about those wheelies

Hawk Joined: Jul 21, 2015 Posts: 509 Location: Norway

about those wheelies..

assuming you're driving a cb900f.
what gear would you try it in? at what speed? and at what revs?

yes, it's a noob question, i know. i still wanna know

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 11:49 am

Easy way to wheelie.
Fit 13 tooth front sprocket with a 54 tooth rear sprocket.
Keep it up around 8500 rpm and it should wheelie all day.

CB1100F Joined: Jun 18, 2006 Posts: 2526 Location: UK

super wrote:

about those wheelies..

assuming you're driving a cb900f.
what gear would you try it in? at what speed? and at what revs?

yes, it's a noob question, i know. i still wanna know

If you have a well modified 1100 it will power wheelie easily

If you have a 900 i would not bother trying

Just buy a R1 or a Fireblade if you feel the need to pull wheelies

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 1:14 pm

controlled wheelies don't occur via a set of factors like you ask
uncontrolled ones can be easily achieved though, 1st gear 7000rpm - 5mph, pull in clutch and then dump it, if that doesn't work - try from a standstill - that will work! Smile

- ouch!

practise by using the brakes - suspension - low speed <20mph use the front brake to get a nice smooth weight transfer to the front, ease off the brake whilst opening the throttle - practise this until you get the rhythm, weight transfer from front to rear in tango with the throttle - once you get this working, your only a short step away from the front lifting with a bit more throttle or a blip of the clutch - small easy steps
KEEP THE BACK BRAKE COVERED - yi never know, it might just come up quicker and further than you wished

Hawk Joined: Jul 21, 2015 Posts: 509 Location: Norway

except for a zundapp 100, i've never driven any bike but the cb900f so i'll tell you now this is a let down. total bummer.

i thought i had a motorcycle. what kind of motorcycle can't wheelie?

thanks for giving me hope though, nlovie

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 5:53 pm

super wrote:

except for a zundapp 100, i've never driven any bike but the cb900f so i'll tell you now this is a let down. total bummer.

i thought i had a motorcycle. what kind of motorcycle can't wheelie?

thanks for giving me hope though, nlovie

Go with the 13/54 sprockets, wheelies no problem. Of course your top speed will be around 130kmhr and you will be doing 4000rpm at 60 kph and 7350 rpm at 110 km hr.
If wheelies are that important to you that will be a small sacrifice indeed.

Or even go 12/57. Top speed almost 120kmhr, 4600rpm at 60, and 8400 rpm at 110 kmhr.
Imagine how impressed all the bystanders will be when you thunder down the street at 60kmhr and 4600 rpm. These bikes really start to growl around that rpm
You will even save money by needing a shorter chain.

Hawk Joined: Jul 21, 2015 Posts: 509 Location: Norway

i like your thinking. aggressive and economical. still a bit slow though

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 7:05 pm

.
Just do it! Pretty much anything (almost) will wheelie - I used to do them (balance wheelies) on my SOHC 750 and Z1 too. This is around '82; I treat my CBX much nicer now then I used to when it was 'just a bike'. Orange Bell Star helmet, snowmobile suit and tennis shoes... Best bike I had for this was my XL500. I could go forever on that thing. The big bikes needed a clutch pop to get started up otherwise they'd just do a long, low power wheelie but the littler bikes just needed a little deceleration to load the front forks and then a throttle whack & bar yank to get 'em started.

