Barspin

Whether you’re riding a bike or a scooter, the barspin is one of the first tricks you should learn. Although it’s only a little more complicated than a traditional bunny hop, it can add a lot of extra style to your regular tricks. By knowing the right hand movements, practicing often, and having confidence in yourself, you can learn to barspin like a pro.

Steps

Doing a BMX Barspin

1. Perfect your bunny hop. Start riding your bike at a comfortable speed. Using your arm muscles, pull the front wheel of the bike upwards. As you do, shrug forward with your shoulders and use your leg muscles to lift the back of the bike up as well. Take some time to practice getting both wheels off the ground before you add in any bar spinning.
   • A bunny hop can be broken down into a front pull and a back hop, both of which involve lifting one wheel off the ground. Practice each of these before trying to do a full bunny hop.
   • The higher your bunny hop is, the more time you’ll have to do a barspin. Work on getting your bunny hops as high as possible.
   • Try and keep your wheels roughly level when you do a bunny hop. This will make the landing easier and give you more control as you do tricks in the air.
2. Practice spinning the bars on the ground. Sit on your bike and press the back wheel against a wall to keep it from moving. Raise the front wheel off the ground slightly so that it can move freely. Lift one hand off the handlebars as you use the other to pull one side of the bars towards you, setting them spinning. Let the handlebars spin a full 360-degrees before catching them with the opposite hand on the opposite handle.
   • It’s much easier to practice this on the ground than it is in the air. Get the motion of the handlebars and your hand movements perfect before you combine it with the bunny hop.
   • If you ride with your right foot forward, you should use your right hand to start the barspin. If you ride with your left foot forward, use your left hand. This will reduce the chance of the bar hitting your knees as you spin it.
   • Practice doing a barspin in both directions to see which method is most comfortable for you. Whichever one feels best is probably the best way to go.
3. Start riding along the ground at a comfortable speed. Unlike some other tricks, the barspin doesn’t need a lot of speed. Start pedaling until you reach a speed that you’re comfortable with.
   • If you’re worried about crashing, practice your barspin on a soft surface, such as grass, instead of on pavement or concrete.
4. Do a bunny hop as high as you can. Once you’ve reached your desired speed, wind up and do a bunny hop. Once you're in the air, begin leveling out your bike. Try and keep the front wheel slightly above the back wheel, as the front will drop slightly when you spin the handlebars.
5. Spin the bar. Using the same movement that you’ve practiced, pull one side of the bar towards your body as you lift your hands slightly away from the bar. As you do so, stay focused on the bar so that you can catch it as easily as possible.
   • Always pull the bar towards your body, rather than pulling it up or pushing it down as you spin it. Pulling it towards you will keep the bike level, where anything else will throw of your trick.
   • Spin the bar as quickly you can after getting the bike level. The sooner you spin, the more time you'll have to regain control of the bars before landing the trick.
6. Catch the bar and land the trick. As the bar spins back around to its original position, catch it and drop both hands back onto the handlebars. Bend your knees slightly to soften your landing and push the back wheel down slightly so that it hits the ground first. As you do, straighten the front wheel to prevent your bike from swerving to complete the landing.
   • Let your knees bend naturally as you land, before standing back up slightly on the bike. This will absorb some of the shock of hitting the ground.
   • Pulling off the landing is the most important part of a trick! Hold on tightly to the handlebars and bend your knees slightly as you land. This will help make sure you maintain control of the bike after it hits the ground.
   • Keep your hands hovering over the handlebars as you let them spin and wait to catch them. You’ll only have your hands off the handlebars for a second or two at the most, so don’t move them too far away.

