While bunny hopping is definitely a useful skill for mountain bikers to have, practicing it out on the rough, tough, unpredictable trails can be difficult. The Garage Bunny is designed to make things easier, by allowing bikers to learn their hopping at home.
For readers who don't know, a bunny hop is a maneuver in which the rider lifts both of the bike's wheels up off the trail – in other words, they yank the whole bike up into the air. Aside from just being a neat trick, it also comes in handy for clearing obstacles such as fallen tree trunks without having to stop, get off, and carry the bike over.
Riders initiate a bunny hop by performing a manual front wheel lift, in which they unweight the front wheel then pull it up off the ground. Learning this skill (along with the rest of the bunny hop) while riding the trails isn't easy for everyone, as there's a chance of overdoing the unweighting and actually tipping over backwards.
That's where the Garage Bunny comes in.
Manufactured by Oregon-based company Ninja Mountain Bike Performance, the device holds the user's bike upright by its rear wheel, pretty much eliminating the chances of tipping back or falling over. The rider can then concentrate solely on performing the right moves in the right sequence.
Their bike is still able to completely leave the ground, as the wheel holder slides up and down a set of upright supports. A sliding marker on those supports shows the rider how high the rear wheel got on each attempt. The rider can also hone their manual wheel lift skills by using the Garage Bunny's bungee cord system to help unweight the front wheel – doing so gives them more of a feel for what they should be doing out on the trails.
The Garage Bunny is compatible with 20-, 24-, 26-, 27.5- and 29-inch wheels, and is available now via the company website for US$599. It's demonstrated in the video below.
Source: Ninja Mountain Bike Performance via Singletracks
Seriously, get out and ride! That’s the fun of learning new bike handling skills. All it takes is about a 6ft square patch of grass. If you can’t find that, what are you doing with a mountain bike anyway?