Share

Rails & Jibbing

A Beginners’ Guide to Shredding in the Streets. It’s Not As Hard As You Think

Lauri Heiskari and his buddy Eero Ettala are masters of urban kicker construction. You don’t get on top of a feature like that without some serious building skills. Photo: Pasi Salminen

Any park shapers reading this could probably skip on to the next page, but for most of us this skill remains a mystery art. In my humble experience there are a few tips everyone could learn. Snow parks tend to teach us that you have to get on right at the start of a rail, whereas on ‘real’ handrails this is often impractical; watch any serious urban rider and you’ll see most of the time they’re getting on to rails two or three feet down.

You’ll want your lip to send you on a gentle trajectory to this sweet spot, too mellow and you hook up under the rail, too whippy and you’ll either loose all your speed and roll over the end or get shot up in the air only to come crashing down on the feature plus whatever’s below. Don’t be afraid of bulking up the stability of your kicker with a few pallets or bricks either, if it crumbles straight away you may as well have not bothered.

Share

Newsletter Terms & Conditions

Please enter your email so we can keep you updated with news, features and the latest offers. If you are not interested you can unsubscribe at any time. We will never sell your data and you'll only get messages from us and our partners whose products and services we think you'll enjoy.

Read our full Privacy Policy as well as Terms & Conditions.

production