Hawk Joined: Jul 21, 2015 Posts: 509 Location: Norway

i like you pal. and your tennis shoes

Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 9:53 am

Norwegian - yi must have a push bike! Smile

practise with it - try with your feet on the passenger pegs i.e. putting your body weight more over the back wheel - semi standing position - find that rhythm by working the throttle whilst moving your body weight back - i.e. combine opening the throttle as the front fork expands back as you shift your weight to the rear - do this in 1st gear - ok your not covering the back brake, but this will get you used to finding that balance point where you open the throttle to match when the suspension is returning - its also a bit safer standing on the rear pegs = less chance of going over the point of no return - but mainly do this to learn about this combo of weight transfer to the rear + applying throttle at the same time - learn it this way versus using only engine grunt and you'll learn to pop it up with the least amount of throttle and hence then learn to use the torque to keep it up - once you work out this rhythm you can then add in a flick of the clutch to help punch it up, giving you even more throttle to play with once its up
DO NOT PRACTISE THIS TECHNIQUE with a 2 stroke crosser Laughing

you'll ground loop and end up on yir arse quicker than you can think it

Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 10:21 am

I always found it much easier to do with smaller bikes, the thought of flipping 500+ lbs. backward on oneself is a sort of psychological limiter there for me.

On the '2 stroke crossers' I could drive forever in the air......my 400 Kaw 3 would do it with no clutch as well.

Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 12:07 pm

On 2 stroke bikes, I never had to worry about oil starvation. But doing wheelies on a vintage/valuable/heavy bike just doesn't make sense to me. If your oil pressure light comes on when you are at that angle and under load, you've certainly self inflicted damage to the motor. Have you rebuilt a motor lately? The parts can get stupid expensive.

Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 2:48 pm

CBX-tras wrote:

On 2 stroke bikes, I never had to worry about oil starvation. But doing wheelies on a vintage/valuable/heavy bike just doesn't make sense to me. If your oil pressure light comes on when you are at that angle and under load, you've certainly self inflicted damage to the motor. Have you rebuilt a motor lately? The parts can get stupid expensive.

I agree.

Things that make sense when a person is 27 don't make the same amount of sense when you're way more than double that age and have the reasoning that gets developed from all previous life experiences. I wouldn't balance wheelie my CBX today any more than I would go jump off my roof!

I had to look around the instrument cluster to see where I was going, so the oil light, tach and everything else was pretty much in my face. I never had the oil light come on in anything that I wheelied that had one - much to my surprise... The SOHC engine is a dry sump motor so that made sense, but the CBX and Z1 oil light never even flickered. The Z1 would 'run out of gas' after a block or so and start dropping cylinders so I never went very far on it but everything else would stay up until I ran out of RPM or room.

My balance wheelies are now limited to my KX500, which can wheelie in any gear. My four-stroke street and race bikes only get the odd acceleration wheelie of a few inches.

I recently did buy a couple of H1 Kawasaki 500 triples though... (but I'm older & wiser now)

As an aside, I flipped bikes twice - once on my flat track bike when the throttle stuck wide open coming out of a turn and it hooked up & went over backwards, and the other time was on my XL250 in ~'75 when I was moving around on the bike and bumped the shift lever into the next higher gear while balanced.

AMC49 - I also had a 400 triple Kaw back in the day, and in 3rd gear at 60mph it was just at the right RPM to be able to whack the throttle and get about a 9-12" acceleration wheelie. It wheelied great in 1st and 2nd though. I'd very mildly ported it so it was faster than all my buddy's RD350s and 400s, but not by much.

Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2016 3:11 pm

the old yamaha IT 460 was the bugger of all things to wheelie - it would happily lift the front in top gear with nothing more than the whiff of a head wind, but just as you thought you'd got it -the power band kicked in = a lovely view of the clouds just prior to tearing up another pair of trousers
learned on a Honda XL250 motosport - my mates were popping power wheelies with their TS250's - the old XL was lacking in this dept, but stand up on the rear pegs - hoik it up to the balance point and you could do great long, slow but high stand up runs

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 4:14 pm

The motorcycle doesn't do wheelies. The rider does. I recently watched a 300 pound black guy wheelie a Road King with more shit bolted to it than you can possibly imagine.

Hawk Joined: Jul 21, 2015 Posts: 509 Location: Norway

took a ride today and while driving i was thinking the bikes to jolty to whelie. atleast first gear. the accelleration is gonna put me on my back in nanoseconds