First, the good news.
Anyone can learn to wheelie.
Even you.
The bad news?
It requires hours of practice.
Hours and hours and hours and hours and hours.
Tip number one.
You need to commit to regular practice.
Watching every single wheelie video on the internet will not bring you
one single step closer to learning how to wheelie if you do not have the discipline.
Practice. This is the number one reason why you will fail.
Therefore it is our first tip.
You need to find yourself a convenient appropriate and safe place to commit to regular practice.
If you plan to make it convenient and accessible, this may be the single reason you will succeed.
Number two.
Appreciate the complexity of what you are attempting.
Even as an intermediate rider,
there are at minimum five separate skills you'll need to learn to do a wheelie.
Then if you successfully master each of these five skills you will then require
hours of practice to tie them together.
Hours and hours and hours and hours.
Number three.
Watch a good instructional video.
There must be 420,000 fantasy wheelie videos on Youtube.
They're fun to watch because they reinforce your existing delusions about wheelies.
They make you feel like learning to wheelie isn't that difficult.
They make it look easy.
They conveniently leave out the dangerous consequences of learning.
Lies lies lies!
Number four.
Practice.
How come we're back here talking about practice?
Research suggests that it takes approximately 20 hours of practice
to begin to learn a complicated new physical skill.
And 10,000 hours to master!
Wheelies are unbelievably complex.
They are physical and they are scary.
You need to break down the first steps until you have them down cold.
And this will not happen in one session.
Tip number five.
Expectations!
Learning to wheelie will take longer than you think.
Expecting that you will surely get it after a few sessions is completely unreasonable.
And you are setting yourself up for failure.
Sure, if you're athletic and learn new physical skills quickly
it'll take less time than someone who lacks athletic ability and hand-eye coordination.
But mark my words, it will take longer than you anticipate.
The process will be a roller coaster of failure,
combined with emotional highs and lows for every 'aha' moment you experience.
Prepare for a frustrating glut of consistent failure shortly afterwards.
Consistent advancement is one of the elusive dragons you must battle while learning to wheelie.
Tip number six.
Hold on I thought this video said only five tips?
Bonus tip!
Usually we list safety a distant third, but today it ends up 6th
simply because safety is a real downer during a wheelie conversation.
Many of you are over 30 years old.
As we know, after 30 your bones have seen their better days.
Bone density begins to decrease every year.
Afterwards you become more and more susceptible to fractures.
Wheelies and fractures are roommates!
They exist together in close quarters.
To reduce the chances of small talk with your local x-ray technician,
do not skip steps in the learning process.
Do not assume you've got step two down after only successfully replicating it
two or three times in your one hour of practice.
Ignore this advice at your own peril.
I'll sign your plaster cast!
Here are some videos that break wheelies into logical manageable steps for muppets,
gumbies, and reprobates, who someday dream of doing a wheelie.
Arrivederci muchachos....