What's new
By:
Filters

Slow wheelies anyone?

DJ_MI

DJ_MI

Class Clown
Joined
Feb 7, 2022
Member Number
63
Posts
2,061
Location
SE MI
So I’ve been working on doing slow wheelies for a while now and I have to say it’s probably the most productive thing to helping me develop my riding skills.

I have my kid’s first bike (a TTR125 w/ 17/14 wheels) and practice in the parking lot at work. The slow wheelie isn’t in itself a very practical skill but everything that goes into it certainly is. The manipulation of the controls, the balance front to rear and side to side. Learning not to panic when I’m about to loop it. Loading the flywheel and releasing the clutch in a consistent and controlled manner. Even the physical strength is very helpful.

What is a slow wheelie? I couldn’t find it in the dictionary but the common definition seems to be riding a wheelie slowly. :lol2 Seriously though, it’s getting the front end up quickly from a stop or very slow roll and reaching the balance point in nearly the length of the bike and being able to ride on the rear wheel without accelerating (chasing the wheelie). Basically it’s like riding a unicycle and if done correctly one could ride like that indefinitely as opposed to a power wheelie where you would keep accelerating and run out of gear.

Initially I was scared to even get the front wheel off the ground. After getting more comfortable I could ride little wheelies but was always chasing them. The first time I actually got to the balance point I nearly shit myself but it was a really cool sensation (the floating feeling not the mess in my drawers :lol2). I’ve gotten to the point that I can do a short slow wheelie maybe a third of the times I try. Occasionally I can get it just right and hold it for maybe 20-40 feet.

Benefits I’ve found:
  • [UWSL]Confidence under pressure[/UWSL]
  • Side to side balance and manipulating it with subtle body movements and hanging my legs out. Very helpful off road and especially in the sand.
  • Confidence pulling the front end up when clearing trail obstacles. Even from a stop.
  • Throttle control. It’s not an on off switch!
  • Rear brake covering and control. Reflexively getting on the rear brake if the front end gets too high can prevent a crash. I rode a friend’s old school 2T MX bike last year and nearly looped it through some sand whoops. I panicked and grabbed the front brake instead of tapping the rear brake. I don’t think I’d make that mistake now.
  • It’s closely related to the pivot turn which is a helpful skill on the trail.
  • It’s fun and doesn’t require much.

My biggest struggle right now is the side to side balance. I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong. After that I need to work on being more precise with the throttle and rear brake to hold it at the balance point.

Anyone else work on this skill? What are your thoughts? Anyone who hasn’t tried it maybe you can give it a shot and report back with your experiences.

There’s a lot of videos on YouTube but the ones I like the most are by Rich Larson the IRC Tire Guy.
 
I went to a Graham Jarvis class and as part of the course he showed how to do slow wheelies. It surprised me that they modulate the power needed to keep the bike vertical by using the clutch and not the throttle. Their throttle is constant and the RPMs are minimal. Since learning that I've watched some other vids of slow wheelies by some of the hard enduro riders and that seems to be the prevailing technique for walking speed on one wheel. Of course we all tried it and like you said the side to side balance is difficult to master at such a slow speed. You can see in their body movements there's quite a bit of weight shifting going on.
 
Last edited:
Ridefreak said:
I went to a Graham Jarvis class and as part of the course he showed how to do slow wheelies. It surprised me that they modulate the power needed to keep the bike vertical by using the clutch and not the throttle. Their throttle is constant and the RPMs are minimal. Since learning that I've watched some other vids of slow wheelies by some of the hard enduro riders and that seems to be the prevailing technique for walking speed on one wheel. Of course we all tried it and like you said the side to side balance is difficult to master at such a slow speed. You can see in their body movements there quite a bit of weight shifting going on.
Click to expand...
That must’ve been quite the experience!

Thanks for your insight. I’m going to give the clutch technique a try.

Did he give you any tips for the side to side balance?
 
