clutchless upshifting?

[BLOFLY 636]

hey I have been reading some tips on doing wheelies and have noticed several articles that say by using clutchless upshifts, pulling and holding a wheelie is more easily achieved. I am concerned as to what damage my bike would sustain if I were to use this technique (besides looping it ) is the gearbox on most bikes okay with such abuse or should I just try learning to use the clutch when shifting while mid-mono?
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Those bloody footpegs......they ought to do away with em!

[Grubby]

What you do is to put pressure on the gear lever & close the throttle slightly & the next gear will drop in, then you open the throttle again. Obviously this is done whilst up on the balance point or else the front end will drop faster than an American hostage's head in Iraq.
Oh & no it won't fuck up ya gearbox.
Don't you use clutchless changes when you're racing your mates then?

[BLOFLY 636]

actually I have never even tried to do a clutchless upshift I have always been scared I would break something in the box but I can remember a test done last year between the Ducati 749s and all the Japanese 600's and they (performance bikes magazine) said on the Ducati you can hold the throttle wide open and pre-load the gear lever with a small amount of pressure then when you hit the rev-limiter the next gear will be engaged in the blink of an eye! so I am guessing that one of those translogic gear shifter things cuts ignition and then selects the next gear before re-engaging the ignition is that what shutting the throttle, snicking the next gear then re-opening the throttle does in a way?? I should give it a go but I would really hate to hear a crunching noise that would break my heart
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Those bloody footpegs......they ought to do away with em!

[G]

[Sparks!]

Don't try changing gear in a wheely until your getting up near the balance point. In fact I wouldn't reccomend worrying about changing gear until you can go for a good distance and feel comfortable, but balance point is better.

To change gear in wheely you need to have the wheel relatively high as the bike will drop a bit when you let off the throttle to change gear, I've seen a few videos of people fucking up gear changes by giving it too much gas when changing and looping.

Getting up to the balance point and being smooth is a more important goal to begin with, in my opinion anyway.
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Current Toys: 06 Yamaha WR250F | Nissan 350Z GT | Tech 4 Homes

[G]

, forgot he was asking in relation to wheelies.

Initially I definitely /wouldn't/ change at the balance point. If you have enough power you can change fairly low and keep it up.
However, I would suggest that you initially try and learn to keep it up in one gear; if you can do this well, then changing gears won't be a problem.
Admittedly I have twice fallen off the back after changing gears (I think that was the reason anyway); remember, when you knock it up a gear at the balance point, turning the throttle by the same amount will make you go twice as far as before. At the balance point the bike will move back/up very quickly. But then I still haven't sorted using the rear brake to control wheelies :'(.
I'd do it a little bit below the balance point.

[Sparks!]

Yea sorry my post wasn't clear, I meant he should get comfortable with wheelying at the balance point for distance and generally be happy with the wheel up high and long etc before trying to change gear.

I haven't seen any wheelie pics from him but he sounds like a newbie to it (from reading up on guides etc.. I may be wrong?)

G, do you cover the rear brake?

I spent about an hour doing small wheelies forcing myself to cover the brake, I have improved a lot since doing this as I'm not nearly as scared as flipping any more... I nearly flipped going down my road but instinctively hit the rear brake....

Blofly, get happy with wheeling in general before learning to change gear... in general "goals" then getting up to the balance point and being "smooth" in general is best to learn before trying to change gear..

I'm no expert but have listened to a lot of advice from those that do it for a living and their general advice is be comfy with wheelying at balance point etc etc and being smooth, covering brake blah de blah and changing gear should be relatively simple when your comfortable and not just learning to wheely in general..
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Current Toys: 06 Yamaha WR250F | Nissan 350Z GT | Tech 4 Homes

[BLOFLY 636]

I tried to do a wheelie in 1st by just snapping the throttle open but it comes upp way too quickly and it is really hard for me to keep it at balance point should I try it in 2nd maybe? the reason I would prefer to try wheelis in 1st more is because it is a slower speed for me to attempt them at and I have a smaller chance of getting a head shake when I bring the front hoop back to earth it all happens too quick for me to grasp what I should be doing plus just trying to hold on to the bars without giving false intentions to the throttle is pretty hard too and I squeeze the tank so hard I get cramps in my hip muscles I need that wheelie school that I have seen advertised over there so many times! that would definately help!
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Those bloody footpegs......they ought to do away with em!

