Unhelpful Text Flatland How-To #3: Hang 5

Hello, and welcome to the third installment in my incredibly drawn-out series of unhelpful text descriptions of flatland tricks! This quarter's installment gets a little bit more difficult, in that I'll be explaining a fairly important stepping stone trick for beginners and intermediates: the Hang 5. I'd start off with a description, but the how-to is a description, and I'm not a big fan of redundancy. So let's just get into this.

Start off on the bike (obviously), rolling forward at a medium speed. A slow speed makes it difficult to control, and going fast makes it more difficult to bail out of it... more on that later. So, medium speed.

Once again, I'm describing this from my perspective, as far as which foot goes on which peg and whatnot. Trust me, though... it works the same with the other foot on the other side.

Okay... you're rolling forward at a medium speed, with both hands on your grips. Put your left foot on the front left peg, and put your right foot on the rear right peg. I've found it easier to get both feet on the back pegs first and then transfer the left foot to the front peg, but you should do it however you feel comfortable. You can also start off with your right foot on the right pedal if you want, but I found it harder to do it that way because you end up moving up as well as forward when it comes time to get into the trick.

Once you're in position, it's time for the hard part. Lean forward and shift so that all your weight has been transferred to the front peg; your back foot will probably come off the back peg, and your upper body will be hanging over the handlebars. As soon as your back foot starts to become unweighted, bear down with your front foot and push your handlebars forward with both arms to lift the back wheel off the ground.

Do not grab your front brake. I repeat, do NOT, grab your front brake. If you do, it's probably going to hurt.

Push your arms forward until your seat hits your ass... if you read my last how-to about the squeaker, you've seem me write that before. When the seat hits your ass, you can find out one of two things: 1- your balance point reference; 2- if your seat is too high or low. If the seat is too high, you're either not going to be able to hold the back wheel off the ground, or your arms are going to get very tired, very quickly. If the seat is too low, you're probably going to be going over the bars a lot.

Actually, to be perfectly truthful, you're going to end up going over the bars a lot anyway. At first, it will seem like the back of the bike weighs somewhere around a shit-ton (sorry for the technical terms)... you'll get the back tire slightly off the ground, and then it drops back down. Once you do get it off the ground, the second problem arises and it shoots up like a dart, and you possibly end up falling forward, completely entangled in your bike.

Since that bites ass, you'll want to teach yourself how to safely bail out of the trick instead of getting tangled up. If you don't think you need to learn how to bail out, skip ahead a couple paragraphs, and I hope you have good health and dental plans, because you're going to need both.

Since you've already crashed "wrong" once, you should already know what it feels like right before you go flying.When you start to feel that, push down on the bars, jump over them, and let go of the bike. Land on your feet. Don't be worried about your bike clattering to the ground behind you. It costs a lot less to fix a bike.

If you don't trust yourself to land on your feet, practice bailing into the grass until you're good at it. Seriously. Practice bailing until it looks cool.

Now get back on the asphalt and try not to bail. When your seat hits your ass and you can feel that oh-so-elusive balance point... hold it. Roll forward. Keep your elbows slightly bent so that you have some room to correct, and keep your weight centered over the center of the front wheel. Use your hanging leg as a counterbalance. Roll as far as you can.

If you're standing on the left peg, you might notice yourself pulling up with that hand to counteract the force of your foot on the peg. That's good, because this is basically what you're going to need to get a feel for once you start rolling further and want to start steering.

If you pull up slightly with the left hand and straighten out the right arm, you can arc to the right. If you push down with the left hand and pull up with the right, you'll turn in an arc to the left. If you just sort of keep your elbows evenly bent and let the grip sort of just hang on your fingers, you can eventually go straight for long distances.

To get out, lean back and sit down.

I've been trying not to underestimate how hard this trick can be to learn. Some people pick it up really quickly, but they're mutant alien freaks with magical anti-gravity powers. Most... don't. However, once you get a handle on it, you're going to have a foundation for pretty much every other front wheel rolling trick out there. You'll start trying to take off a hand, or put both feet on the pegs, or do that and take off a hand, or take off both feet and just balance on your arms... or just use your imagination.

Have fun with this one.