Build Dirt Bike Jumps

Hone your track racing skills and learn how to build dirt bike jumps; then go ahead and design the perfect track. Whether the dirt bike is little more than a BMX bike or a bad-to-the-bone, off-road motorcycle, these jumps are not for the faint of heart. Play around with ground clearance and even rugged construction to heighten the challenge of the course.

Before you get started to build dirt bike jumps, make sure you have all the hardware on hand. You need:

• Sketchpad and pencil
• Dirt
• Backhoe
• Shovel
• Water access and hose

After securing access to all these building materials, it is time to get down and dirty, and build dirt bike jumps.

1. Sketch out the track and the jumps. Course design experts stipulate a 900- to 1,200-foot race track for eight riders. This size allows for thirteen to 26 jumps, depending on design. For novice riders, keep the number of jumps down. Of course, if it is just you and your best buddy, you can get away with just plotting a couple of straight-aways and the jumps in the middle.
2. Keep it safe overhead. Open space can be hard to come by. Be mindful of the potential air you take when jumping. Do not create hills and jumps underneath rock outcroppings, branches or near structures that can get in the way of a particularly ambitious dirt biker.
3. Pack in the dirt. Soil make-up matters when getting ready to build dirt bike jumps. Loam and also wet clay ensure that the bulks of the mounds are solid and will not give way, even with heavy use. Topping the jumps off with river silt--and tamping down on it--offers traction to the riders. Use the backhoe to get the dirt where you need it to go and then fine-tune jump setups with the shovel and plenty of elbow grease.
4. Vary the tops. The jump can have a table top, two skinny peaks between a hole, a spine and anything in between. Design landing areas to be higher or lower than take-off spots. If you add multiple jumps to your course, vary the sizes and also the makeup of the cusps. After you build dirt bike jumps for a number of different tracks, you get a feel for the kinds of challenges you and the other riders like.
5. Hose down the jumps and let them set. Water from the hose helps to speed settling the soil. It also aids in tamping down the dirt. Do not skimp on this step, even though it keeps you off the jumps for a few hours or even a day! Not having dirt spray all around onlookers--and not having jumps disintegrate after only a few uses--is well worth the wait.

Once you build dirt bike jumps like a pro, go ahead and swap stories with other sports aficionados. You will be surprised to learn that virtually any serious biker has a “secret” setup to their jumps that you might want to incorporate into yours.