[G]

[G]

I would do them in 2nd, first tends to be a bit a violent on modern sports bikes; a bit too jerky when modulating the throttle, though a down-geared 2nd would probably be better.

I would also clutch them up. This makes them initially come up faster, but as you get higher it comes up slower, while using the power it comes up slowly initially, then speeds up.
It also allows you to bring it up at lower revs, which means that you have more revs to play with fine tuning the exact height you want to be at.

[Sparks!]

[r1_lad]

Personally, i found when i started learning to wheelie on the r1 that 2nd gear clutch-ups was more daunting than the 1st gear powerups. The clutched up wheelies came up far too fast for my liking while the power wheelies were quite easy to control. When you first start getting the front wheel off the ground theres just too much adrenaline and too many things to try and co-ordinate/remember at once.

I started doing 1st gear wheelies off the power and getting used to the feel of the bike on the back wheel and once your used to that its easier to concentrate on remembering the little things and not panicing if things go a tad pearshaped but correcting it with either the throttle or the back brake.

I did find that when i first started wheelying and wasn't managing to keep up the front wheel for very long that i'd get quite a few tankslappers, maybe there was just too much going on in my head at the time and didnt have time to straighten the front wheel. Now i am keeping it up for longer i very rarely get any headshake/tankslappers.

Now i've pretty much mastered the 1st gear wheelies and can easily keep it up till the end of the gear i've started going back to clutched up 2nd gear wheelies and i find them much easier now and less daunting than before but they still come up much faster than the power wheelies in my opinion. So much more fun though, picking up the front wheel at about 35mph and keeping it up till about 110 (the end of 2nd gear on my bike).

I've only tried changing gear in a wheelie twice and both times it just brought the front wheel back down. I'm going to practise it a bit more when I've got the hang of 2nd gear clutchups more, that and standups are next on my list
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RS50 -> RS125 -> GSXR600 SRAD -> 02 R1 -> Speed Triple 1050 -> Ducati Streetfighter 1099 -> DRZ400 Superetard

[Zimma]

www.zimmah.co.uk/wheelie.wmv Clutchless shifts.

Hadn't had my storm all that long when that was taken.
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-Zimma

[Zimma]

[r1_lad]

Yeah i got a mate whos got a sprint damper going cheap but i need to get hold of a mounting bracket for my 02 r1, anyone know where i could get one on the cheap (spent more than i can afford on my bike already this month!)

(sorry to threadjack!)
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RS50 -> RS125 -> GSXR600 SRAD -> 02 R1 -> Speed Triple 1050 -> Ducati Streetfighter 1099 -> DRZ400 Superetard

[hustler]

[G]

As yams said, relax. Holding on tight is also the worst thing you can do in a tank slapper.
However I have landed some wheelies quite crossed up and never really had a problem. Not got nearly as bad tank slappers as I've had on the road; and a lot, lot less bad than I've seen others have on the road.

When you bring it down, you want to make sure you keep the power on, if you are intentionally bringing it down and it's not that it's running out of power, you should just dip the power, then bring it back on to the same point you were at.. as the bike lost a bit of ehight, the same power shouldn't be enough to keep it up. Bringing it down slowly should give you plenty of time to get the front straight.


Personally, I think that mx style bikes have a lower balance point relative to the rider for the same speed wheely. However sportsbikes tend to have a lower balance point because they go faster.
The air resitance holds the bike up to some degree at higher speeds... so a 130mph wheely is getting a lot of air pressure pushing up underneath it's bodywork, so needs less power to hold it 'balanced'.


r1 lad:
In a power wheely...
As you pull on the throttle, initially the engine has to do a lot of work to lift the front, however as the angle increases, it needs proportionaly less power to get another 10degrees higher. This means that doing a power wheely will start off slow and get 'faster'.
It's good to learn how wheelies 'feel' for the novice as it starts slowly.

