Wheelie
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In vehicle acrobatics, a wheelie is a trick where the front wheel or wheels come off the ground and the vehicle is balanced on the rear wheel or wheels.
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[edit] Bicycle wheelie
To perform a wheelie on a bicycle, put the bike in low gear and pedal forward while pulling hard on the handlebars. While the front wheel is in the air, maintain an upright posture and lean around to control balance - do not hunch over the handlebars. For added control, tap the rear brake (forward balance) or pedal forward (rearward balance).
A wheelie can be maintained indefinitely. To complete the move, lean forward and allow the front wheel to drop back to the ground. Ensure it is straight on contact, or control of the bike may be lost.
Once the wheelie has been conquered the manual wheelie can be attempted. This is the same as a wheelie but without pedalling. The bike is balanced by the rider's weight and sometimes use of the rear brake.
[edit] Distance wheelies
To travel further on the back wheel of a bicycle, the rider must put the bike into a higher gear with the body weight leaned forward (over the handle bars if needed) and the stronger foot highest in the pedalling cycle. The rider kicks hard with the stronger foot, throw all their weight backwards and lands their backside on the seat, then straighten out the arms and put weight and tension on them. The rider keeps pedalling, and when the wheelie feels too high up, feathers the back brake slightly.
To lower the "balance point", put the saddle higher up, which will mean that that the "maximum height" of the wheelie is brought down, and it will also be more comfortable to go for long distances on the back wheel. There is a skill to being able to stop on the back wheel, and then keep going more slowly, this can be done by striking a balance between the back brake and the pedalling.
[edit] Safety
Leaning back too far (i.e. as a result of pedalling too hard) will cause the bike to fly out from under the rider. Although most riders will instinctively hit the ground running, practice recovering from this event before attempting an actual wheelie. Balancing left to right can easily be controlled in the air by moving the knees and handlebars back and forth.
Injury can be avoided by keeping speeds down and/or learning to use the rear brake. However, higher speeds, unintuitively, are often necessary to master the wheelie as more balancing skills are necessary with decreasing speed, which are usually not present without sufficient practice. For this reason, beginners attempting wheelies on bicycles should tune up their rear brakes and aim for an 12-18 km/h (8-12 mph) wheelie for maximum safety.
[edit] Motorcycle wheelie
A wheelie is also a common motorcycle trick. The principle is the same, but the throttle and rear-brakes are used to control the wheelie. On more powerful motorcycles (usually above 500 cc) the front wheel is lifted into the air by accelerating, but on smaller bikes the clutch may be used and/or "bouncing" the forks (using the rider's weight to compress the front supspension, so that the recoil will help lift the front wheel on accelerating).
Since the introduction of the GSX-R750, many motorcycle enthusiasts have learned that a threshold phenomenon exists with high power and low weight sportbikes. Wind resistance becomes quite large at freeway speeds, and any motorcycle able to lift the front tire in the air at 65mph and above can maintain the wheelie for miles without the use of a rear brake or any advanced skills.
The definitive book on the subject is titled "Wheelyin' With the King" from the late Doug Domokos, focusing on motorcycle wheelies.
Unfortunately, for dirtbikes, an inexperienced rider -and some experienced riders- will instinctively open the throttle when the machine "pulls" a wheelie unexpectedly. This serves to only worsen the situation, and almost always results in the rider "bailing", or falling/jumping off.
[edit] Motorcycle sit down wheelie how-to
There are basically two ways to do sit down wheelies. One way is to roll on the throttle and the other is to use the clutch. Using the throttle is a little bit easier when you are just starting out trying wheelies, but in time you definitely will want to start doing wheelies by popping the clutch.
If your bike doesn't have a side car, or a trailer, it can probably be wheeled. I've wheeled dirt bikes, street bikes, and a couple of standards. I've seen Harleys, Goldwings, Katanas, and 125's all pawing at the sky. Yes, your bike can wheelie. Wheelies are made up of three parts. The launch, getting the front wheel off the ground. The balancing portion, riding the wheelie as long as you safely can, clicking gears along the way. This is the most difficult part of wheeling to master. And lastly, set down phase, placing the front wheel back on the ground as safely as possible, trying to place as little wear and tear as possible on your bike.
The Launch
The launch isn't the most difficult part of doing a wheelie. But I'll spend the most time on this section, because this is where there is the most variation. The less power you have, the fewer your options are. I'm going to divide the launch into three sections. Rolling it on, suspension help, and clutch help.
Rolling it on
This is probably the safest way, to launch a wheelie, but it doesn't work on an EX-500, or many older 600's. Simply put, just gradually increase your throttle while in first gear, until you are wide open. If your bike has enough power, your front wheel will just come up. I've found this to work very easily on a Suzuki TL1000s, and a Yamaha R1. Didn't work on my 93 900rr, sometimes works on my Kawasaki ZX-11. Never works on my pocket bike. If you have a 600 that you want to do this with, just lower the gearing. With race gearing on GSXR600's this technique also works. With the stock gearing, no way in hell. So exactly how do you roll it on. Go to about 1/3 of your tach range in 1st gear, then in the amount of time it takes you to say one-thousand-one, have the throttle at full.
