Zan

how do you do it? i haven't been riding a mountain bike for about a year (no bike), and i wasn't all that great when i stopped riding. i can do xc okay, i suppose, but i have trouble getting my front wheel up. i watch some of the kids 'round my neighborhood doing sustained wheelies down the road. i can't ever seem to pick my front up. i know i can ride much faster than them, so i know it's not a strength issue - it's technique.

i know this will give me better control over my bike and will help me with trail riding. how do you do it? any tips?

i recently fixed a pos beater (yeah, it's a pos even for a beater). i was trying it out, i still can't seem to do it.

ProFail

How will a wheelie help with bike control?


Things that help control/be useful-

Riding in a line
Trackstanding
Bunnyhopping
Sidehops



Nearly Useless Outside of Urban/Trials/BMX-
Wheelies
Manuals
Decades



Only time I'd do a wheelie is to get down a ledge with no run up. That said, how to do a wheelie.

scrublover

use your weight shift more. weight back. you don't have to muscle the front of the bike so much. a lower gear sometimes can help as well.

learning how to get the front wheel up and over things can be a very useful skill, depending on the trails you ride.

cryptid01

hahahahah
you need to get out more kid.

cryptid01

It's probably not what you want to hear, but my best advice is practice, practice, practice.

Dannihilator

Practice is key to a well balanced diet.

scrublover

exactly. i got over a downed tree today nearly as big around as my wheel. without being able to lift up the front wheel... it would have hurt.

ProFail

And.... That's not a wheelie. That's lifting up your wheel really high, which is different then sustaining a wheelie.

I can do both wheelies and manuals, but I've never used them in practice.

mtnbiker66

Just shut up.

Dannihilator

When getting your front wheel off of the ground to clear and obstacle, you are going through the same movements as when you are getting ready to do a wheelie or manual.

ProFail

Eh.

I don't see how a wheelie would help at all with anything but holding your front wheel up at the perfect angle.... which is redundant. Now, *getting* your front wheel up is very useful for clearing large objects. But keeping it there isn't.

When I learned to do wheelies I didn't notice any improvement in balance with two wheels on the ground.


EDIT-
"When getting your front wheel off of the ground to clear and obstacle, you are going through the same movements as when you are getting ready to do a wheelie or manual."

I know that. I never said that was unuseful. I said the wheelie itself is.

Dannihilator

I use the wheelie/ Manual alot.

ProFail

I'll bite.

When?

Dannihilator

When on the trail.

scrublover

The OP asked partly in reference to having it help him when trail riding. Duh. Not you. If he learns how to get the front wheel up for however long, maybe it'll help his trailriding a bit.

It can be a stylistic thing as well. I've wheelied (sp?) over bits of trail before. To think that learning how to wheely won't help with trail riding (if your trails have things that need the front wheel lofted over) is just plain stupid. Better control over your bike is a good thing. Learning to do some trialsy moves on street can help quite a bit when on some trails.

scrublover

Even though you asked Smashy:

I wheely dropped several things today. Also wheelied the front over quite a few logs and root section, and a few rocks. Lofted the front wheel up (pedaled and manualed) quite a bit to get up some step sections. All in one 3.5 hour trail ride. Not knowing how to do that would have made that particular trail much harder to ride. And less fun!

ProFail

Well, I already covered doing wheelie drops.... And bringing your wheel up, sooo....

If you want to do a wheelie while riding a trail, cool. I do that sometimes. If you want to do trial-esque stuff as well, cool. Same here. But unless you're riding trials I don't see any reason why you'd have to do any of that. Popping your wheel up for 3 or four feet will cover just about everything.



And to make this clear, doing an 80 foot wheelie down to the obstacle does not count as necassary.

ProFail

Thanks for making that clear.

scrublover

Then you aren't riding technical enough trails if you think popping your wheel up is all you need to know/be able to do. Being able to pull some trialsy moves is pretty much a requirement of some of the local trails around me, or you'll just end up taking your bike for a hike on a lot of sections.

And again: if the OP learns to wheelie, he'll be able to do those other front wheel up moves.

ProFail

Then I'd say you ride difficult trails. Unless I'm sub-consciously [sic?] doing trials, all of our trails here only require you know how to drop and avoid roots. And maybe navigate rock gardens.

Dannihilator

Avoid roots? Come on up here to the North East, you'll learn in a heartbeat that you can't avoid riding on roots.

scrublover

Avoiding roots and rocks here is sometimes not an option. Picking the best line, flowing around them, using one root or rock to loft yourself over a line of others is. Some very, very tight twisties in the trees, with narrow trees and corners sometimes require a little sidehopping or tossing the back wheel around to clear things. And we have tons of log rides that require some moving the bike around quite a bit. Short steep ups and downs with rocky steps. Throw in some roots and some of the afore mentioned twisty stuff and you have trails where being able to toss the bike around a bit is very, very helpful.

A lot of locals refer to some of the general riding as cross stuntry.

I've ridden several places across the U.S. and I've been able to find trails in all of them that those moves prove quite useful.

To say that wheelies and trialsy moves are of no value on the trail just because you don't find them to be so is purely asinine.

ProFail

We have that, I just never thought about it. Plus, I consider riding over roots with skill XC moves and not trials.

Pivoting up steps and in general is trials, but only with platform and I've never seen multiple step-ups on a trail anywhere.

scrublover

It's not trials. But if you work with some of that stuff, and have better balance and bike handling in general because of it... (work with me on this one...) you'll end up a better trail rider. I find myself stuck/stopped on a section of trail with some techy bit now and again. Being able to trackstand, hop the bike around a bit and regain your balance, then continue pedaling onward is a nice thing. Trialsy skill transfered to trail riding. Or hopping up a chunky rocky bit. Or pivoting on your front wheel to get around something, or to pop the rear wheel up onto something laterally.

Huh. We have trails all over out here with lots of rocky step type moves, up and down.

Tip: just because you are clipped into your pedals doesn't mean you can't use your weight shifting and body english to move the bike around rather than being dependent on the clips to do so.

ProFail

Okay.

Everything checks out in PFs brain.