Before the pit bike boom..the crf50 were the slow wheely kings. The bikes were cheap but the bbr parts drove the price way up. Within a few years the pitbikes were standard with jacked up suspension and adult ergos. I have always had a rough time with slow wheelys. Bicycle or motorcycle. Best bicycle wheely was 1/3 mile but included two downhills...so from 5mph to well over 20mph coasting down hill. Always easier to wheely uphill or flatland. A slow or any wheely down hill is rough. A loop out was always more likely for me downhill. It's more of a bmx manual than a wheely
 
Danno said:
Before the pit bike boom..the crf50 were the slow wheely kings. The bikes were cheap but the bbr parts drove the price way up. Within a few years the pitbikes were standard with jacked up suspension and adult ergos. I have always had a rough time with slow wheelys. Bicycle or motorcycle. Best bicycle wheely was 1/3 mile but included two downhills...so from 5mph to well over 20mph coasting down hill. Always easier to wheely uphill or flatland. A slow or any wheely down hill is rough. A loop out was always more likely for me downhill. It's more of a bmx manual than a wheely
Click to expand...
I could never do wheelies on a bicycle and the video below explained why. One of his points is the self doubt that some people are naturally gifted with the wheelie gene that I always thought I lacked. I just never practiced enough.

 
l
DJ_MI said:
I could never do wheelies on a bicycle and the video below explained why. One of his points is the self doubt that some people are naturally gifted with the wheelie gene that I always thought I lacked. I just never practiced enough.

Click to expand...

I am old school. In my 20s I nailed the 180° bunny hop to 180° wheely out. This was rough to learn. The front tire never touched the ground. I am getting old an luv transition wheelies. I hit the RR tracks in daytona..almost triple digis on my drzsm. I had the front tire in the air for well over 200ft no skill just seeing it through. I can nail inclines on a coleman minibike that I wont try on any real motorcycle.. I guess I cheat the scenario rather than worry about skill. Recently I tried wheelies on stand up scooters. I can transition wheely, bunny hop and endo but no ..no whoolies.

Oh ya I looped out on main street on a bmx about a year ago. I saved the bike and no scratches but shattered a vertabrae. But I still power wheelied my dl recently. The dl1000 has been wheelied off oak slabs and speed bumps with air.

Funny my friend got a zuma 125 and wanted to learn to wheely. I took the wifes vino125 to demostrate and 12 o clocked it. The mud guard dragging saved me. That scooter left hand rear brake is odd sometimes for a moto/bmx rider. Cool skill that comes with the cost to participate.
 
Sounds fun except the broken vertebrae! What's a transition wheelie?

When I was a kid I was interested in freestyle bikes but never any good. Team Haro had a video that I watched about a hundred times and the balance they had on flat land was amazing to me. Thinking about it, it's just occurred to me that my riding style hasn't changed a whole lot. When I was a kid on a BMX bike I was most interested in the practical maneuvers like bunny hops and drop offs; things that helped me get from A to B. I could reliably hop a milk crate or drop off a several foot loading dock. Fast forward a bunch of decades and as I learn to ride a MC I'm most interested in developing skills to help me get where I want to go, not fast or with any real style points, that's for certain.:lol2 But to be able to go where I want to ride without worrying about sand that's too deep or some obstacles blocking the path.
 
Wheelies off a bump or over a gap. And even down a hill. Where the surface is changing or transitioning. It is fun to find the right dip for about 35-50mph. Helps to have a small bump entering the dip. This can be wheelied through, jumped and cleared or hop over the bump landing in the dip and wheely/air out. The same terrain can be ridden through different ways. All using the same style we learned riding bmx.

This is where my tw bottoms the rear suspension from all the weight riding on the back tire. Trail/play bikes are fun for this stuff. Bigger bikes are not as friendly. My rxv and drz were never as easy as my xt. The lightweight and soft suspension makes it easier for me. The ttr125 is about perfect to have fun. The slightest bump will either wheely or bunny hop off of.

I guess a pivot turn is a stationary slow wheely with a 180...but I am not trying it on my DL or klr even though it is super easy on a smaller bike.
 
Danno said:
Wheelies off a bump or over a gap. And even down a hill. Where the surface is changing or transitioning. It is fun to find the right dip for about 35-50mph. Helps to have a small bump entering the dip. This can be wheelied through, jumped and cleared or hop over the bump landing in the dip and wheely/air out. The same terrain can be ridden through different ways. All using the same style we learned riding bmx.

This is where my tw bottoms the rear suspension from all the weight riding on the back tire. Trail/play bikes are fun for this stuff. Bigger bikes are not as friendly. My rxv and drz were never as easy as my xt. The lightweight and soft suspension makes it easier for me. The ttr125 is about perfect to have fun. The slightest bump will either wheely or bunny hop off of.