Barspinning on a Scooter

1. Practice spinning your handlebars. Keep the scooter still and lift the front wheel off of the ground to practice the barspin. As you stand on the scooter, lift your non-dominant hand away from the handlebars and spin them towards your body with your dominant hand. Keep rotating the bars as far as you can move them.
   • To keep your scooter still while you practice, you can put the back wheel up against a wall. Alternately, you can just stand on the brake on the back of your scooter to keep it from moving. You could also position the scooter so that the front wheel is over a curb and isn't touching the ground.
2. Learn to catch the handlebars. Once you have rotated the bars as far around as you can with your dominant hand, reach your non-dominant hand under the dominant one to grab the other handle as it comes. Keep spinning the bars towards their starting position, rotating your dominant hand back to a normal, forward-facing grip as you do.
   • Keep on practicing until you can do this one smooth motion. It’ll be much easier to do the trick when you can spin your handlebars without thinking about it.
   • Once you’ve got the movement sorted, you can practice spinning while the scooter is moving. Stand with your legs shoulder-width apart and swing your scooter between them so it moves front to back. When the scooter reaches it’s highest point in front of you, try and spin the handles. This is the best way to mimic a real barspin without you having to leave the ground.
3. Practice the perfect bunny hop. In order to do a barspin, you’ll need to get some air with a bunny hop. Start riding your scooter at a comfortable speed and then jump straight up in the air. As you do, hold onto the handlebars of the scooter and lift it up with your body. Practice doing a bunny hop until you can jump easily and as high as possible.
   • The higher you jump, the more time you’ll have to get your barspin perfect and regain control of the handlebars before you hit the ground. See how high you can bunny hop.
   • Make sure you keep your feet firmly planted on the deck of your scooter and keep your front wheel straight when you land your bunny hop.
4. Combine a bunny hop with a barspin to complete the trick. Start riding on your scooter at a comfortable speed and do a bunnyhop, keeping your scooter level. As you reach the highest point of the hop, use the hand movement you practiced to spin the bars around and catch them again.
   • Hold on tightly to the handlebars and bend your knees slightly as you land to give you more control over the scooter when you’re back on the ground.
   • If you’re worried about crashing, you can practice on a softer surface like grass first. You don’t need to be moving to do this, just practice jumping and spinning the bar until you’re ready to try it while moving.

Adding to the Basic Barspin

1. Try hopping over obstacles as you barspin for an extra challenge. Put down a small box or another obstacle to practice jumping over while doing a barspin on your bike or scooter. Start riding towards your obstacle, and jump at the last minute to pull off a barspin directly over it.
   • This will add a little bit more of a challenge to the trick and make it look much cooler. Try jumping over cardboard boxes, off of curbs, or over anything else you see in your path.
2. Barspin out of a jump or a ramp for some more airtime. Rather than using a bunnyhop to get the air you need to pull off a barspin, try going over a jump or out of a quarter pipe to get the wheels of your bike or scooter off the ground. As you reach the highest point of the jump, spin the bar and straighten it up to land.
   • This might take some more practice to do perfectly, but keep at it! After all, practice makes perfect.
3. Spin your bar around more than once to do a double barspin. After you’ve gotten the hang of the barspin, see if you can spin the bar around two times or even more while your scooter or bike is in the air. Make sure you practice this and get plenty of air before trying to do a double barspin!
   • If you get your air off of a big enough jump or out of a quarter-pipe, you might even be able to spin the bar more than twice. See how many spins you can do, but make sure you always put your safety first.
4. Let go of the bars completely as you spin to add more difficulty. If you’re doing a barspin on a scooter, practice spinning the bars without holding onto them. Use your dominant hand to pull one side of the bars toward you and start it spinning before catching them as you land. This might take more practice, but it will be even more impressive.

Tips

• Practice makes perfect! Don’t think you’ll be able to nail a barspin on your first try. If you keep at it and continue practicing, you’ll only get better.
• Heavier bikes and scooters will make this more difficult, as you’ll have to try harder to get them as high in the air from a bunny hop. Use a lighter bike or scooter at first if you can, or be prepared to put in a little more work to pull it off perfectly.

Warning

• Always put your safety first! When trying to do a barspin or any other tricks on a BMX or scooter, you should always wear a helmet and kneepads to prevent yourself from getting hurt.

Related Articles

• Adjust Your Bike Seat
• Start Mountain Biking

References

See also

• Perform a Wheely on a Mountain Bike
• Ride a Bike Down Stairs
• Front Twist on a BMX Bike
• Do a BMX Endo
• Track Stand on a Fixed Gear Bike
• Go Faster on a Bicycle
• Play Games With Your Bike
• Rear Wheel Hop on a Bike
• Stoppie on a Bicycle
• Do a Jump on a Bike

Read more ...