Some of the trickier obstacles for quad newcomers to master are whoops. Approach them at the wrong speed or wrong angle and you’re likely to end up on your head faster than you can say “whoops.” It takes time and practice to successfully skim over the top of these rolling mounds of dirt. Here’s how to do it right.

THE RIGHT WAY
Think of attacking a set of whoops as if you were skipping a stone over water-you want to “skim” from the top of one whoop to the next without dipping into the valleys in between. When entering a whoop section, approach the lip of the first roller with a moderate amount of speed-apply enough throttle to keep the front end light. Pull up on the front end and gas it so the rear tires carry enough momentum to the top of the next whoop. Continue applying a constant amount of throttle so the quad “hops” from the top of one whoop to the next.

THE WRONG WAY
There’s nothing worse than getting out of shape through whoops. If you’ve ever hit them wrong, you’ll never forget the feeling of having to panic-rev to try and keep the front end up, or trying to stop the rear end from swapping violently. First and foremost, the worst thing you can do is enter unfamiliar whoops with too much speed-hitting the face of a whoop can cause you to fly over the bars, and hitting the face of the whoop with the quad’s rear wheels can buck you right off the machine (as you can see in our illustration on the far right). When in doubt, slow down and focus on timing as you learn to skim over the top of the whoops.

WORDS OF WISDOM
If the whoops are very deep, or have sharp faces, you’ll certainly want to watch your entry speed. Some riders treat tall, peaky whoops like sets of double jumps chained together in a series-instead of skimming the tops, they will literally jump in and out of the deeper whoops. If the whoops are generally smaller, like rolling jumps, it’s easier and safer to approach them with more speed (only after having run through them once or twice to get a feel for them).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under How-To, How-To, Photo Gallery, Photos. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.