I guess a pivot turn is a stationary slow wheely with a 180...but I am not trying it on my DL or klr even though it is super easy on a smaller bike.
Click to expand...
Ahh, that makes sense. Thanks for explaining it. I had a sport bike many decades ago and that is exactly how I learned to wheelie it (for all the wrong reasons:D). We found a break over in a big parking lot and the front end would get light and I could power the front end up without the clutch. I never covered the rear brake and only chased the wheelie with more power and acceleration.

There is a break over in my parking lot here at work and it’s fun trying to control the wheelie over it.

A pivot turn in the most advanced sense would be doing a 180 turn on something like a switch back on the side of a hill. It doesn’t have to be a full 180 though. For practical riding I find a 90 degree turn is sufficient for things like getting over a log that is parallel to my path. I can plant my left leg on the log, give it some revs, let the clutch out, get the front end up and bring the bike down so it’s straddling the log. Also helpful for turning around on a single track trail that is a trough. I practiced that a lot on the little bike and smacked myself in the leg a few good times. It’s not pretty but I can do it good enough on the KLX to get myself over things I wouldn’t normally be able to.
 
I’ll add too that it took many, many hours to get to that point. I haven’t put in as much time this year but I’m getting back to it.
 
Best place to practice a wheelie esp a slow one is going up a hill or grade. The angle already has you part way there and you can achieve the same things at slower speeds, throttle inputs are more subdued since you going up a grade and letting off slows the bike faster, just the things you want when learning. We had a old rotary valve Yamaha 80 years ago and lived on a hill. Once we figured out the hill was the place to practice in no time we were doing one handed wheelies like Doug Domokos, if you don't know who he you should look him up.

Try it and you'll see what I mean.
 
DJ_MI said:
That must’ve been quite the experience!

Thanks for your insight. I’m going to give the clutch technique a try.

Did he give you any tips for the side to side balance?
Click to expand...
It was humbling watching his skills. He didn't really give us balance skills per-se but he did have us practice balancing long before he showed us slow wheelies. There's no "trick" the the balancing, it just take practice. Those guys are often trials riders also and have a keen sense of balance developed over years. Pretty sure they develop those skills separately from anything to do with wheelies. The slow wheelies are a cool byproduct of their talent. They often practice balancing while stopped with their feet on the pegs using their body to keep the bike standing up. You can see a little of that in this video. Sorry it's such poor quality.

ridefreak.smugmug.com

Graham Jarvis - RideFreak

This video hosted by SmugMug; your photos and videos look better here.
ridefreak.smugmug.com ridefreak.smugmug.com
 
Last edited:
My 1st bike was a gs750l at 16. Wheel spin was more likely than wheely. Then I rode an xr100..hehe wheelies no problem. Next I rode a fire breathing 1986 cr80..wheelied all 6 gears. That is how I learned. About the time as my 1st 2005 drzsm I had a clone xr70 for fun. I rode with a friend on an xr350. The roost was killing me. So I insisted on riding out front. But now I had to bunny hop every jump crest not to case out with no skid plate. I rode the drzsm that night and easily yanked 5th gear wheelies with no clutch at 55mph.

I guess my best learning curve is riding as many bikes as possible. Certain bikes just wheelie easy. But 11 or 12 o clock controlled wheelies has always been rough for me. More for fun than use..for my style.

I think the highest bmx bunnyhop I have achieved was close to 30in over 30yrs ago. For some odd reason speed and one heck of a manual was needed. I am lucky to get too much over a foot now. But I can read terrain and use different attacks. My 26" wheel bmx cruiser with a ported 66cc engine transition wheelies so nice. Partly because of the coaster brake which I never liked before but totally works with clutch and gas on loop out control. I have had my fastest trail speed through the swamp trails but I destroy the back wheel on missed log bunnyhops. I would hate to ride a yz250 through that trail. Play bikes can be very fast through hellish trails. And all skills apply.

Ha how about tire bump to foot plant over stuff!
 
DJ_MI said:
I grabbed a quick clip out of the footage I shot in November. It's grainy and looks like it was shot on a Betamax Camcorder but it's something. :lol2


Click to expand...

Dude that is kick ass! Looks about like me on a ct70 clone or my wifes coleman. Keep trying!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom Back Refresh