FREERIDE FOUNDATIONS: POP, SPEED & THE PROGRESSION LADDER
10 min · Free lesson · written lesson, video in production
After this lesson you know the three currencies every trick is bought with - pop, speed and air awareness - and the progression ladder that lets you spend them on jumps, drops, spins and flips without paying in hospital time.
The Technique
- Freeride and slopestyle are not a different sport from trail riding; they are jumping distilled. Every trick in this module sits on the same three foundations: a controlled pop off the lip, the right speed for the gap, and knowing where you are in the air. Miss any one and no trick is safe; own all three and most tricks are closer than you think.
- Pop: the bunny hop is the master movement. A real one - front wheel lifted by shifting weight back, rear wheel brought up by scooping through flat pedals - is the exact movement of every lip you will ever leave. If your bunny hop is a hip-height snap on demand, you have the pop.
- Speed: every jump has one correct speed window, and guessing is the beginner's injury machine. Learn to read transitions, follow a rider who knows the line, and when in doubt roll it first. Cased and over-shot landings are both speed errors, and both are avoidable with one inspection lap.
- Air awareness: this is bought on trampolines, foam pits and airbags, not on dirt - the conditioning library's Air & Falling module is the companion to everything here. Shapes, spotting landings, and tuck-and-roll falling come first; dirt is where you confirm skills, not where you discover them.
- The ladder that runs this whole module, for every single trick: trampoline, foam pit, airbag, resi or soft landing, then dirt. Every rung, every trick, every time - it is how the pros you watch learned everything they throw, and skipping rungs is how seasons and knees end.
- Style is a by-product of control: the relaxed, floated look of a good rider is what surplus control looks like. Chase control; style arrives on its own.
Common Mistakes
Training tricks before the bunny hop is automatic. Fix: hip-height bunny hop on flat pedals, on demand, first - it is the pop every lip will ask for.
- Learning on the biggest jump you can survive. Fix: learn on the smallest jump that gives enough air time - more reps, more safety, faster progress.
The Drill
The currency audit: one session, three tests - ten bunny hops at max height, ten runs at one jump landing dead-centre in the transition, and ten trampoline 360s with a spotted landing. Whichever scores worst is the training priority.
From this module on the kit is non-negotiable: full-face, back protector, knee and elbow pads. Tricks in the following lessons are for airbag and foam progression under coaching - the written lesson is the map, not the permission.
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