How to Drop Off Obstacles with the Drop & Roll Tour's Duncan Shaw

 Show them some handlebar flex. They gonna go sleepless for weeks.

 Maybe not really being able to sustain a manual, but at least be able to consistently get the front wheel up. I personally prefer the manual method over the drivetrain method (the first one) because the manual is more reliable. If the drivetrain suddenly jams or skips, you'll land a little nose heavy (your own nose, that is). Some fifteen years (and ten days) ago I was riding along when I saw a nice wall to one side which we thought would be cool to jump off. Stopped, climbed on, wanted to jump off and obviously I hadn't had enough pedal rotations in the proper gear and the drive train jammed right when I hammered that front pedal. That was an ambulance worthy face plant. Obviously drivetrains have become more reliable and you need to make sure you've got your gears set up properly when you attempt a pedal kick like this and you'll be fine. But personally ever since I've always relied more on the manual method than on the wheelie method. That gap jump is currently out of reach .

 @vinay: you do not want too skip gears while gap jumping, but if have right technique, will not end as bad as you think, but wrong technique will always end badly so learn on small stuff?

 @aljoburr: Oh yeah absolutely. Start off a small curb and work your way up. I actually never really had issues with the pedal kick technique also on higher drops, but it was this one time that it jammed and I crashed that I felt I'd rather not rely on my drivetrain. That said, this was fifteen years ago. I was on 2x9 gearing (so with a front mech) and without a clutch rear mech. I changed gears shortly before I hit that drop and apparently it hadn't quite finished shifting when I put the power down for that kick. Definitely rider error that hadn't happened to me before. My point merely was, the manual approach removes the reliance on the drivetrain and at least for me, the less I need to rely on something, the more confident I get. That said, I've grown past this (and am currently riding with 1x10s and a clutch rear mech) and don't have issues with the pedal kick anymore when dropping off stuff. Though I think the pedal kick (and probably that gap jump I don't master yet) work best at lower speeds (as the acceleration of the rear wheel pulls it under the bike and lifts the front) whereas the manual approach works best at moderate or higher speeds (as your body needs some speed to decelerate which in turn pulls the bars back to raise the front). And the slower you're going, the more precise you need to be to get the pitch angle of the bike exactly the way you want it to be. If you're going really fast, there usually isn't really much you need to do other than loft off the edge, get your body in a balanced position and ready to absorb the impact. This being a trials type instruction though, this is obviously aimed at the lower speed stuff.

 @vinay: in a way you are right, in manual there is one less thing to go wrong, however sometimes you just don´t have enough speed to do it that way, and sometimes knowing how to add small pedal kick could save messed up manual technique too. The issue I see a lot is pretty much everyone who is learning this struggles with 3 things, Timing of the stroke, finding the right gear, using the wrong foot to lift the front wheel up and finish the stroke with the forward foot so you land in the right position.

 @Mondbiker: Oh yeah for sure as I mentioned a pedal induced approach is the way to go if you have little speed. I just meant to respond to the OP which was about the manual being challenging, my point was that the manual is most consistent as there are fewer variables to deal with.