When going off a drop on a mountain bike is it good to have more speed or less?

Question

When going off a drop on a mountain bike is it good to have more speed or less?

Answer 1

well you have to figure that out for yourself. Although, too little will make you go right over your handlebars. I like to be going decently fast, but not really fast because i feel out of control when i do that.

Answer 2

That depends a lot on the height of the drop and your skills/comfort level.  It also depends on the landing....if there's a specific transition or landing zone, you need to try to hit it, y'know?  lol    :o)

Going faster is easier and marginally safer as long as you know how to shift your weight backwards and keep from nose-diving.  Sometimes shifting back is all you need to do, and sometimes a combination of weight shift and pulling up/back on the bars is better.  Please make sure that you start out on very small things like curbs and gradually progress to 1' and 2' drops before you go big.  You need to perfect your weight shifting before you do larger drops so that it's second nature.  With small 2' drops you can still roll the bike over them....if you s***w up your not going to crash badly and won't have far to fall if you do biff.

If you have good control skills on the bike, and/or if you prefer to do slow wheelie-drops over the edge, then you can go slow.  Going slow really does require that you have more skill, however, and until you do, it's much easier to s***w things up and take a digger.  As you get to 3' drops and higher, you need to work on proper landings because you have more air time to fudge them and land wrong.  Dropping to flat, you want your rear wheel to come down slightly before the front wheel....dropping to a transition, you want to try to get both wheels matching the angle of the slope and hitting at about the same time.  You also want to try to keep your front wheel straight and have the bike coming down vertically instead of leaned over to one side.  Watch out for loose dirt and rocks in the landing, too.

As you get comfortable with air time, you can pump your arms and legs slightly (slightly) to adjust the angle of the bike for the landing.  If you watch freeriders and dirt jumpers (and bmx'ers) you can see how they maneuver the bike in the air once or twice usually to prep for the landing, often making a small adjustment right before they hit.

so....it's up to you, and it depends on what situation you find yourself in.  I'd suggest doing it fast on small things first, and then work on slowing down.  Progress to higher drops slowly.  This goes a long way toward avoiding broken bones, medical bills, and down time.    :o)