with that modulation up and down for the front wheel and make sure that your knees are slightly bent as well because doing a straight leg manual is going to be much harder for you to actually balance.

Second Step

Now after some practice, you’re probably to the point where you can pull that front wheel up consistently and you’re just starting to feel where your balance point might be.

Now comes the hard part, and that’s actually keeping yourself in that balance point. Balancing and manual is a combination of both knee and our movement to keep yourself locked into that exact balance point.

As you feel the front wheel start to drop, you need to straighten out your legs. This will start bringing the front wheel back up.

Now on the contrary, if the front wheel starts to go up too high, you’ll need to pull your legs inward and move your body weight ever so slightly forward to help drop the front wheel back down.

These movements are pretty subtle, but they can drastically change the angle of your bike by repeating these motions. You’re keeping yourself locked into that exact balance point.

To further demonstrate how this works. We brought in the picnic table of science. It’s all we have. Okay. So let me caveat this by saying, you do not have to do this.

This is not how I learned it, but it might help you in the long run just to kind of figure out how you use your arms and your knees to balance with that being said, you pulled yourself up into that manual position.

Do you feel like the front wheel is starting to come down? What you do is push out with your knees and you can see that brings the front end up a little bit. Here you also need to be careful about a knee injury.

Now, when you start to feel like the front end is going too high, you can bring your knees in, bring your arms up.

Your body weight is going a little bit over the front end of the bike that helps bring the front end down a little bit and then again, you repeat the process. If you like is going to low push out again and that’s exactly what a manual is.

It’s, you’re modulating the bike with your arms and your knees to keep yourself in that balance point consistently picnic table not required, but it might help you a little bit just to kind of help figure out how that motion works.

Third Step

I recommend giving yourself goals to help practice in a parking lot. Like this tries and manually one parking space at a time.

Then bump it up to two, three, and so on slowly but surely you will find your balance point and learn to keep it there. You’ll get to the point where you’re balancing forward and back, but you’re starting to fall left and right to compensate for this and It’s all in the hips.

If you’re starting to fall over to the left, move your hips to the right and vice versa. This is also how you turn when manually.

Now, as I mentioned before, manuals are not one of those tricks that you’re just going to learn overnight.

It is likely going to take months and months of practice before it can dial it in before you can consistently pull that front wheel up and keep it there within your balance point.

That being said, once you do, you open up a ton of different possibilities and combinations within your riding.

If you’re a freestyle rider, you can do manuals in and out of tricks. The possibilities are pretty much endless. When it comes to your racers, you can manual in between parts of the track.

It’s faster and It’s one of those tricks that at its core, it’s a fundamental BMX trick that every bike rider should learn how to do.

Just keep practicing and slowly but surely, you’ll get a dial. Then I know for me, it took me quite a while before I could just pull up whenever I wanted or hop into a manual wherever I wanted and go for, as far as I wanted, it’s going to take quite a while before you reach that point but just keep with it.

If you guys have any questions at all about how to do manuals, post those in the comment section below.

If there’s a particular trick out to you guys want to see, let us know as well because we love hearing your suggestions as always.

Conclusion

Here this article we are just trying to give you an easy and quick guideline of the BMX bike manual process. Thank you, so much for reading our article and we appreciate your support and we’ll see everybody in the next article.

You can visit OutdoorXsports for getting more biking tips and tricks and how-to articles. You may also like to read the bike size chart, to know which one is better for you.

Basically, at home or in the shop or garage wheel truing, gonna address the side to side. So, if you get a spin and do you get a little movement to the left or the right?

We hit something and you don’t have a truing stand. We’re going to be able to do it and basically touch upon it while it’s on the bike so let’s go and start our journey to the bike wheel truing.

Braking System

This is a sidewall braking system and it may not be perfect, not like a regular train stand, but we’ll be able to get you. Straight enough to maybe not rubbing on the brakes and all that good stuff.

What I’m going to do is I’m going to go ahead and go ahead and use the sidewall or the brake side brake here as my marker, my caliber to find where my rub is.

