Flatland is a freestyle BMX bike riding style on smooth, flat surfaces without any ramps or jumps. Learn how to flatland from our BMX biking expert in this extreme sports video.
Feather the breaks
Shift your weight
Practice
Don't pull up too hard on the handle bars
Patrick resides in Campell, CA and has been riding for several years. His sponsors include Mongoose Bikes, Fox, Monster, and Calabasas Cyclery.
PATRICK BUCHANAN: We're going to start with a simple flatland trick called the Manual. Pretty much, it's balancing on the back wheel like so and keeping that front wheel up as long as you possibly can. This trick is extremely difficult to learn; it's all about repetition. You got to keep at it and keep at it. Never give up. What you want to do is shift your weight towards the back of the bike and gently pull up on the handle bars; while you're doing that, you're going to feather the brake and keep your front end up. While feathering the brakes, you don't want to pull too hard, that will send the front end down. You don't want to pull too soft, that will cause you to loop out. It's almost a fine art, it takes a lot of practice to get that down, and you want to use the brakes as little as possible. Use your body to get the balance point down. Shift your weight on the bike. See where you need to be. You learned the Bunny Hop; that will give you a good idea of how hard to pull up on the handlebars to get your bike into the manual position and other than that, the manual is pretty self-explanatory. It's a great starter trick. You can take it to the race track, to the dirt jumps, to the skate park and even on street riding. As far as common mistakes go, pulling the brake too hard while you're feathering, that will cause the front end to go straight down to the ground. Pulling up too hard when you start the manual, it will cause you to loop out, send you over to the back wheel or on your butt. Other than that really not too much, I mean, keep at it, repetition, you'll get it.
Member Comments