Quantum I'm not a Pro or anything, but I can't comprehend your comment at all, or atleast I don't agree with it...
Nightbiker, I've been competeing for 18 years and I couldn't pretend to tell anybody how to whip a bike until late last year. In the B class you can't rest on your loins, confident that clearing all the obstacles is going to place you up front...because EVERYBODY clears them! So this is what I've learned...and like I said, it just kinda came to me with practice, persuaded by competition:
1) Grabbing the bike with my legs (like painstaking efforts to squeeze the bike with my knees), I shift my weight to my right foot peg (I whip to the left everytime...don't ask, it's old habbit at this point).
2) On the jump face I'm leaning the bike over, steadily further and further as I prepare for launch. If you think this sounds like I scrub you'd be correct...that's as best I can describe it so far. But make no mistake, it's
NOT a bubba scrub
3) Apon liftoff (and really at times before my front tire is even off the ground) I crank the bars to the right and simoultaneously force down on the right peg. And really, what I've come to notice as of late, at this point my left boot is usually not even on the peg so the left side of the bike is totally unloaded.
...at which point I can dial just how much whip I want...
To land I stand up, weight my left footpeg, point the bars in the direction of travel, grab a handfull of throttle and brace for impact.
But most importantly, I don't think you can take "whip" lessons like math homework. Even when I figured it out, I learned that jump faces are like snowflakes, and all of them take just a bit different body english to be successfull. And the whole bike coming back on it's own thing? I beleive it to be crank speed related. At high speeds it does have a tendancy to straighten out. But at lower speeds (ie. doubles, small rythm sections etc.) the bike makes no effort to do so. And I have to a large degree not decided if straightening the bike out for these is neccessary or beneficial. But as mentioned above, point the bars in the right direction, apply copius amounts of throttle and the rest of the bike will follow...so I've noticed
Apologize for not having any instructional videos...I'm lucky to get a picture taken of me in gear
Oh and let me not forget...it's exhuasting!
NOT energy efficient. I consider it a tool, worth saving energy for to make a pass stick. Whipping every obstacle will tire you the fug out!! Why during practice Mick has all kinds of sexy whips...then ten minutes later I'm back on the tailgate pounding Gatorade and panting like a St. Bernard.