How to Ride a Motorcycle Wheelie

Learning how to ride a wheelie can be bone-chilling and even a bone-crushing experience. The basics of riding a wheelie are simple – loft the front tire under acceleration while balancing on the rear wheel.

First and foremost learn to cover your rear brake because if you start to go over backwards, this will save you from flipping. Covering the rear brake is to have your foot over the rear break in the ready position – ready to use. This will feel uncomfortable at first because as the bike rises, the angle on your ankle bending is greater. If you begin falling backwards TAP the rear brake. Do not stab the rear brake as this can send the front tire down forcefully – possibly causing a crash. A slight tap on the rear wheel stop the motorcycles momentum and send the front wheel back down. Think of the rear brake as your anti-crash insurance policy.

Start off slow in 1st gear using only the throttle being sure to cover your rear brake. As pictured below, plant your butt to the rear of the motorcycle just past the center point. Grip the bike with your legs and knees keeping your elbows up. Your head should be hovering over the center of the motorcycle looking ahead. Give the motorcycle some gas quickly on and off (open and close the throttle quickly). Do not pull with your arms at this point. Use your legs to hold onto the motorcycle. This technique should get you some small (6″-12″) wheelies that “pop” up and come down quickly. Practice this for awhile becoming comfortable with the front end coming up, holding the bike with your legs, and covering your rear brake. While this may not look like the impressive wheelie, it’s a great start to safely move to the next step.

The next step is to incorporate the clutch to loft the wheel higher. Using the technique described above, ride in first gear at about quarter throttle and pull the clutch in half-way and then quickly release. This should give you the same little wheelie we did above. Do this a few times and get comfortable with releasing the clutch quickly under mild acceleration. Remember to keep that back brake covered and ready to use!

Now that you are comfortable with form and snapping the clutch, we need to incorporate clutch and gas action smoothly together. We will not be quickly dropping the clutch as we did in the previous step. Now we need to feel the clutch at the engagement point under more throttle. Riding slowly in 1st (5mph) pull in the clutch half-way, and simultaneously engage (release) the clutch smoothly and quickly while twising the throttle to about a quarter of the way. This should yield another small wheelie. Do this a few times to become efficient and comfortable with the simultaneous throttle/clutch action. The simultaneous action between the gas and the engagement of the clutch release creates the torque needed to loft the wheel further than the first steps above. This is the technique used for bigger wheelies.

Now that you are complacent with the throttle/clutch action and can loft the wheel a foot of the ground, start adding more throttle. Use the same technique above, but this time MORE GAS. Use about half to three-quarters throttle. This will create a bigger wheelie. Practice lofting the front wheel two to three feet in the air and tapping the rear brake to get a feel of how fast the front end comes down. To increase the size of your wheelie, slightly move your head twords the handlerbars and then jerk back, pulling on the handle-bars – yanking lightly back pushing your butt into the seat while leaning back. This will aide in lofting the wheel higher.

There are a few types of “riding wheelies”. The acceleration wheelie, where you are gaining speed the whole time and the balance point wheelie where you stay at a constant speed. The acceleration wheelie is easier and done under acceleration. With the acceleration wheelies, you will gain speed throughout your wheelie. The balancing point wheelie is much more advanced and takes special throttle and rear brake control as you are essentially teetering with flipping over. You have to stay right in the “sweet spot” that is not going over backwards and having the front wheel high enough to balance without much acceleration.

Acceleration wheelie: now that we are doing two to three-foot wheelies and using our back brake, try to continue to wheelie by increasing the throttle once the front tire has left the ground. You will feel the motorcycle coming up, try to keep it at a steady throttle and wheelie just below the balance point. Try keeping the front wheel up for small distances using more throttle to keep the front wheel up and remembering to always use/cover your rear brake. Once you have run out of gear i.e. the bike will no longer accelerate and your wheel comes down, try speed shifting (changing gears using the clutch while the gas is still on) into the next gear while the front wheel is lofted. It should go something like this, loft the front wheel using the gas/clutch “pop” and maintaining the wheelie while at half throttle – quickly shift into the next gear without changing the throttle position. Try to keep the front wheel from dipping much during the gear change. Later you will learn that you need to sometimes add more throttle in between gear shifts. Again cover your rear break as it is your anti flip “o-crap button”.

Tip: as your wheelies become longer, you will notice that they may start to fall to the right or left as your balance will not be perfect. Practice using your legs, head, and body positioning to shift the bike from side-to-side. In addition, you may also turn the wheel left and right to aid in balancing from left to right. Just be sure the return the front wheel to the center position before it comes down to the ground. If not, you will most likely crash. Practice these different techniques and master them before moving on to the balance wheelie.

Balance point wheelie: now that we are shifting through a gear maintaining our wheelie we want to learn how to balance wheelie. This technique is best practiced at slow speeds in 1st gear. Loft the front wheel with the gas/clutch “pop up” action and drag the rear brake. With this wheelie, the rear brake is as important to use as the throttle. It takes very little input from the back brake to change direction from up to down, so be careful. This is a really big and dangerous wheelie. The front wheel will have to be three or more feet above the ground. Essentially, you need to find the balance point or sweet spot from the front wheel coming back down to flipping over. There is not much room for error as the balance point is very small. You have to get it just right i.e. the front tire can not go to high, or to low. That is why you need to keep a steady throttle hand with a little back brake drag to keep the motorcycle in the balance point. You must balance between this point, hence, the name balance wheelie.

In conclusion, a wheelie is not a begginer stunt. Wear safety gear/helmet and obviously find a safe place. A flat field with good traction and soft dirt to crash in is good. If you find yourself having issues wheeling, sometimes practiting on an incline can help aid in the vertical comfort. Be sure you are very stable with gas/clutch/ rear brake interaction/reaction before trying bigger or balance wheelies. Remember it’s not if your going to crash, it’s when – so be prepared. And if your not crashing, your probably not riding hard enough. Happy trails!

Picture of me teaching my good friend Dave how to wheelie. This is an acceleration wheelie as I have yet to reach the balancing point in this picture.