Using Suspensions to help
Ok, so your bike won't roll it on, but you don't want to abuse your clutch. I'm going to talk here about things you can do, that basically assist the roll-on wheelie. This may take practice to work well, but understanding the concepts will apply to any bike. If your bike doesn't do a roll on wheelie, find yourself a steep road, and see if you can wheelie uphill. Is it easier? It should be. The reason why, is that your center of gravity, has already been moved back, lightening your front end. Once you get the wheel off the ground, it takes less power to get it higher. Those first two inches are the hardest part. Before you ride your bike next time, put both feet on the ground, and push as hard as you can on the front end. Then let it come back up. Practice bouncing the front end up and down. Push hard, and let it come back up. While riding your bike, you can get a similar behaviour, by using the throttle. If you whack the throttle open, the front end will come up. At its peak, if you shut the throttle down, engine braking, in combination with the weight of your front end will cause it to go back down. When it's at the bottom of its stroke, if you whack the throttle back open again, you can use the expansion of your front springs, along with your acceleration, to help lift the front wheel. In fact, it doesn't take much at all, to do this. I'll use my GSXR with stock gearing as an example. I would get going in first gear, so the tachometer was at about 8500 rpm. Then I would shut the throttle down, then whack it back on. Tugging at the bars a little also helps. This snapping of the throttle is a much quicker movement then rolling your throttle on. Not as quick as you can do it, but I guess that the entire movement should take about 1/2 or less of a second. Basically, go from steady state, shut down, then full open. After some practice you will learn how to time it with your suspension.
Using the clutch
So you still can't get the front wheel to come up? I actually find that clutching it up, gives me the most predictable wheelies than any other method. Why? Its much easier to do exactly the same thing over, and over. Basically get rolling in 2nd gear to an RPM of about 1/3 to 1/2 of your maximum hp. This is what worked well on my GSXR-750, with stock gearing. I would go to about 5000 rpm in 2nd gear. Pull in the clutch, rev the engine a time or two, to time it so that the throttle would be wide open and the clutch releasing as the tachometer swept 9-10k. The next thing you know, your front wheel is way up in the air, and your RPM's are at about 8,000 with the throttle full on. At this point, I would have to roll off some, to find the balance point of the bike. As you learn to do this on your own bike, start out conservatively on your clutch release point, and gradually increase the RPM's each time you try it, until the wheel comes up so high you have to roll off the throttle a tad. You may want to cover your rear brake while you are learning this as well, in case you go too high. Standing up fast, will also help put the front end back down if you over do it. Remember these things!
Shifting
Ok, so now you have the front wheel up. How do you keep it up? Shift! It's actually much easier then it seems. When you can ride a long ways in first gear without being full-throttle, you are more than ready to shift. My favourite way to shift, is without the clutch. If you haven't done clutch less shifts before, practice on two wheels first. To do a clutch less shift, apply upward pressure to the shift lever, while you are full on the gas, then just briefly snap the throttle, off an on again. This is the fastest way to shift. When on one wheel, you have to get the front wheel really high, to the point where you need to let off the gas from tipping over. At this point, shift! Balance and practice are both important steps here. Practice those clutch less shifts.
Bringing it down.
So now your front wheel is going down. Either because you got scared and let off the gas, or you just don't have the power to keep it up. Make sure that your front wheel is pointing straight ahead, and keep the throttle open Wide! You want to set the front wheel down as easy as possible. If you chop the throttle, your landing will be very hard, so stay on the gas! Or if you need to come down, just briefly roll off the gas, then get right back on it again, until the front wheel sets down. Expect a chirping noise, and sometimes at higher speeds a bit of a wobble, but as long as the wheel is straight, it's not a big deal.
Body position
Where you place your body during where wheelie can have some interesting effects. If you put all of your weight on your footpegs, and sorta stand up, I've found it easiest to get really close to the balance point this way, but it's more difficult to shift while in that position. My reasoning for why balancing is easier standing, is that I've noticed you don't have to spend so much effort holding your body in place, which is frequently done by your hands pulling back on the handlebars. Another reason, could be that your legs are better balance sensors than your butt. In any event, it's definitely worth a try. Hanging off to the side, was something I really started doing without noticing and I was always veering off to one side. You might do this, so that you can see where you are going. When your front end gets way up in the air, you can't see over it very well. So you might have a tendency to lean over one side to get a glimpse around. What I found out, is that you can steer this way. To keep yourself, in the centre of your lane, just hang off, the same as you would if you were riding with no hands.
Does this hurt my Bike?
When you are first learning you will probably do more damage to your bike then during any other time. This is mainly because of missed shifts, or rear brake stomping, or anything that slams your front end down. You may bust a fork seal. You will probably wear out your steering stem bearings faster than normal, and you will definitely need to tighten your steering head down more frequently. You may also wear your rear tire slightly flat, as hard wheelie acceleration wears out the centres more quickly than normal. You will stretch your chain out, if you use the clutch method. Another detriment to the clutch method, aren't clutch wear, but clutch basket wear. The sudden force of the clutch plates against the ears of the basket can notch the basket. This will prevent you from pulling in the clutch, any time there is load on the engine. Of course, all sorts of fasteners may come loose a little faster than normal, I've noticed mirrors and other front end body fasteners in particular want to fall off. So check them out frequently.
If you can't get your bike to wheelie, try using more RPM!
