How to Do a Superman

Superman: a wheelie jump in which the rider's legs reach a position parallel to the ground.

Tsunami: a wheelie jump in which the rider's legs tend toward vertical.

The superman is a professional trick! Before practicing it, you need to ride a sit stander at high speed in a controlled and consistent way, and be able to accelerate and brake.

All jumps must be done with a ride-out, that is, continuing in a wheelie, so that the trick is complete.

Motorcycle

To do a high jump you need to enter past the balance point at speed, so the subframe must be shortened. The rear brake duplicator must let you lock the rear wheel with one finger. The passenger seat must have a platform or cutout for the take-off foot. The take-off foot is the one the rider pushes off with when jumping. To find out which it is, just jump on the ground.

Entry

The entry is done while braking past the balance point with the throttle closed and without pulling the clutch. During the entry the take-off foot is on the passenger seat, and the swing leg hangs freely. Brake with one evenly increasing press of the duplicator to compress the rear shock as much as possible. The higher the entry speed and the harder the braking, the more the shock compresses and the higher the jump. At the moment of maximum shock compression, pull the clutch, lock the brake and touch the ground with the swing leg. You touch the ground to better feel the angle and increase the swing amplitude for the jump. Don't let the tail touch the asphalt! A scrape kills the momentum!

Jump

To jump, at the end of a correct entry, after touching the ground, throw the swing leg up to set the jump trajectory and push off with the take-off foot. The moment of release, that is, letting go of the clutch and brake simultaneously, depends on the height of the jump.

The superman jump is very quick and doesn't require a deep entry past the balance point. You can release right after the jump. The angle hardly changes during the jump, so after release the motorcycle continues in a wheelie by itself.

The tsunami is much harder, because you need a deep entry past the balance point to compress the shock strongly. Release at the moment of the jump, when the motorcycle reaches a 10:30–11 o'clock angle.

• If you don't release, the rider will fly over the handlebar.
• After release the motorcycle travels a few meters while the rider is in the air. The forward movement of the motorcycle keeps the rider from flying over the handlebar: the rider effectively flies after the motorcycle.

Landing

Land only in a sit stander, even if the motorcycle leans to the side.

• When landing in a sit stander, the shock absorbs most of the impact energy and greatly unloads the legs.
• When landing on the asphalt, the legs take all the impact energy, and you can be seriously injured.

Today few pro riders do a great tsunami! The best is considered to be Benjamin Baldini from France. His tsunami can be seen in our highlight video Stunt Riding EuroCup 2014 from Vilnius at 0:55. Vitaly Pasevich performs this extremely difficult trick perfectly. At the recent StuntGP 2014 he was the only one who managed a tsunami with a ride-out in the final; you can watch it in the highlight video Best Moments of Stunt GP 2014 at 5:33! Don't forget to train in full riding gear, despite the discomfort.