The whip

The most prestigious trick in racing is the whip. I'm going to tell you the way I do the whip and hopefully it will help you.
Picture of Justin Barcia whipping available at http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/PhotoGallerys/Justin-Barcia-unadilla.jpg

When going up the jump your body should be slightly forward on the bike. Being forward on the bike helps in bringing the back of the bike up and around. When approaching the jump let off on the gas. And begin to preload the suspension.


Next, start angling your bike towards the left side of the lip. If you are going to do a right turn your bike is already leaning towards your right foot. When you are at the base of the lip, you’ll want to twist the throttle throttle quick and then let go. This will give you more pop off the lip instead of powering through the lip like you think you would need to do. It is also important to let off the throttle right before the lip and preload the suspension to give you more lift.

Just after you leave the lip of the jump your head and shoulders will choose where your bike is going to go. As with any trick your body and bike will follow where your head and shoulders are aimed.

You should already be starting to look at your landing. There is no throttling here at all.
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Your bike should start to lay over easy now. You should not have to muscle a whip. It is more of a flow kind of thing rather than a muscle thing. Only your hands should be controlling the whip; it should flow the whole way through. Holding onto the bike with your right foot will help ensure you don’t lose the bike. Still, there is no throttle in this section of the jump.

Now you should be focused on your landing. Right when you get ready to land the whip, give it gas which will help straighten the bike up

The Scrub.

Well first you need to know the difference between the whip and the scrub, which are commonly misunderstood. A whip is when you turn the bike sideways in the air which is used to look cool or set up for the corner after the jump.

The scrub is used to scrub off height which makes you stay lower to the ground. Some people believe is reduces speed to but it doesn't it just reduces the height.

When whipping you turn the bike in the air. The scrub is when you turn the bike while going up the face of the jump.

When racing dirt bikes your goal is to get around the track as fast as possible. If you could find a way to stay lower over jumps you would be able to go faster.

When you go up to a jump and your behind someone you can scrub a jump which will keep you lower to the ground so you will be able to go faster. Basic physics prove that you lose speed in the air unless you do something like riding off of a building on your dirt bike.

Therefore you can be on the ground and accelerating why the other rider is still in the air. That could be the difference between winning the championship and getting second.


The scrub will allow you to go faster. The the Dirt Bike Blogger said "whip for show, scrub to go" which is a correct accusation because the whip is to look cool and the scrub is to go faster.

The scrub is a very hard trick to master. It can take a lot of practice to master the scrub. If you master the scrub it can be the difference between first and second place.

Property of Brandon Hargrave