So if I give it a spin wheel is going to be moving over to the one side. Just establish if it’s your left or your right side. Here you can also learn how to true a bike wheel.

Then once you find that rub, if you need to, you can go ahead and tighten up your brakes, use your barrel adjuster, tighten up your brakes.

That’ll help bring the brake pad closer. So you can be a little finer to find that where that rubber is so established either.

You’re going to look for it visually, or you’re going to listen. I like to do both find the center of that rubs. You won’t establish where that rub is.

This one is over. If I’m standing looking forward at it, this is on my right, but if I’m sitting on the bike, it’s going to be the left side.

If you get it perfect to where you give it a spin, let the wheels slow down a little bit. Eventually, The wheel will stop, right?

Where you’re, most of your rubber is. So you can look at that and it’s this isn’t a perfect science, but you’re choosing the, spoke that somewhat in the middle of that brake pad where you can kind of move back a little bit.

Now it’s time to finding the center of that rubber boom starts there starts right about here and then I feel it, let go right about there.

So from here to here and then, we’ll find the center of that road, which is right about here. So my rub is on this side and I follow the spoke down to follow this, spoke down.

The spoke is going down to my left side of the flange. This is the same side as my rub is on.

So I do not want to tighten the spoke. If I tighten this spoke and it’s going to do is make the wheel, pull that direction, and rubbed his break more.

If you are going to choose this, the spoke on the other side and just make sure that’s still the center or close to the center of your brother and this guy being the center of the rub, we need to find two spokes on the other side.

Spoke

If I choose these two over here then these two are going over to the right side of my which is the opposite side of my rub and so I’m going to tighten these two and loosen the metal.

Make sure you find the right side spoke wrench and you want a nice tight fit nothing loose and so we’re tightening this spoke.

Pretend we have a screwdriver coming in the backside and we’re tightening clockwise. And just turn your spoke wrench the same way. So if I’m turning clockwise here, this spoke wrench.

Needs to follow the same direction, just like that. So if moving left or right, it needs to go the same direction in this case, we’re going to the right and you should be in a good spot there.

We’re tightening this guy when in doubt or tightening clockwise, just like this and this guy’s really, really new.

It could almost sneeze on it and they’ll come with something to give it another turn right there. So that’s one full turn right there.

I’m going to do this one here only because actually I use loosened one of these for learning and teaching purposes on this article.

After you tighten about a quarter to a half turn then you’re going to test it again. Just like anything it’s going to be patient, give it a spin and your rubs should be less or almost disappearing.

Then visually it shouldn’t be moving over to that right side or left side, hitting that brake pad. So just continue that process.

Then here’s the S the second method for using a two or three-spoke method, finding the center of that rub.

It’s like right about there. So say it’s this guy here and this is going over to the opposite side of my rub. The rub is on this side. DE spoke is over on the left the opposite side.

So I’m going to use this one to tighten. So you would tighten this a quarter turn and then you would go to the two outside spokes, which are going over to the same side as your rub, and then you would release tension.

So instead of going clockwise, pretending you have a screwdriver here, instead of going clockwise like this, we’re going to go counterclockwise and make sure this tool follows the same direction as this hand.

So we’re going this direction just like that quarter and turn to skip a spoke. Make sure you get the next spoke that is on the same side as that flange that you just we’re one down and tight.

If you find that nipples rounded off so rounded off you might have to replace them. You might have to pull your tire and tube off, take the tire liner off, replace that one nipple again. We’re going to be loosening.

So we’re going, counter-clockwise following this hand here, just like that boom and then you should give it another spin.

It shouldn’t be quieter or slowly getting quiet cause we’re just doing small increments. We don’t want to overdo anything and just keep doing that until you visually don’t see that big movement over hitting the brake pad.

Conclusion

In this article, we have described an amazing way to bike wheel truing. Here we have tried our best to give an optimal solution to how you can true your bike wheel so if you want to learn more check OutdoorXports and if you think this article is good enough then share it as you can.