Can anyone wheelie a mountain bike?
I’d think that after riding a unicycle it would be easy. However, after a couple of hours practice I still can’t get in balance for more then 50 feet.
Does anyone have any helpful hints?
50 feet is pretty good, in my opinion…I can’t come close to doing a wheelie. Or even riding with no hands.
the trick is pulling up enough and being in the right gear. I don’t know exactly what works best gear wise but I can do it best in 2:2 or around there.
try reading this:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2647_wheelie-bike.html
You should be able to do it in any gear (maybe not the highest beacuse that would require really strong legs)
If you have a low speed before you start the wheelie you should usea low gear, higher speed means higher gear.
There is no need to pull hard on the handles if you have the right timing. You want to push hard on the pedal half of a second before you pull the handlebars, then it won´t take that much to get your front wheel airborn.
After you gotten your wheel up its pretty much the same thing as a unicycle, fall forwards pedal faster, if you fall over backwards apply some brakes.
do you mean a catwalk?(riding on the back wheel for and extended period) ive seen people do it for long times but i never saw it as very hard…its more about balance that strength.
why are you riding a b*ke anyways?
Strange, I can ride a unicycle for 20 miles without a break, but I’ve never really been able to do a wheelie on a bicycle.
The only cool wheelie I ever did was in 1979/80 when I was drunk, and it just went on for ages, round the corner and down the next road. All other attempts have resulted in bruises to the back of my head or to my testicles.
It is a different balance somehow compared to riding a unicycle. Your feet are in front of you and it’s a coaster hub plus you don’t have your hands free for right to left balance.
In all it’s bugging me that I can’t get the balance. I always seem to fall over right or left. I want to learn to ride on the back tire of a bike for as long as I want.
Saddle hight? Body posture? Main balance correction? The whole pedal faster and brake for front and back makes sence to me. It’s the right and left I can’t seem to get right.
P.S. Habby! One word: speed.
P.P.S. I know this is a unicycling forum, but you guys are friendly (eek!) and understand unicycle balance.
It’s also to know when you’re leaning back too far so that you can put your feet on the ground. Only once was I too late and ended up landing flat on my back but it hurt.
You could do like Unibiker, Peace Be Upon Him, and cut the front fork off your bike…that way you have no choice but to mount right in to a wheelie!
Did Uni-biker have a freewheeling hub on that bike? If it was fixed so you can pedal backwards to regain balance it is kind of like a recumbent unicycle?
I practiced a while more just now, it seems not possible to learn how!
So instead, now I’m riding my homemade 12" giraffe unicycle… much better!!!
yes,dont even get into mtn biking. Iam a pro at wheelie-ing, i can wheelie for like a mile,down and up hill. especially after learning to uni, i can do things on my bike so easy.
I can ride a wheelie(cat walk) and nose wheelie on a MTB.
I usually use the 2nd gear, its just my preference.
You have to keep your fingers on the brake as well as lean back. Grabbing and releasing the brake is key. When you start to fade back to much, tap the brake to bring you back! It is really about practice, just like UNI!!!
DANGER!!
I have an intense fear of the dreadful bicycle on account of an accident that happened while I was doing a wheelie on a BMX Bike, which is different from a mountain bike.
I placed the wheel on the ground after a wheelie and it hit something on the gravel road and decided not to roll. thrown over the handlebars, I shot head first into the road and I managed to get my arms in front of my face before I landed. Then the bike, which had flown into the air behind me, landed on my head and knocked me out. The kids I was riding with were younger, thought I was dead and were so frightened they left me on the road.
When I came to, I was in a puddle of blood-soaked gravel and a car was honking at me.
There wasn’t enough tissue left on my elbow for stitches, but they cleaned me out at the hospital with a toothbrush (I was numbed, but the sound was very disturbing, knowing what was generating it.). My head was okay.
My mom was madder thana wet hen. And now, I am afraid of riding bicycles.
Exercise extreme caution when operating those complicated machines. They are a hazard.
PS. This was back in 1978, before people in my part of the world had ever heard of helmets and other protection for riding wheeled things.
Riding a wheelie on a mountain bike is quite difficult because the balance point is usually so high on these bikes. A BMX bike is better and an old banana seat bike, like the classic Schwinn Stingray is the best. It has a low balance point because your weight is toward the rear of the bike so the front wheel is only about a foot off the ground. When i was 16, I rode a wheelie for 23 miles non-stop on my old Stingray.
First, riding a wheelie is nothing like riding a unicycle. They are 2 completely different skills.
Try to raise your your seat as high as you can and still comfortably ride the bike. This will lower your balance point and make learning easier.
Practice on a slight uphill grade, this will keep you from gaining speed to quick. In order to sustain a wheelie on level ground you have to know how to slow down by falling slightly past your balance point and then using your rear brake. A coaster foot brake is great for this but unless you have a beach cruiser or old banana seat bike, you will have to learn with the hand brake, which is more difficult, in my opinion.
Your side to side balnce problem can be corrected by turning the front wheel away from the direction you are starting to fall. Also, if it is windy, forget about it, that front wheel in the air acts as a sail and will throw off your side balance every time.
Make sure you can get your feet off the pedals in a hurry if you fall backwards quickly. DON’T wear boots or other shoes that can cling to the pedals. Falling on your ass off a wheelie is very painful!!
Good luck and let me know how you are progressing.
couple summers ago I was all into the weelie thing and I wasn’t going as far as I wanted. and one day my derailer broke leaving me in ninth gear, so I gave up one wheelies untill one day when I put my seat way up high and tried one again and I went really far (and really fast). So the moral of the storie is put it into a hard gear and start at a higher speed, and you will go far
Can’t help you on the wheelie thing, but after learning to uni, I can now ride no handed on a bike, and stand on the pedals no handed…fun stuff
Meh… If I’ve been riding my unicycle for a while, I find it difficult to ride handsfree on a bike… must be due to the fact that I try to swivel around… Oh well…sod bikes… I’ll just ride my unicycle 