i cant believe i missed this thread, i had an article on wheelies....
How To Wheelie
T.J. Scott
Wheelies are no doubt ably the best looking trick for how easy they are on flat ground. Most of the time wheelies are just to show off, but sometimes they can really save you. Say you are at the track, 3rd pinned, you are going about 40mph depending on what you are racing, a huge rut across the track comes up and you are in trouble! You need to wheelie, and let your rear suspension take all the hit, which is much safer and can save yourself lots of pain and money. Wheelies are pretty hard to get the hang of, and are always dangerous, but they are pretty sweet to watch and do. Remember also, you don’t need a 450 to hold wheelies all day, a lot of people do them on 50’s, and I can do them all day until it stalls or I run out of room on my xr75. The first thing you need to do is find out how sensitive your bike is to getting that front end up. Tap the throttle, a little harder each time until your front end comes up. Make sure while you’re doing this to be pulling hard on the handlebars and sitting towards the back of the bike. After you’ve done that, you need to practice bringing them back down for when you get a little too high. To do this, you basically need to tap/hit the rear brake depending on how critical coming back down is. MAKE SURE you can do this quickly before you start doing wheelies. Now that you know how much gas to give it, and you can bring it back down in a hurry, you need to know just how high to wheelie. Well, you need to find your balance point. The balance point is a scary place, and if you go past it you will usually loop the bike. Now, like I said earlier, sit towards the back of the bike, and pull up on the bars hard before and during the time you give it gas. You will always know when you’ve gotten into the balance point, its when you are pulling up on a wheelie, and all of a sudden it feels like your front end isn’t struggling to stay up, it feels really loose up in the air. And it is, you need to realize in order to keep it up there, you can’t pin it, you need to smoothly roll some gas on once you start going back down. Now, once you start going back down and you are about to run out of safe rpm’s, its time to shift. Shifting in a wheelie is really hard to get used to, but it can be done. Whether you use clutch or not, is up to you. I always use clutch, but that’s mostly because mine is brand new. It is damaging to your clutch/gears not to use it in a wheelie, just like it is when you’re riding flat. So, basically just shift up, and DO NOT pin it as soon as you get into the next gear because you think your momentum is lost. It is still there, torque does not matter while in a wheelie like people think it does. Pulling it up does, but once you are in the balance point, it takes about 1hp to keep the bike up. So, now that you can pull up a wheelie, hold it, shift, and bring it back down in a hurry, there’s one more thing that we need to talk about. Do I sit or stand? Well, I always stand, but you can sit on some occasions. Let’s say you are dodging a rut by wheeling. Well, you need to stand, and heres why, when your rear end hits that rut, you will need to keep your weight distributed in the exact same spot the whole time, which is very hard/impossible to do when you go over the smallest bump. So, sitting while wheeling over a rut will usually result in you either looping it, or going sideways and flipping over in a wheelie. Now, let’s say you are on flat ground, you can do whichever you want, I myself find standing to look cooler unless you are planning on pushing the balance point to it’s limits. Not only that, but its just easier to pull it up that way. So, there is a time for both. Now, one of the last things we need to talk about is terrain. Of course your bike won’t hook up as good on wet grass as it will on asphalt. So make sure the slicker the terrain, the less extra power you give the bike. Giving more power to the rear wheel to compensate for the slicker terrain will never work because all that this does is make the rear wheel lose all of it’s friction to the ground by spinning the tire with more force than it can take without slipping.
2 Stroke Procedure
Now, everything that I just said applies to you 2 strokers too, I just need to show you an easier procedure, especially for the 125 guys! First, start in first gear, power up to the powerband. With that done, bend your knees and elbows, you are getting ready to pull up. Now, allow your bike time to idle back down to where when you pin it, you will be back into the middle of the powerband (1-3 seconds) Now, the second you are sure you are there, use your bent elbows and knees to pull as hard as you can on your front end, and at that exact second, pin the bike right back into the powerband! This shock of power and weight distribution will for sure make your front end come up, and you will find yourself into the balance point in a matter of split seconds! Just don’t over do it. Now, on a 2 stroke, terrain has an even bigger difference on how your bike reacts to this shock in power. Like I said, if you find yourself on a gravel road, or wet grass, pull back less hard than usual, and try to give the bike just enough power to wheelie, without the rear wheel breaking loose. Trying to use more power and pulling harder than usual will just make it worse and you will for sure never get it.
So, with these tips hopefully you will be wheeling in no time, and be doing it right, and safely. Good luck!
T.J. Scott
