The best bike trick of all time is the wheelie. Don’t even come at me. Sure, there are a million tricks harder to do, but the wheelie is the OG. It’s trick zero. When I was 5, I saw a kid ride a wheelie on a ten-speed all the way down our suburban street. He might as well have jumped over the moon. Mind blown. World changed.
Can I ride a wheelie? No. Not really.
I know how. Pop the front wheel slightly higher than you think. Pedal. Feather the rear brake to keep yourself from going over backwards. It’s that first pop most people get wrong, a leap of faith. If you don’t pull hard enough, you’re chasing the wheelie, always pushing against the inevitability of your front wheel dropping. You’ll get three or four pedal strokes into it, convinced you were almost there, but you weren’t really. You can be close and also a mile away.
I have faith that, with a little practice, I could master this trick, and it sort of beggars my own sense of self that I’ve just never put in the time, although I have mastered some other reliable ways of falling off my bike.
The thing about a wheelie is, it’s a really useful thing to know how to do as it forms the basis for some other go-to moves like the bunny hop and the punch. It’s just that you stop needing the wheelie after the first pedal stroke. After that it’s just showboating, and that is NOT a criticism.
I would add the wheelie before I considered the back flip. The tail whip is a good one. I can sorta tail whip, but I’m no great shakes.
This week’s TCI Friday wonders, if you could add one bike skill to your repertoire, what would it be?
My wish would be to track stand consistently.
It would be the wheelie as well.
Wheelie for sure but a sweet tail whip always makes my heart flutter. Question, would you invest in one of those box/contraptions to learn to wheelie? They make me think of those blocks for skateboard wheels so you can learn kick flips.
I would not invest in such a device. Like training wheels, I think they create a false sense of the dynamics of the core project. I can sorta understand skater trainers (those wheel blocks to help you learn the foot motion of certain tricks before you learn them rolling), but it’s also probably just to take all the medicine up front, in my opinion.
Robot, I agree. I feel like you miss the core skills development when you add a cheater device.
Manual.
I’d to be able to do nose wheelies to consistently negotiate switchbacks. I can kind of do them, but more often I resort to a track stand which I can do pretty well and then sloppily scooch around. Table-topping bigger jumps would be sweet too.
Nose wheelie! Good call.
I’d like to be able to do nose wheelies to consistently negotiate switchbacks. I can kind of do them, but more often I resort to a track stand which I can do pretty well and then sloppily scooch around. Table-topping bigger jumps would be sweet too.
Nose wheelie to make 180 degree turns after I inevitably miss another turn at a trail junction.
Manual. Used to be able to whellie as a kid and a trick is all a wheelie is, but to be able to manual links to so many other applications on the bike while still look cool as by itself.
Wheelie, definitely. At 70, it may never happen. Sigh.