Looks like this occurs when you impact a slope while the nose of your bike is facing close to straight down. More investigation needed.

Ghillie's angle:

My angle:

My perception was that the forced vertical rotation forwards from the previous jump combined with stick position was of more importance than the collision itself.

Similar to how hitting a corner with the right angle and stick position can result in a collision that pushes you away from the wall and speeds you up instead of crashing.

Found another two examples in an obscure Niconico video documenting "rare plays" - mostly crashes. Scrub to 1:20 to see the moon bounces:

It feels weird I still havent experienced this yet, could just be that I immediately reset once I know it is not a good jump. Now the real questions will be, how replicable is it and can you be utilized to save time. My only theory where it could save time would be if there is a ramp near a finish line that we can get a moon jump, then somehow be able to move over to out of bounds and possibly get a lap to trigger, but again that's my only theory,

In every example, the player bounces off a downslope in such a way that the nose of the bike is pitched dramatically downward, then impacts an upslope while continuing to pitch forward. Forward momentum seems to be largely arrested once the moon bounce occurs.

For my example, I believe the stick was being held in a neutral position.

just saw the video, did he find a strat for moving your placement in a race?

Sorry to go off topic but take a look the run with the big heads at the 1:15 mark

AFAIK the only places this could possibly save time are before the big jump on Canyon Chasm and the Gravel Pit shortcut

There aren't ideal ramps for it in front of them but if you could reproduce this anywhere those might save time everywhere else probably just a time loss

Yeah, I saw that too, we should test that out

The only place I was thinking a moon bounce could help is like, Hill Climb

maybe but from the looks of it you dont move up you only go straight up

My thinking is actually detroit, you got that ramp right at the beginning, if its possible to get it there, possibly you can jump enough to get the game to count a lap then possibly either go out of bounds or go to the turn on the right

In all my time playing the game since I made this thread, I've still never seen this happen again. Seems extremely rare/precise

right after i say that, I get one on purpose on my first try lmao

If you watch the mini-map during the bounce, you can see that you can still get some forward momentum... this opens the possibility for it to actually be useful, since sending you straight up seems less than ideal unless there's something hinky you can do with that specifically

OK this one is nuts