The proper wheeling technique?

[Phil.]

I've been popin more wheelies than peter stringfellow pops viagra latly, but probably like stringy i have trouble keepin it up once its there.

Is it a matter of balance, throttle control or even clutch control once its up in the air?

[Phil.S]

I think its a bit of everything m8, i have seen blokes doing slow wheelies, so i assume there is a balancing point.
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[G]

I think the main thing is to not be scared.... Once you get it up to the balance point throttle control/clutchcontrol/rear brake can all be used to keep it there. But my main problem (apart from my dead bike :( ) is that I get scared as I get near the balance point and put it down again... I was trying soing 'stand up' wheelies by kinda standing around the tank, but then I went a *little* too high and really scared myself.
On further consideration I realised that by standing over the front I was making the balance point a fair bit higher and thus I got fairly near vertical! When I get my bike back I'm gonna try some standing up, but kinda hanging off the back rather than with my weight shifted forward. Hopefully it won't be quite as scary cos I can still see where I'm going and what angle I'm at but also won't need to be quite as high as my weight will be further back.
[/ramble]

[McJamweasel]

I saw a thing on two wheels about the wheelie school thingy and the teacher guy there said to keep blippin the throttle once it up.
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[James]

In my experience, you cant hold a wheelie blipping the throttle, you just keep increasing speed till youve got no power left when doing that. What you need to do mate is keep getting higher till you feel the bike lose its weight and the front and sit on the balancing point.
What youll be doing mate is getting to a certain height and then easing off. At the point where you wanna ease off keep going that bit further and once your on the balancing point youll need to do very little with the throttle. Its much more about balance.

My mate had a really old Honda XL650 Paris Dakar replica thing which would wheelie for fun. It really is about balance. Dont go too far though, you dont wanna spoil a nice bike Summy for the sake of riding on one wheel.
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[G]

I think I saw that... unfortunatley like most things on two wheels it was pretty poor*. They were using those anti-flip style things which are connected to the side stand to cut the engine, they didn't seem to have it set anywhere near the balance point so they were just getting it up to the point it cut out... nothing to do with balancing the wheelie.


* they had a thing on super-motos the other day, not only was the rider wearing an open face cruiser style helmet but he didn't do any wheelies, stoppies or get more than 5 degrees lean :(

[Zimma]

what i do is stick it in first accelerate past 5k quite hard to 6k dip the clutch while closing the throttle around 1/3 thenlet it hit the redline and drop the clutch, ive managed to hold the bike up at 12k for as long as i need without it hitting the redline, because the throttle isnt right open.
not sure how different it would be on an sv
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-Zimma

[Stevo]

As said before the only way to maintain an impressive distance on one wheel is to find the balence point. Then you can use a fairly constant throttle to keep the bike there for as long as you want, unless you ride a Ducati that is!
Hey G i take it that your talkin about wheeling your zx6r? I havent really tried deliberately, but it has gone very light on the front when i hit some cats eyes, during a third gear overtake!
My current mission is to get good at mono wheeling my speedfight 100, as people tell me that scoots are so easy to wheelie, but im not so sure i agree. I havent found the balence point yet, but its hard with 9.5bhp to even get it up that far. It comes up quickly, but slams back down again, I have had it right up a few times, but it either feels like its gonna flip, or else it just drops again. Maybe the tuning bits im fitting are gonna help some?
The best thing i ever had for wheelies was my KMX200, first or second gear, off the power no probs, and it was dead easy to control too.

[G]

Yea, I was talkin about my zx6r... I find it comes up really easilly off the throttle... just dip it at around 7-8k (I'm not usually looking at the tacho at this point, but somewhere around there I would asume) then bang it on again... another thing that I occasionally found my self doing was not actually turning the thorttle far enough... I would turn it enough to come up a fair bit but not quite get it in to the balance point... I now put my hand a bit further around the throttle so when I'm in the power band my hand's in a natural position.

[Stevo]

I take it that thats in first gear? I have opened the throttle wide in first and second, and it does feel very light at the front, but having said that i have never snapped it open suddenly, or shut off and re opened it again. I have heard that its possible to lget air bourne off the throttle, but most people i know tend to clutch it up on a 600, which again is something i havent yet tried.
Is there any ex scooter riders here that can tell me the secret of how to get a scoot to wheelie properly?

[G]

Yea, first, it won't come up off the throttle in second... but I did a quite big, completly unintentional wheelie in second with the clutch:
I was pulling out of a petrol station with a fairly fast moving car coming... I opened up the throttle as I straightend up and got nothing, realised I was in second and pulled the clutch, let go, still not much... pulled the clutch further and dumped it while revving it *alot*... the front came up high enough to obscure my vision and I buggered off.
In the end I found out the person in the car was actually someone I work with and they jsut thought I was showing off.

[Phil.]

Cheers fella's

I'll give some of them a try..Probably be some time before i try an stand up wheelie but that would look the best

[Scooby]

G, you know for a fact you recognised who it was (probably a female, aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii) and he thought, bugger it lets lift the front wheel up so I can ave my way with her
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[Scooby]

P.S if he denies it, as above, but with the woman replaced with a bloke lol
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A big enough hammer fixes anything!

[G]

[now what do I say?]


err... it was actually a bloke :(... but it's a really popular car... a red rover 25, there's at least two in our car park to start with.

Unfortunatley I haven't been able to/brave enough to do any other 2nd gear wheelies :(


I do actually do loads of wheelies on the way to work, but *try* not to do them when other people are around 'cos they probably will think I'm showing off.... I think I did one overtaking the MDs Porsche 911 coming off a speed bump, not good for my promotion prospects :(.. may well have been someone else though 'cos the porshe uk hq is on the same road, so there's a few around.