Pro Way to Manual Your BMX Bike Try It

18 Nov Pro Way to Manual Your BMX Bike Try It

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.