Seriously – How Long To Pedal Wheelie?

I’m going to seriously have a go at learning a pedal wheelie. I am tired of seeing little kids wheelieing about and living with the secret shame.

How long do you reckon it will take? I am reasonable pig headed, have a convenient location to learn in, flat pedals and a bike with relatively short chainstays.

Anyone else learned how to do this in adulthood, or am I doomed to failure?

FWIW I’m 54 and it’s taken me 10+ hours to be able to “manual” for 10m think it will be at least another 10 hours to be good at it. Wheelie’s are a a bit easier so i bet you’ll be up and running in a few hours!

Manual > Pedal wheelie

And more useful

But really 3 or 4 half hour sessions should get you reasonably good, depending on how your balance is. Cover the back brake and just a case of rinse and repeat.

you’ll be up and running in a few hours!

The running bit normally comes after you’ve gone too far.. 😳

Make sure you get endos nailed too.

As a kid I could wheelie my bmx for fun. One handed, figure 8s, sometimes even took the front wheel off and rode the thing around.
43 now and been back into mtb for about 3/4 years and struggled. This summer tried to get it nailed and have.
What I found – it’s hard on my full sus, lock the shock out and it’s easier, set your brakes up so there not grabby, so you can ease them on with out slamming forward, seat down a bit, lock the arms out and lean back using your knees to balance.

Stoppie, rather than endo, far more impressive!

Alright, this weekend I am going to give it the old college try and report my findings!

Agree that a manual is more useful, but I’m told it’s easier to use a wheelie to get the balance point and then move on to manuals? Is this correct?

i’ve been trying* for … about 32 years, i’ve progressed roughly nowhere.

(*and i mean actual practise; several times a week)

Do half an hour every day rather than longer intermittent sessions. You’ll feel like you are going nowhere for a while then you’ll find one attempt in ten feels “different”, keep trying and the technique and success ratio will improve.

The people who say it takes a few hours are clearly the ones who have actually managed to do it.

So for balance……….

Don’t bother its impossible

Bung it in a low gear, keep the seat high and stamp on the pedals? You might want to cover the back brake and get friendly with a dentist 😀

Softer and wider rear tyre also helps. Made wheelies a LOT easier when I stuck a 2.4 ardent on the back.

This is perhaps the most important reason that you should commute to work-every day, whatever the weather.

That way you are practising a chosen skill enough to actually get good at it.

Wheelies, manuals, bunny hops, endo’s it’s all good!

It took me a summer (probably 2 months ish) of practising wheelies on my 30 minute commute to get good enough to do it in-front of the skatererz/scootererz general toe-rags who will end up doing this sort of thing for a living, at the local hot spot.

I get a kick out of overtaking people on my back wheel now while on my commute (I think it’s worth even more extra points as I’m on a single speed).

Qick edit:
I found running the rear tyre with more pressure (30-40 psi) easier to steer as there’s no weaving around.

Significantly shorter with someone to show you how.

It won’t take long to learn to get the front wheel up and approach/pass the balance point.

Staying in the balance point might take a while to learn. Just a bit of practice over days/weeks/months/years.

Then you can start working on the really important stuff like turning corners, stopping peddling and holding a manual, waving to ladies…

You might want to cover the back brake and get friendly with a dentis

My mates a dentist, he can wheelie and i can’t! Not fair!!

What I found – it’s hard on my full sus, lock the shock out and it’s easier, set your brakes up so there not grabby, so you can ease them on with out slamming forward, seat down a bit, lock the arms out and lean back using your knees to balance.

I just end up sitting on the back wheel 🙄
Told not to pull up/back on the bars
Drop heels and push/extend from the hips= stand up! no wheelie/manual
I just put it down to auld age, lack of flexibility and loss of co-ordination due to said ageing process

Even been on a skills course and the very well known instructors gave up on me 😐
Not strictly true but we had to move on before I got anywhere near getting wheels of the ground…..

A sit down wheelie, I edge to the back of the seat and really stretch out my arms.
Unfortunately the elusive manual is proving to be a bit more tricky, I can do it for a couple of seconds but that’s it.

smatkins1 – Member

Staying in the balance point might take a while to learn. Just a bit lot of practice over days/weeks/months/years

/decades.

I been upping the Ante on this for exactly the same reason, I coach kids and they whip my arse at Wheelies and Trackstands, so I started with the trackstands and am now on the wheelies. I can get about 3-4 revs in.

There’s no better feeling on a bike than manualing. 🙂

Bunny hops over/onto stuff in to manuals are even better!

(that said, I can’t do it on a MTB now, but as a teenager everything was fair game on the BMX)

I can get a few pedal strokes in then it flops over to one side. What are you supposed to do?

then it flops over to one side. What are you supposed to do?

wear tighter pants. Sorry 🙂

I can’t wheelie or manual for toffee either

More finesse, less grunt. Find a flatfish street (slightly uphill is helpful) then in a relatively low gear – not too much or you won’t have the resistance, give a little pull up and back with a co-ordinating little pedal stroke and find that balance point. Then feather the back brake or ‘blip’ the pedal depending on whether you’re tipping forward or backwards. give it a few hours and you’ll soon master that tipping point. The tougher part is maintaining it throughout pedal revolutions and feathering.

Each bike is different, took me a little while to get used to a full suss but the principles remain the same.

There is an old film of me ‘popping wheelies’ when I was about three. 33 years later I probably spend half a ride on my back wheel. Manuals, wheelies are bloody brilliant. 🙂

I can get a few pedal strokes in then it flops over to one side. What are you supposed to do?

Use your knees to counterbalance. It’s all about smaller movements.

if one more person says “balance with you r knees” i’ll….. 👿

I can track stand all day long, but wheelies – nope. You would have thought being able ride skinnies and suck stuff would make it easier -but it doesn’t – i will pay money to be able wheelie and manual well..

