How to Wheelie your Motorcycle

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Motorcyle (preferably a sportbike or a standard; cruisers and touring bikes will be much more difficult to wheelie due to weight)
Protective gear (leathers, full-face helmet, gloves, boots)
Suitable road (preferably non-public, away from traffic and obstacles)

Step 1

First secure a suitable location, a safe area away from people, obstacles, traffic, etc. Next, ensure you are geared up as you should be always… preferably leathers, but most certainly full-face helmet, gloves, and boots. You should already be pretty comfortable on the bike you’re riding. If the bike is new to you, get some seat time before you take on wheelies. It’s ideal to learn/practice wheelies on a smaller bike, or even a dirt bike. If you’re just getting started with this on your new CBR, GSX-R, R6, R1, etc. … please take it slow. That ABS plastic is ridiculously expensive.
Step 2

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To begin, you want to get comfortable with lifting the front wheel just a bit… just lofting the front and then gently letting it settle. The objective is to not only get comfortable with the front coming up, but also to be in complete control, and to be very smooth. Do not fixate on the asphalt in front of you, but look out and ahead.

To get started, get a rolling start in first gear, then smoothly but briskly roll on full throttle. Your front should lift once you cross the power band for your bike (approx. 6,000-8,000 RPMs for most sportbikes). For most sportbikes, you do not need to pull or yank the front, and you need not bounce or spring the forks. If your bike refuses to lift, you may need to close the throttle to force the forks to compress a bit, then briskly re-open it to spring up the front.

As the front comes up, smoothly ease back throttle. Do not chop throttle and slam the front to the pavement. That’s not only upsetting to you and the bike, it’s a sure way to prematurely wear your fork seals. Practice smooth control of the throttle. It’s the single most valuable tool on your motorcycle (and that’s certainly not limited to wheelies).

Practice this sort of power-on, very low wheelie, many times. You just want to barely get the front off the ground, hold it a bit, then gently settle it. You’ll find that you will keep accelerating and you’ll eventually run out of RPMs, so be sure it’s settled before that happens. And again, keep looking up and forward.
Step 3

Once you have the low power wheelie very smoothly under control, repeat the same procedure, but allow the front to loft just a foot or two higher. Get comfortable with that sensation, and as before focus on smooth and being in complete control. Remember to keep looking up and out. As a precaution, and in order to form a good habit for later, keep your right foot hovered over the rear brake pedal. Later on, in the event you raise the front too high and need to settle it, you can use rear brake to save looping the bike.
Step 4

As you practice the above, you’ll notice that you continue to accelerate (and run out of RPMs). This happens because you must use the acceleration of the bike to keep the front lifted. And that’s a bit of a problem, because you cannot just keep accelerating. Eventually, you’ll need to change gears, which you certainly can do during the wheelie, but that only extends the problem. So you have two choices: You may either settle the bike before you run out of RPMs (or once you do), or you may bring the front up to the balance point (high enough that you need not continue accelerating in order to hold up the front).

This is going to require a lot of practice, so go slow and expect the learning process to take time. It’s not something you will master in a single (or even a few) sessions. As you progress, you’ll find that you can ride a respectable wheelie without ever reaching the balance point, but you’ll always be limited by the RPMs of your bike (of course, you may change gears, but it’s really not safe to be zooming along on the back wheel at +100mph). So as you practice, feel for that balance point, but always cover the back brake. And as you get closer, and your wheelies are higher, actually press the back brake and get a feel for how much pressure it takes and how that feels on the bike. Practice raising the front with throttle, and pressing brake to lower it.
Step 5

By now you’ve learned that wheelies are all about throttle control. It’s very subtle, but it’s critical you master this in order to control the loft, the wheelie, and the landing. You’ll also learn that directional control is limited with the front wheel aloft. You can still turn, but not very effectively. Lean your weight considerably to one side or the other. Experiment with this to see how much (or how little) you can vary direction on your own bike.
Step 6

Once you’ve practiced the above for many sessions and have good comfort with that, next you’ll want to explore the clutch-up wheelie. Using the clutch is really the easiest and most effective way to initiate the wheelie. If you just roll throttle as you have been doing, you use a lot of the RPMs, distance, and speed just to get the front wheel lifted. However, by using the clutch, you can quickly bring the front up, and can do so in less time/distance, and generally at slower speeds. Also, you can more easily bring the front aloft in 2nd or 3rd gear, even if your bike lacks the power to power wheelie (throttle only) in those gears.
Step 7

To begin clutch-up wheelies, from a rolling start in 2nd gear at approximately 5,000-7,000 RPMs, without rolling off throttle, bring the clutch in about half-way (really don’t need to pull it all the way back), then just let it go. As you bring in the clutch to the half-way position, your RPM’s will rev up a few thousand, so that when you release the clutch, there is a surge of energy and up comes the front. From here, it’s all throttle control… more throttle to lift more, less to steady it. Again, do not chop it abruptly if all you want is to settle it a bit, else you’ll slam the front to the pavement. Be prepared for the front to come up much more abruptly and quickly when using the clutch. Remember to cover the rear brake. Experiment with the RPMs on your bike.
Step 8

Once you have some comfort with clutch-up wheelies, you’ll find they are much easier to execute. From here, it’s just practice and time to learn to reach the balance point (if you desire). After you’ve mastered this, you may want to explore standing up on your pegs (rather than doing this from a seated position). And for the hardcore stunters, there are many other variations. But that’s another topic, I suppose (and one which I’m neither qualified nor inclined to offer).
Step 9

So have fun and take it slow, and you’ll find it’s really a lot of fun to play with wheelies. Be safe and smart about the time and place. Stay geared up. And remember to just take your time.