Can You Wheelie?

Speaking of wheelies. The bike above was a great wheelie machine. In the first 4 gears under hard acceleration if you had good traction you needed to almost sit on the tank to keep the front wheel close to the ground. In 6th gear at 60 MPH if you wanted to stand it up all you had to do was let off and nail it. She has cross county gearing not motto-cross gearing. Ah the good old days.:)
 
My excuse for not learning to wheelie, I never did the dirt bike thing or the minibike thing. While my friends were riding dirt bikes I was looking for bigger heavier road bikes. My only wheelies were accidental on a RD350. My first test ride on the RD my ex got on the back and we wheelied on the next two take offs. She insisted that I buy that bike. She learned to ride that bike with no other clutch experience. Soon she was probably a better rider than me. The kick starter broke at the swivel nub one day and a friend pushed me to start it. I wheelied across a short parking lot. Realized that day that I did not understand the reaction to a wheelie.

Scott
 
What a great post! My big 750s are not wheely bikes. I raced a friend with his tricked out Yamaha Vstar. He had it built with all the goodies. My 836 ate him alive. He jumped me at a stop light. She came up good in 1st, slightly less in 2nd, and chirped hard ind 3rd. When I blew past him in 3rd he asked me at the next traffic light “ Doyou know how fast you were going?” Nope. 120MPH. 120 in 3rd gear on a Jim Reagan MRE motor.
E81C2F9D-F5FB-43E1-9ACE-CF059ECE1DBE.jpeg
 
What a great post! My big 750s are not wheely bikes. I raced a friend with his tricked out Yamaha Vstar. He had it built with all the goodies. My 836 ate him alive. He jumped me at a stop light. She came up good in 1st, slightly less in 2nd, and chirped hard ind 3rd. When I blew past him in 3rd he asked me at the next traffic light “ Doyou know how fast you were going?” Nope. 120MPH. 120 in 3rd gear on a Jim Reagan MRE motor.View attachment 156385

That gold Honda made me do a double take. At first glance it looks fairly stock, then you see the header, and carbs and rear sets......nice! :geek:
 
I learned how to do proper wheelies on a Honda 200x ATC. Could ride with the front end straight up and my back inches from the ground for as long as I pleased. Did circles, back and forth in the fields beside my house. Have been doing wheelies on mini bikes and small enduros since I could get on one. Bike street bikes are a different story, Wheelies on the street at speed scare the hell outa me. I will pull the front up and ride 50- 100 foot in first and second, maybe 20-30 mph then I'm done. Had a 83 V65 Magna that would lift to the moon in 3rd at 70mph with out trying. Yea I sold that monster.
 
Just because you can do something, does not mean one should do it. I blame a lot of this BS riding on Facebook. Monkey see, monkey do better than you. And so goes the escalation.
 
Kind of like water skiing and driving the boat at the same time.

So far I think I understand that there are basically two kinds of wheelies. Pretty sure that I'm not interested in the high speed type of wheelie. :eek:

Bringing it up from a standstill or barely moving is what I'm interested in. After that I'm really not even interested in reaching the balancing point. Distance, nah. :umm:

So, I would like to be able to smoothly bring up the front wheel and then gently put it back down. Slow finesse would be my goal. :thumbsup:

Off to youtube, monkey see.....:popcorn:
 
Last edited:
Back in the early '70s, used to wheelie just about everything.


......Except BMWs.
Those things like to twist going up.

Had a beautiful blonde on back of my panhead. "Can you do a wheelie?" Not a problem, stood it up (impressive with a 20"-over springer), walked it down the road, and recall seeing a foot pass over my head, right-to-left, and the bike got lighter.

Brought it down, turned it around, there she was, in the ditch, muttering "I thought it was going to flip over!"

Took her home for some TLC.

Imagine standing one of these up.
tumblr_mbfhvnDmQA1r9dxclo1_1280.jpg

Like erecting a telephone pole.

Learning to wheelie is easiest on the small 50-70cc stuff. Just slide back, drag your feet, hold onto the handlebars, and jerk it up. While your feet are dragging, it's easy to simply stand/run behind it if it wants to go over.

On bigger bikes, get rolling slowly, stand on the pegs, and do a spring/hop on the pegs while simultaneously opening the throttle, and it'll come up...
 
But the way she does it solo, very impressive and she isn't much of a counter weight either. There are other videos on UTube where everything goes wrong and very nasty endings for some. For me it was more a case of monkey see, monkey do and monkey rewind again and again.:heart:
 
Back
Top