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Revision as of 00:08, 14 June 2006 by Mark Kilby (talk | contribs) (→External links: added video footage of wheelies and other high jinks)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)- This article is about the bike trick. For the fictional Transformers character, see Wheelie (Transformers).
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.
Bicycle wheelie
To perform a wheelie on a bicycle, put the bike in low gear, get up from the saddle 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.
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.
Advanced wheelie riding can be accomplished by using the rear brake. A constant yet slight dragging of rear brake throughout a wheelie allows the rider to safely ride at a higher wheel height. Riding higher wheelies provides more control through deceleration, which is necessary to decrease the turning radius of a wheelie. Locking the rear brake will prevent any need to jump off the back, and provided the brakes are working properly the rear brake can be trusted.
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 a 8-12mph wheelie for maximum safety.
Motorbike wheelie
A wheelie is also a common motorbike trick. The principle is the same, but the throttle and rear-brakes are used to control the wheelie. On more powerful motorbikes (usually above 500 cc) the front wheel is lifted into the air by accelerating, but on smaller bikes the clutch may be used.
Since the introduction of the GSXR750, 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.
This phenomenon is largely responsible for the glut of sportbike wheelie videos which has become popular starting with StarBoyz and continuing with Las Vegas Extremes, and now several hundred sportbike stunt videos on VHS and DVD.
The definitive book on the subject is titled "Wheelyin' With the King" from the late Doug Domokos. It focuses on motorcycle wheelies.