How to Do a Basic Wheelie on a Motorcycle at 9:51 AM

1.First step is a basic "roll on power wheelie". Basically you need a bike with enough power to raise the front wheel off the ground with simple acceleration. You need to get comfortable with the front end getting "light". Most stock bikes won't be able to do this without some modification. You can also try getting the bike up to a good speed in first gear(around 25-35 mph), once you reach the powerband (where the engine starts to go faster with little throttle) let off just a little, then give it a lot of gas. Not so much gas that you flip over, but a good amount. You'll notice the front end pick up, and if you let off the gas, it goes back down. More gas after the powerband will get it up higher. If you don't have a stabilizer, this would be the ideal time to get one. Trying to lift the bike off the ground and then comming back down suddenly will cause the front tire to shake. If you don't land almost perfectly straight, you will do a highside (flip off the bike over the front). You will be hurting and so will your bike. Once you get comfortable with the front end getting light, try to carry the wheelie further each time. After you are comfortable with this move on to the next step, which is slipping the clutch.

2.Roll at about 10-20 mph in first gear.

3.Pull in the clutch and rev the motor a little, then slip the clutch. Do this a few times with a little more gas each time until you start to feel comfortable with how high the front end is coming up. The front end will come up quicker than a power wheelie, so be prepared.

4.Once you are comfortable getting the front up a little, it's time to worry about throttle and brake control. Use the throttle to maintain the height of the wheelie and the back brake to keep from looping the bike. Chopping the throttle while in first will almost always bring you back over, but you will most likely slam the front pretty hard.

5.If you get good enough at the brake control, you can ride a wheelie in first until the motor blows, in theory. But at first you will probably just run through your rpm range and drop the front down. This is when you need to shift to second. It's a clutchless shift, at the peak of the wheelie when you have about 3k rpms left before redline. Let the front come down just a bit and simultaneously shift to second.

6.Once you get in the second gear, pull the accelerator so as not to let the bike go down due to inertia, and find a balance point upon which your bike is steady in the air on the front wheel. Balance point can be found by leaning on the rear side of the bike, so that centre of gravity of the whole system (you and bike) is in the centre, and you can roll on long. But take care as not to shift the body position on the back side, as you will be likely to fall in that case, and keep your rear brake ready for any such situation.