Watch this training video

if one more person says “balance with you r knees” i’ll…..

Ha! Probably this is not the best example but you can see JMC shifting his weight with his knees here. And it’s a chance to show a bit of DIRT (about 5m 40s)

Call it what you will but using knees to balance – inwards or outwards, its a centre of gravity shift.

I learnt to wheelie as a kid on my bmx. Skip forward a few years and I got to the point of wheelie-ing my whole 2 mile canal commute without putting the front wheel down.
I have helped a few people learn and I find the best place to practise is on a slight uphill as it means you need less rear brake and its harder to overspeed. The most important point though is going up/back further than you think. Try and find the balance point between too far back and not enough up and keep it there with a combination of balance, pedalling and rear brake. When you have mastered the balance point you can start trying fast low wheelies and slow high (which are harder).
I’m not sure if wheelie-ing directly helps with manualing. It definitely helps with the balance point and brake control but does nothing for the pumping you need to raise the front end without pedalling.

drop your seat and weight your arse, use your hips to steer and learn to use your back brake as your failsafe, its much easier if someone shows you tho.
best of luck … if you stick to it then you Will get them 😉

This is the video that helped me the most.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSqkKtnMM_U

Agreed that regular short sessions are better than longer intermittent ones. I worked on each step in turn, then moved onto the next. Still not great at it (not enough regular practice), but can manage a good 10 pedal strokes. Anyway, here’s my top tips:

– Practice deliberately going past the balance point and jumping off the back. It’ll help build the confidence to get the the front wheel up high enough, without the fear of falling out the back. Do this a few times before each practice session to help you get your eye in.

– Pedal up to the wheelie and give it an extra power stroke to get the front wheel up. It’s easier to give it a bit of extra juice, when you’re already pedalling, than it is to pop the front wheel starting from static/level pedals. You can then progress to doing it from coasting with level pedals.

– Drag the back brake a little when trying to pop the front wheel. Again, it’s easier to control and apply a little less/more pressure if you’re already braking, instead of jabbing on the brake from nothing and the front wheel slamming back down. As you get better, you’ll be able to do it without dragging the brake.

– Keep pedalling while you’re learning. Once the front wheel is up, keep your legs turning. You can give it a bit more/less as required. Keep pedalling even if you need to apply a little braking. You’ll eventually be able to start/stop pedalling as required.

– When popping the front wheel, preload the front end and when pushing your weight back, slide your ass back on the saddle. Only needs to be an inch or 2, but it makes a difference. I found it also made it easier to jump off the back if I went past the balance point.

It’s all about practice. Do it on flat bits and boring fire road climbs. Just don’t do what I did and fall off the back in front of a bunch of school kids. 😳

It took me about a month to learn to track stand. It´s taken me… 6 years to learn to wheelie, that´s practicing almost every day. For a while I thought I´d never get it but then it just clicked and now I can pretty much do it for a mile. One handed is coming but slow. Manualing is the next thing, I can do it about 20-30m regularly and 100m every now and then but it´s very intermittent. I´m going to work over winter, got some tips from some good guys and they reckon I´ll get it soon.

Top wheelie tips from me, as someone who was seriously not a natural, are:
1. Go back further than you think. It´s to do with the weight on your hands, so long as there is weight on your hands you´re not back far enough. Practice going beyond the balance point and bringing it back again. Being near the balance point is what lets you get the side to side balance.
2. Keep your knees right out, it really, really, really helps with the side to side thing.

Those two things really helped turn the tide for my wheelies.

Manuals are way more useful, but you only need to be able to manual 10m for it to be useful. Wheelies are useful too, I use them all the time, but it´s just a really cool feeling. I wheelie loads each day now just because I enjoy it.

I’m in the same position as the OP – a life of riding bikes with only the odd flukey wheelie.

I found waving the bars about helpful for side to side balance – turning the bars one way or the other definitely helps if you start steering one way or another. Looks like you know what you are doing as well.

43 and still getting it on the back wheel… 🙂
Start when your in 1st year at high school riding BMX and never stop…
Todays youngsters make us all look like old gits with their manuals 😉

Fatbikes are great for wheelies, dunno, must be the geometery 🙂

a mate tried to learn manualing according to this vid…
we had a laugh at first..but he is quite good now, better than most of us..
with the stem turned in the right direction again.. 🙂

Start when your in 1st year at high school riding BMX and never stop…
Todays youngsters make us all look like old gits with their manuals

Don’t remember seeing any bmx in ’62 😉

Get your self a Santa Cruz chameleon, it’s almost impossible to be bad at manuals with these. Best bike I’ve owned to date. I still have a long travel hard tail frame in the garage which was so slack I actually couldn’t pull the front wheel off the ground, it was dead stable pointed down hill but bugger all fun anywhere else.
As said earlier, the daily commute is the best place to plug away at this, unless you have loads of free time on your hands.
My party trick is the hop manual …. Always looks good when a beardy 41 year old rides up to the 2 foot blocks where the skaters hang out, hops up and manuals across and rides away… Took a few years of practicing on my early commute with no one around to get there mind you.

Start when your in 1st year at high school riding BMX and never stop…

I could do every trick in the book on my bmx, except pedal wheelies. I think i was just too big to sit down and pedal at the same time. Wasn’t really concerned at the time as i think they look shit 😀 . I can do them ok now on the mtb but much prefer manuals for style and usefulness on the trail.

A guy i ride with on occasions is a master of all rear-wheeled fun. I thought i was semi-decent at manuals and recall being chuffed with a particularly long one when he came flying past, pulling a monster coaster (like a manual only seated) with the bike near vertical. Bastard!