Whipping vs Scrubbing

I thought the use of those two terms were interchangeable. I came to find out today that they are not. The whip is when you jump and the rear of your tire goes to the side or you can laso do a whip as you come off a ledge.



Notice that he did not need a jump to whip the bike. You can pretty do it anywhere.

Scrubbing on the other hand needs a jump and the person who mostly refined this move was  none other than James Stewart, a professional motorcross rider. So when you scrub a jump you are trying to stay as low as possible to the ground.





If you allow the bike or motorcycle to follow the natural trajectory of the jump one will lose time by staying in the air. Scrubbing means that you get to the ground faster and that way making it an advantage.

Scrubbing for safety

I started thinking about this idea for two reasons. One is that I love to do a tail whip but  just doing a tail whip can potentially cause you to slow down. Although I mostly do a tail whip because my coach, Bob McCarty, emphasizes you are more in control when you are the one to move the bike. Second, I ride at the HULK and my dear friends who love to have more of a launch for their jumps redesigned one of the jumps at the park and whereas before we used to come at 25 mph, now that speed would prove fatal if you don't know what you are doing.

I started riding the jump in itself back and forth to really get a handle and since the launch section is so steep (probably not for jumpers) I noticed that I couldn't get the bike to stay low. So I kept looking for videos and I finally found something that has the answer. 

When you scrub you don't come up straight. You are supposed to hit it like if it was a berm and once you go over the lip then you turn your handlebar and the bike will adjust itself. This would keep you low throughout the whole jump. That is what I was missing.