Dual Sport Motorcycle Skills - Wheelies

Many riding skills can be learned well in a parking lot, before they are needed on the trail. Information on such skills is to be found in Skills documents like this one. These articles present more detailed breakdowns of specific skills mentioned in the Challenges document, along with thoughts on how to teach yourself those skills. For more information on why / when this skill is required, see the Challenges post.

Remember to check the "Links: Riding Technique" section in the sidebar for more thoughts on how to handle your motorcycle off pavement. As I find pertinent links or they are sent to me, I will add them there.

Keep in mind that however definitive the text may come across, this is just some blog and I am just some guy. Neither of us knows all there is to know about riding motorcycles, and some or all of what we know may be dangerously wrong.

Last Update: 12/08/06

Find places you can practice wheelies on pavement without being distracted by authority figures. On my F, I find that in first gear, if I give it a little gas, just enough to get moving, and then rapidly kill and then hammer the throttle, the front will come up very quickly. Be ready to let off the gas / pull in the clutch! In second, at somewhere between 25-30 mph, I can establish a more controllable wheelie by suddenly dropping the throttle & pulling in the clutch, then winding the engine up and popping the clutch out. Its trickier to get started, but feels tamer once you get going.

I suspect – having test-ridden the HP-2 – that getting the 1200 or the 1150 to wheelie is simply a matter of whacking the throttle, in either first or second… By the way, if you are not on a BMW – improvise.

The real need, though, isn’t to be able to ride long wheelies, but to be able to get the front tire up in the air for a short time, and at just the right time. Find a curb or similar obstacle you can ride over even without a wheelie. Then try to wheelie up it instead. This will help you learn timing. If you can approach a curb, and pop the throttle so that the front tire appears to ride up a shallow ramp from the take-off point to the top of the curb, the rest of the group has to buy you lunch.

This is all stuff you can try seated. Off-pavement, wheelies often require a little more body English, because of the decreased traction. To wheelie off-road, you may have to compress the rear suspension by moving from a standing-up to crouching-back position over the bike, and timing the movement with throttle use and of course, the proximity of the obstacle. Frankly, I still suck at this, so that’s all I have to say on the matter for now, other than to add that aside from the significant practical value of being able to lift the front tire over obstacles, once you get the hang of it, wheelies can be a lot of fun!

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