DIRT BIKE · Hard Enduro
CLUTCH, MOMENTUM AND THE VERTICAL: LEDGES, STEPS AND LOG HOPS
13 min · Full library · written lesson, video in production
The point
After this lesson you can lift a front wheel onto a vertical obstacle from near walking pace, bring the rear wheel up behind it under clutch rather than speed, and clear ledges and logs in terrain too tight to run at.
Half the answer, free
The Technique
- Understand what the clutch is actually for in hard enduro, because it is not what it does on a road bike. In technical terrain the clutch is a torque valve you operate with one finger, and it lets you decouple engine speed from wheel speed so that you can have revs available before you need them. Speed is a blunt instrument: it is set metres before the obstacle and cannot be adjusted once you are committed. Clutch torque is set at the instant of the hit and can be modulated through the move. The whole discipline of hard enduro is the substitution of clutch for speed, because the terrain that defines the sport - tight, steep, rocky, wooded - does not give you the room to run at anything. Set your lever so the bite point falls under the first joint of your index finger with your other three fingers still on the bar, and set the free play so you can find that point without looking.
- Learn where the bike lifts from and stop trying to pull it up. A dirt bike front wheel does not come up because you pull the bars; it comes up because the rear tyre drives forward against the ground while your mass stays behind the steering head. The pull is only the trigger for the compression. The actual sequence is compress the forks by loading your weight forward and down, then let them rebound, and feed drive to the rear tyre at the moment the forks are extending. The fork rebound throws mass upward, the drive rotates the bike around the rear contact patch, and your job is to be in the right place with the right amount of torque at that instant. If you are pulling with your arms you are fighting the suspension instead of using it, and the wheel will come up late, low, and only as high as your biceps allow.
- Drill the basic clutch lift on flat ground until it is a reflex, because everything vertical is built on it. Second gear, idle speed, standing, weight neutral. Push down into the bars to compress the forks, and as they rebound, do two things together: shift your hips back over the rear guard and release the clutch across the bite point while the throttle sits somewhere around a quarter turn. Do not open the throttle at the same moment - the throttle is already there, the clutch is the switch. The wheel should come to knee height with no arm effort at all. When it does, you have found the timing. Now do it fifty times and pay attention to what happens when you are half a beat early (the forks are still compressing, the wheel stays down, the bike lurches) and half a beat late (the forks have already returned, you get a flat drive and a lurch forward but no lift). That error window is about a tenth of a second and learning to feel which side of it you are on is the whole skill.
Still under the glass
- The double blip timing, front wheel placement past the lip, and the rear unweight that climbs
- 6 more technique steps
- The 5 mistakes that undo it, with fixes
- The drill that builds the reflex
- The safety non-negotiables
It opens when you book a trip that runs dirt bike - these are the exact drills you run with your coach out there. Your booking unlocks this whole library.
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