We look at it, pick up speed, take off and — if all goes as planned — land on the other side.
It seems simple. But behind a successful jump, there's a lot more work than we imagine.
This time, Edo Perugino, a new collaborator of 365 Mountainbike, takes us behind the scenes., which is creating a series of contents to talk about MTB starting from the terrain, the technique and all those details that we often use while pedaling without really knowing what's behind it.
To carry out this first in-depth analysis, Edo Perugino went directly to Mottolino, going behind the scenes of the work that makes a jump line function as it should.
Here he met one of the location shaper, with whom he conducted a long interview to understand what it really means to design, build and tune a mountain bike jump.
Not just earth and blades, then, but speed, geometry, trajectories, experience, and constant field testing. Starting with the story of those who build and modify these elements every day, Edo leads us to observe a leap from a different perspective: no longer just as riders, but as those who have to imagine the trajectory even before a bike's wheels leave the ground.
It all starts before the leap
A jump can't be thought of as an isolated element. Before even building the takeoff, you need to understand how the rider will get there: how much speed they'll have, what their trajectory will be, and what they'll encounter before and after.
Speed therefore becomes one of the elements that determine the proportions of the jump and its insertion within the line.
Kicker and landing: two parts of the same jump
When we look at a jump we see above all two elements: the Kicker, the ramp from which it takes off, and the landing, the area where we return to earth.
But building them doesn't simply mean creating two mountains of earth.
Height, length, lean, and camber all influence how the bike launches into the air. The landing must be consistent with that trajectory and allow the rider to find the ground naturally.
The shape changes the jump
Not all take-offs behave the same.
Changing the inclination, height, or progression means modifying the response of the jump under the wheels. And this is where experience on the terrain and experience in the saddle begin to intersect.
To build well you have to be able to imagine what the bike will do on those geometries when ridden at real speed.
Build, test, fix
Then comes the part that no project can completely replace: trying it out.
How does the bike arrive at the takeoff? Where does the trajectory lead? Is the landing achieved naturally? Is the line speed as expected?
Il riding it becomes part of the construction process itself: you test, you observe and, when necessary, you correct.
The work we don't see when we drive
And this is perhaps the most interesting aspect of Edo's story.
When a line is built well, much of the work behind it disappears under our wheels.
We enter the jump, let the bike run, find the take-off in the right spot and the landing seems to come exactly where it should.
But behind those few seconds there is moving earth, geometry, experience, tests and continuous corrections.
The next time you step onto a jump line, you'll probably look at it differently.
Why A good jump isn't a pile of dirt: it's a trajectory drawn on the ground to continue in the air.