In a clutched wheely...
The initial, say 30degrees happen pretty quickly, but as the engine speed matches the rearwheel speed it slows down and then it's up to the rider to pull on the throttle as they see fit. I* try to clutch it up to a little bit below the 'range' I want to be in, I then pull the throttle on to fine tune the rest.
*well, not like I've done any wheelies for age, but when I did :'(.

So:
Power wheely=Slow, then fast.
Clutch wheely=Fast, then slow.


Blofly:
Not sure what stage you're at, but, something to try practicing.
Get the front up in first under power, don't get it as high as you can, but keep it up level using the throttle at a not too high height.
Get used to the way you can modulate the throttle to keep the bike at the same attitude.
When you start to run out of revs bring it down smoothly.

This should give you a bit more confidence.

Then try doing the same, but with a small clutched wheely to start; not so that it hits you in the face, but so that it comes up a few foot on the clutch, then practice keeping it just above this point as you were doing with the power.

[Zimma]

R1_lad.... It's an R1, clutch it up in 3rd... That's what I did.
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-Zimma

[Zimma]

[Sparks!]

The attached picture is the balance point of supermoto, he's doing about 70mph and wheelied for just over 3 miles non stop down a closed dual carriageway with bends etc... pretty fooking class! But thats the balance point on supermoto's I've heard numerous people say motards are harder to balance than sports bikes and I also think that the balance point for MX bikes is lower than supermoto. Not sure to be honest.

Me personally, I'm still trying to get to balance point, I think, judging by pictures, that I'm not far off It's just having the guts to go even further back

What all the supermoto lot say in reply to wheely questions is.....

Practice Practice Practice
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Current Toys: 06 Yamaha WR250F | Nissan 350Z GT | Tech 4 Homes

[Andy99]

I'd have to agree with Yams,practise is the key.You can't learn good,high,long wheelies overnight,you need loads of practice and time to get comfortable with the front up.
I'm happy on the R6 lifting it on the clutch in second but on my old YPVS i was happier on the power in first,so i think it really depends on you and the bike.
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Just call me General Crazypaws.

[Reevo8]

doesnt the fact that the zx-6 has a slipper clutch mean that you needent worry about clutchless gear changes at all!

[r1_lad]

Are you confusing a slipper clutch with a quickshifter?
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RS50 -> RS125 -> GSXR600 SRAD -> 02 R1 -> Speed Triple 1050 -> Ducati Streetfighter 1099 -> DRZ400 Superetard

[Reevo8]

i dunno, just remember reading something about it!

[r1_lad]

I may be wrong here but i don't personally see how a slipper clutch would really help change gear without using the clutch. It would mean however you could be in 6th gear going 100mph+ and pull the clutch in, stomp the gear lever down into 1st gear and let out the clutch. On a normal bike that doesn't have a slipper clutch that would lock the back wheel up and you'd be in trouble, a slipper clutch however would pick up the fact that the back wheel has waaay too much traction on the back wheel and 'slip' the clutch until it's safe. Therefore you can spend more time concentrating on getting round a corner that you know is a 3rd gear corner for example rather than going down through the gears.

A quickshifter cuts the ignition for a small amount of time when it detects the gear lever moving, having the same effect as letting off the throttle when changing up a gear so you don't need to use the clutch. The quickshifter lets you just keep the throttle on full whack while changing gear.

I've never ridden a bike with either so i may be wrong.

One question i've got though for someone in the know, can a quickshifter be used for changing down gears aswell as up? My guess would be no, as it's a bit dodgy and bad for the engine changing down gears without the clutch, even if you lay off the throttle completly when riding without a quickshifter.
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RS50 -> RS125 -> GSXR600 SRAD -> 02 R1 -> Speed Triple 1050 -> Ducati Streetfighter 1099 -> DRZ400 Superetard