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Hooking the front pedal

An alternative to the front wheel hook technique and for lower heights, you can hook the edge of an obstacle with your bash plate or with your front pedal.

A fast approach

The pedal hook on a square edge.

This approach works best with a fast bunny hop or a pedal up followed up by a quick push up. Mainly popular under BIU rules where pedal support is not penalized, this technique enables riders to land their bike right across an edge directly on their bash plate, or to rest on their front pedal.

Land across the obstacle's edge

Rick Koekoek hooks the bash plate.

Abel Mustieles leans over the supporting pedal.

Approach the obstacle at a good pace to launch a regular bunny hop or a pedal up. Land on your bash plate, your bash ring, your front pedal, or a mix of whatever reaches the top of the obstacle first. Once you have landed across the edge, lean forward, bringing your shoulders over the handlebars and transferring your centre of gravity over your front pedal.

This will secure your grip and prevent you from falling back. At this stage, you can use your momentum to carry on with a firm push up to hop and bring your rear wheel up. Another alternative is to stay hooked and rest a few seconds to look around before your next move. On narrow edges, this can be tricky and you will have to perform a static hop, only resting on your front pedal.

Click on any photo and use the scroll-wheel to animate the move.

A frontal pedal hook

1° Approach the obstacle at a good pace to launch a regular bunny hop or a pedal up.

2° Land on your bash plate, your bash ring, your front pedal, or a mix of whatever reaches the top of the obstacle first.

3° Use your momentum to keep your shoulders moving forward and carry on with a firm push up onto the resting pedal.

4° Follow up the movement rolling on the front wheel, pushing the bike in front of you to bring the rear wheel up.

Biketrial video Watch this move in slow-motion

Keep things flowing

Abel Mustieles about to surge forward.

In most situations, it is best to keep moving forward until your shoulders pass beyond the edge where you landed the bash-ring or the bash-plate. Although this puts you into an awkward position, leaning forward while the bike is stuck at pedal level will help you push the bike further.

The next hop is virtually done on one leg since only one pedal is resting on the edge. Having a solid crank protection is essential otherwise your chain ring won't even last for a second try, also putting your chain at risk. This technique works well on large obstacles but becomes really tricky on thin edges where the lack of front wheel support makes it difficult to find your balance.