Beginner wheelie help

[jlager]

I'm very very new to Trials riding. Have about 2 hours of riding in so far on a 2006 GasGas TXT Pro 280 I just bought. I have a lot of MTB experience and a decent amount of motorcycle experience (road MC only). Thought these two skillsets would just make Trials riding a breeze. Not so.

Anyway, I'm just having an issue wheelying or rather just getting the front tire up. I can do it but I catch a lot of speed and/or wheelie out backwards and send the bike into the bush. I know I should be covering the rear brake to get the front down when this happens. My problem is though, if I have my foot over the rear brake, when I go to load the suspension to prepare for getting the front up, I can't avoid hitting the rear brake with my foot which obviously is no good when I haven't even started to wheelie yet. Is this normal? Should my foot be off to the side of the rear brake, ready to move over to it when needed? Can I adjust the rear brake so it sits a bit lower and I'm less likely to hit it accidentally?

[PakJeem]

Good question. I ride on the balls of my feet so I have to shift my right foot slightly to tap the brake. 
If you weight the front by dropping your knees the front wheel will come right up on the rebound with just a touch of throttle. 
Usually just closing the throttle will be enough to bring a wheelie down. 

[turbofurball]

Trials crosstraining on youtube has nice video guides on setting up the bike (including where the back brake should be), and wheelieing.  I have an old injury in my right ankle and prefer my brake pedal to be slightly below the footpeg, it hasn't held me back so far but then I'm a rubbish rider

For near-stationary lifting of the front wheel, like Pakjeem, I don't cover the brake and just shut the throttle when I panic.  Note that 1st gear on a modern larger-capacity gentle-revving bike can be a bit slow for wheelies, 2nd is good, 3rd is easy to loose the bike.

It also helps to use a "kicker" (a small rock or tree branch) to begin with.  Good luck!

[jlager]

Thank you both! Just closing the throttle I guess I have an issue with because what happens is when the front goes up high, I often roll on the throttle even more. Not on purpose but it sends the bike out from under me as you can imagine. I figured having rear brake control would allow me to prevent that but maybe I should just work on not grabbing so much throttle instead :)

[ChrisCH]

How are you getting the wheel to lift at present?  With a powerful 280cc engine the bike should lift the front wheel without any compression of the forks or any real effort at all.  Just lean back a little to put your weight over the back axle and let the clutch out.  You should be able to lift the front enough to go over a smallish obstacle from standing.

Using the acceleration to lift will tend to get you to increase the throttle as the wheel lifts in the way you describe.

[Tiewrap]

It's just watching a lot of YouTube, stick a lot of hours in it and I'm sure u can freak'n wheelie. 

I obligated myself to practice wheelies if I drive on a simple straight, that way I get some consistent hours. (Having the same problems as u).

I do a lot of lifting the wheel and put down with the brake. Also standing still and turn around on the back wheel. 

[totty79]

Wheelie technique depends on what you're trying to achieve and what terrain you ride.

As you're talking about loading the suspension I'd assume you're trying to place the front wheel in the right place on an obstacle e.g. as part of learning to do a double blip, on mud of other low grip surfaces. If this is what you're practising then the thing to practice is to use as little throttle as possible and to get part of the lift from the suspension using just a tiny blip of throttle to assist it, it takes quite a lot of physical effort. This skill is useful where it's so slippy that you cannot rely on rear traction alone to lift the front, you may have to weight the rear to get any traction at all and have to be gentle on the throttle. There should be no chance of the bike getting away from you and therefore no need to cover the rear brake, you shouldn't be going anywhere near the balance point never mind over it.

For just getting used to having the front off the ground a small step/log/rock on an uphill slope with plenty of grip is an easy way to practice, being uphill makes the front easier to lift so it's easier to be smooth and just use the throttle, and if you wheelie the front over the step the rear hitting it will help bring it down if/when you overdo it.

Rolling on more throttle is a different problem, you need your right wrist motion to be as independent from your body movement and momentum as possible, and as this is never perfect so you need to use the clutch to compensate. if you're effectively hanging off the bars then any surge forward will apply more throttle, your weight needs to be on the pegs.

Rear brake position is adjustable on most bikes, but don't expect to be able to adjust it into the ideal position for riding around on the back wheel, they don't tend to have that much range of adjustment.

[guy53]

I think that, as I did when I got back to trials, you have to change the positon of your wrist on the throttle. I had the same '' too much throttle '' effect when I wanted to lift the front wheel, I then started to grab less throttle before I lifting the front wheel, than I realised that holding a '' neutral '' wrist position on the throttle all the time help me in most situation.

 

Guy