Drops, hmm. To huck or not to chuck, that is the question. Put your seatbelts on, here comes a dreadful attempt to define bike control and gravity!!!

I know that just about every article I write has something to do with eating right or stretching adequately or starting small and working up to something (mmmm, progression), but I just can't help but beat that darn dumb dog to death.

I find that doing drops is a part of riding where I really count on my instinct and experience. Having said that, I feel it equally important to stress that having energy and strength helps your focus and your preparedness when dropping.

When considering drops, I usually attack them in three different ways: I can simply drop off the end of an object (hucking), I can come at the lip of the object with speed (chucking), or I might try to finesse my way off the edge so that I can quicken my control when impacting the trail.

A drop is the difference between the highest point of take-off and the landing. Depending on speed, the only variation to this is the amount you pull. Take a curb, for instance. If you vary how you roll off a curb, you can quickly emulate the drop scenario.

Here is DH dropping Digger's rock, The Cliff. He's using the same technique as he would off a curb, simply unweighting the front wheel and offsetting his body position matched with just a nib of speed and ZAAAAMMOO, touch down. Ideally, you would like to be able to match the trajectory of the bike with the landing, landing two wheels at a time. The art to this is having enough experience to judge speed for the height. This is critical! It takes practice! Progression!

To chuck, I really want to consider my landing. Obviously, height and lip integrity are important but landing is crucial. The idea of chucking is to bunny hop at the lip, thereby using speed and pull to allow you greater distance. Please practice your bunny hops and know them. Before I attempt to chuck anything I ALWAYS bunny 4-5 times in a row.

It is a fact that speed does not increase the height of a bunny! Style governs the height of a bunny, so given that you are thinking of bunny hopping at speed off the edge of a lip, please remember that a good landing is always a great idea! Have a backup plan that you can look at in case you spoil your original landing.

I have heard that using the formula, three times faster than one measure of height is a good rule of thumb. Even though it is not my favourite saying, it does give that horseshoe/hand grenade theory a try. When dropping or chucking a new object, especially something big, I always roll stones off the end to try and give me a relative benchmark as to how fast I need to go.

For those of you who like to pedal-kick or wheelie drop, I have been playing with a technique that I use in tight, confined landings. The idea is to approach the lip of a drop slowly, then at the last minute you pedal-kick off the edge and taper the angle of the bike using arm leverage and leg push, trying to match your landing. This also applies to doing wheelies or manuals off drops!

Beware dropping off things unless you are sure that you have enough experience to safely push it. If you find that your ankles get sore from your toes being pushed up, try focusing on keeping the balls of your feet directly over the pedals, transferring the pressure directly up your legs.