The Only Slow Wheelie Tutorial You Need

Alright you guys, how to wheelie. It's going to take some work. You're going to have to really focus and it's going to take some willpower because it's going to be challenging. So first things first, we need to just roll in. First gear. I'm going to roll in, get some front end compression. I'm going to grab the front brake. As I'm grabbing the front brake, I'm pulling the clutch in. That's step number one. Step number two, I'm going to do the same thing but I'm going to throw my body weight down and I'm also going to give it a little blip of throttle on the way down. Just a little bit. As I'm compressing, I'm giving it a little blip of throttle. We're not talking about a big blip of throttle. We don't need that much for this particular style of wheelie here. So that's the first two steps. Just giving it a little increase in throttle as we're going down. That's the first two steps. So let's get into the third step. Step number three, just practice rolling in nice and straight and getting the front end compression and try to add that blip of throttle on the way down. Try to just go nice and slow and straight as possible. That's going to help work on your balance as you're working on your slow wheelies. A lot of our success to slow wheelies is coming in nice and upright, straight, and balanced. Even pressure down, nice and balanced. The more balanced and straight up and down we are when we compress, the better setup we're going to get as we pop the front end up. That's going to be really key as we go forward with our slow wheelies. Step four, we're going to do the same thing here but now we're just going to start popping the clutch a little bit. As I go down, I give it that blip of throttle on the way down. Now we're going to throw our body weight back. So we want to be real patient with that compression. So we're going to compress forward and then we're going to throw our weight back. As we're throwing our weight back, that's when the clutch comes out and we don't need to continue to throttle, especially when we're first starting this because we don't want to loop out backwards. We're just going to go for a little bit of wheel lift at first and really focus on that compression. So you can see it doesn't take much throttle or much power. We also have a very grippy, pluse, extreme gummy tire on our bike, which makes a huge difference in traction. If you're on a motocross tire, you're going to want to find some tacky dirt to practice this on. It's going to be almost impossible on the concrete without a lot of physical effort. So that's where we want to start. Just practice that a little bit, a little bit of a blip on the way down and we're throwing the body weight back. Now, step number five, we're going to start hitting the rear brake. We want to practice hitting that rear brake so we can make that natural. It's going to feel really awkward the first couple of times you do this. All this stuff is very challenging. I've been working on wheelies for a very long time, most of my life, probably. Give it some time, but it will become natural. So I just got a little bit higher there and then I'm just messing around and experimenting with hitting that rear brake. As I'm hitting the rear brake, I'm pulling the clutch in so that the bike doesn't stall on me. So you're going to want to practice popping that front end up and then hitting that rear brake and then just kind of experiment with bringing it higher and higher, hitting the rear brake to bring you down. All right, you guys. So although I did mention compression and blipping the throttle on the way down, it's really important that we start dialing back that throttle. Now that we have the coordination of twisting the throttle as we're compressing, keep in mind when I'm picking the front end up, especially with a gummy sticky tire and there's a lot of traction, it's going to be really easy to flip over all the way backwards if we give it too much throttle or just spin. So it's going to be a fine balance there. So really focus on coming in here as we start developing this. You want to basically make this sound just a little bit. Anything more than that is going to spin the rear tire with the combination of correct body movements. That amount of power is more than enough to pick the front end up. I will highly recommend working on that part first. That's still probably more than enough. So it's a very, very minimal twist of throttle here. I can't stress that part enough. If you're getting to the point where you're feeling a little bit more comfortable popping the front end up a little bit and hitting that rear brake, that's highly, highly important that we're able to coordinate hitting the rear brake. It doesn't matter where your foot hits the rear brake. You just got to hit the rear brake. Even if your whole foot comes forward and smashes the rear brake, you want to develop that instinct so that if it does come up too high, you can hit the rear brake and bring the front end down. Next thing you can start doing is popping it up a little higher, bringing that front end down. You can do this in multiple ways, depending on how much traction you have. If you're on dirt, you can just do it from a dead stop and you could pick it up right from right here. But all I'm thinking about is getting that front end up pretty high and hitting the rear brake as hard as I can and then pulling the clutch in while I'm hitting the rear brake. And then if you want to take it a step further, practice stepping off the back, maybe even turning the bike off. And now that it's in gear, it's going to hold itself in place and just get a feel for what that feels like. Because chances are, if you're practicing wheelies, you're going to have a point where if you practice enough, you're going to flip over backwards. It happens to the best wheelie riders in the world. The guys that are the best at doing wheelies. Happens to me. Once a month, I'll flip over on my back. So I'm pretty good about not flipping over on my back, but I have a pretty good instinct to grab that rear brake. Even if the front end comes up really high, I can hit the rear brake and come to a stall for a second and jump off the back. So I think it's a good thing to be able to develop that coordination of being a little bit more comfortable jumping off the back of the bike. And then from this position, let's turn the bike on with the clutch in because I'm in gear and I'm going to let that bike fall forward. And I want to try to go as straight as I can. And then you hear how I was kind of letting that clutch out just a little bit, giving it a tiny bit of revs as the front end's coming down. Let's try that one more time where we let that front end down real gentle. So as the front end's coming down, I'm letting the clutch out and letting the bike drive forward just a little bit. So there's another thing that's going to help develop the clutch finger while the front end's up in the air and letting the front end down. This is a big part. It seems simple, but it's a big part of the whole bigger picture of doing wheelies. So that last little piece that I mentioned is basically step seven, but now we're going to keep our feet on the peg. So I'm going to lift the front end all the way up and drive that front end forward, drive the bike forward just gently. So I'm letting off the rear brake. As I'm letting off the rear brake, I'm already starting to let the clutch out just a tiny little bit and rolling on the throttle, but very, very minimal. Like we're talking very small movements with the throttle hand here. Let's do that one more time. Now, again, be patient with that compression. And when you throw your body weight back so you can hear that. That's me slipping the clutch. I'm not letting it all the way out because if I let it all the way out, it's going to drive forward too fast. And we might not be ready for that in the early stages of practicing wheelies. The trick to the slow wheelie is that last little part that I did there. And then you're going to do that multiple times when you're doing a wheelie. Assuming it's not too windy in your area, but you can see that's something to work on as well. Pulling the front end up real high, hitting the rear brake, bringing it down, and then driving forward as it's coming down. Real small inputs with the throttle and the clutch. Very, very small. And then be patient with that compression and really wait for it to compress and feel your weight transferring back into that rear tire. You want to consciously think like you're trying to maximize weight into the rear tire as the clutch is coming out. That's going give you the best positive drive forward without spinning the rear tire. If you're using motocross tires, it's going to be a little bit harder on concrete. Might not be so hard in the dirt, but if you're practicing in the driveway on concrete or on tar, a grippier tire is going to make this a lot easier or let a little bit of pressure out of the tires. I hope that one helps you guys. Let me know down in the comments if that helped. Have fun, be safe, work hard. This is going to take a lot of effort to get this down, but I'm telling you guys it's really rewarding once you start feeling that front end come up.