I'm obviously #3 in this video, sorry for the crappy quality, my buddies camera wasn't pointing far enough up .

What went wrong here? I've taken jumps before, and almost always get an even bike in the air. This was the first time I ever had my back wheel kick underneath me and my front wheel shoot upwards. My only guess is too much gas once I left the lip of the jump? Once I left the jump I was over the tank trying to get the front end to come down, by that point I got into "oh **** I'm going to flip mode" and didn't gas it once I landed, hence the hard landing .

Any advice?

 

You did not Pre Load Your rear suspension, leaving the front end high. Next time let off just before the jump face and chop the throttle harder at the face of the jump so the back end will " squat down " and then let off just as your bike starts to leave the ground.

This will pre load the shock and release as your rear gets to the top of the jump. It is kind of like a bunny hop effect in a way on little jumps like this.

If ever you are on a bigger jump and this happens you would pull in the clutch and tap the back brake. If the rear ever was to high then you would do whats called the panic rev, this will spin the rear wheel faster causing a gyro effect and bring the back end down,

Hope this helps.

 

im not an expert jumper but ima say way to much gas after take off. More gas higher front end, brake will bring the front end down.

 

Your asking a bunch of KLX 250 riders about the finer points of grabbing air and control while airborne !!!....???? LOL

 

Haha yeah, i've always been afraid of endoing so i give throttle, you are probably right, too much gas after lift off and too consistant from the transition

 

I'm no expert jumper but when I ride whoops and catch some air on other stuff I try and do what yzf125 suggested. It seems to work well for me. I usually stand up, position my body a little forward, slightly bend my knees to allow the bike to do what it needs then just before the compression part of the jump I roll off the throttle a bit and give it a good goose as the suspension loads up then roll off again as I depart the jump. I've found I need to be a pinch less aggressive on the asphalt with the throttle other wise you'll sometimes end up with what you did. I also found the bike is super sensitive to wheelies with any kind of compression, meaning, anytime you compress the front just a pinch and give it power it will wheelie unexpectedly well.

 

NorCalKLX, appropriate video for this thread. LOL!

 

Thats a super weird jump too. not much room to get your initial speed so its almost like your accelerating up the face wich unloads your forks even more? kinda same idea as it being way easier to wheelie on an uphill.

 

The best thing I found with the KLX is to just hold the throttle constant up the jump. If you accelerate, you see what happens. If you let off, the front is going to dive and what happened in your video will happen again, but in reverse

Accelerate up to the jump, and hold constant RPM as you hit the jump, a tiny bit of gas as your rear rides up the face, and you should be sailing!

I used to jump the KLX - it would fly pretty good if you got some speed! ;D

Here is one of the better ones caught on video:


And some slow-motion jumping so you can see just how soft the suspension is!!



Land on the rubber!

 

NorCalKLX, appropriate indeed. And yes it is an odd jump, no room to get straight, and a very rough transition.

There is a rail road track right next to this area they did some work on to "slow people down" hit that at 50mph while jumping on the suspension and I get about a car length of air haha. But I've never taken a ramp this steep before. Time to practice! Thanks for all the advice fellas!