Start with the trajectory, not the shovel
A jump is a launch and a landing joined by a flight path. Before you move dirt, understand that the takeoff dictates the whole arc and the landing has to be built to meet it. Get those two surfaces talking to each other and the jump rides clean. Get them fighting and no amount of reshaping the lip afterward will fix it.
This is where a design tool earns its place. The MotoTerra track design app includes a jump trajectory simulator built on real physics and sized to your riders, so you can see the arc, the gap, and the landing relationship before you commit a single lift of soil.
The takeoff sets everything
The takeoff lip angle governs the launch and the entire trajectory. Near 45 degrees produces maximum distance, but that only holds on flat ground when the takeoff and landing sit at the same height. On most real jumps the landing sits lower than the lip, and the optimum angle drops below 45 degrees. Size the takeoff from the actual takeoff-to-landing height difference, not from a fixed number you read somewhere.
Shape the lip as a smooth curved ramp, a clothoid, so the transition eases the rider upward. A sharp or purely circular lip can buck a rider forward or pitch them off the bike. As a practical target, keep the load building up the lip modest, in the neighborhood of 1.5 g. For the engineering behind jump shaping, see Trailism, and for the underlying math, Lee Likes Bikes.
Pin the speed before you size the gap
Range scales with the square of speed. Roughly double the approach speed and a jump goes about four times longer and higher. That relationship is unforgiving, which is why fixing the intended approach speed is the first decision, not an afterthought. Sizing a gap without deciding the speed a rider will carry into it is the classic, expensive mistake, and it is the one most likely to hurt somebody.
Build the landing to catch a range, not a single point
A rider will rarely hit the exact speed you designed for, so the landing has to forgive both short and long. Match the landing angle close to the takeoff angle at the top (the knuckle) and steepen it progressively as it descends, staying near-parallel to the flight path coming down. Done right, a rider who comes up short or sails long still meets dirt at a shallow angle rather than slamming into a wall.
- A flat tabletop deck is the worst case if a rider comes up short: they land on a flat surface at speed.
- Leave 2 to 3 bike lengths of run-out past the landing before the ground flattens, so the rider has room to settle.
A useful cap on landing severity: Equivalent Fall Height
Equivalent Fall Height (EFH) is the height a plain vertical drop would need to match the impact of a given landing. Only the velocity component perpendicular to the landing surface causes injury; the rest dissipates as the rider slides down the slope. That is precisely why a well-matched, sloped landing hurts far less than a flat one at the same jump size.
Purpose-built terrain-park jumps have targeted an EFH of around 0.5 m across the whole landing, and mountain-bike builders apply a practical cap around 4 ft (1.2 m). Treat these as sensible design ceilings. One important caveat: EFH is experimentally validated for skiing and snowboarding, and adopted by mountain-bike builders, but it has not been validated for motocross, where bike suspension absorbs impact differently. Use it as a design cap with that limitation in mind, not as a guarantee. The foundational research is McNeil, Hubbard, et al., Sports Engineering (2017).
Choose a feature type for the forgiveness you want
Different jump shapes fail in different ways, and the failure mode should match your riders' skill.
- Tabletop: a flat deck between takeoff and landing. The most forgiving option, because coming up short means landing on the table rather than in a gap.
- Step-up: the landing sits higher than the takeoff.
- Double: a gap to a separate landing. The least forgiving, because coming up short means casing into the gap.
Size features to the riders who will actually use them:
- Beginner: 5 to 10 ft long, 1 to 3 ft tall, spaced 20 to 30 ft apart.
- Intermediate: 10 to 20 ft long, 3 to 6 ft tall.
- Advanced: 10 to 30+ ft long, 3 to 10+ ft tall.
Never drop a big-bike jump into a beginner line. Good tracks reward progression; they do not spring surprises. This is another place the MotoTerra simulator helps, letting you check a feature against the actual riders it is meant for before it exists in dirt.
Sanctioned standards for context
A private track does not have to meet competition rules, but they are a useful reference point. The FIM motocross circuit standard requires jump layout to be designed with rider safety first, gives special consideration to the angle of jump faces and landing zones, and for rolling waves specifies crest-to-crest spacing of 8 to 10 m with a height limit of 80 cm. Hard washboards and whoops are not allowed. You can read the framework in the FIM standards.
The jump is only as good as the dirt
Shape holds only if the soil holds. Jump faces and landings need a clay-rich, well-compacted soil to keep their profile under repeated impact. Build in thin lifts and compact each one, and keep the moisture right: a handful of the mix should ball up like bread dough. Loose or dry dirt will round off the lip and blow out the landing within a few sessions, changing the jump you carefully designed into one nobody sized for. Our soil guide covers how to get that mix right.