Essentials of a stoppie

[R6_kid]

Hey guys,
just wondering what the essentials of doing a safe (controlled) stoppie are?

[Motoracer]

Refer to this thread:

http://www.kiwibiker.co.nz/forums/showthread.php?t=2526&page=2&pp=15

You need decent brakes and tires obviously and just make sure that the bike is not of the HD sort.

[Two Smoker]

Hey guys,
just wondering what the essentials of doing a safe (controlled) stoppie are?
As MR said, good brakes and tyres.... Dont think it will be possible on a GF 250 though sorry....

[Marmoot]

two things will help that have never been discussed before.
First is two huge balls of steel.
The second, a disposable income might help.

A lot can go wrong. If you squeeze the brake too quickly, or the surface is not ideal, the front wheel might lock up (and there's a good chance of it), and most of the time you'll stop and lay the bike down unintentionally, adding a few scratches on the fairing.
If you go up and do a rolling stoppies, hey that's great, as long as you don't flip it.

I used to do rolling ones...until I had quite a violent tankslap while on the front wheel only. That put me off stoppies......

But that's just me :D

[MD]

a helmet.
Then a bike. In fact make it a bike with sticky tyres, firm forks and brakes. Finally a big smile. You will use the smile the most once you get the hang of it.
MD :niceone:

[KATWYN]

slowly, evenly pulling on front brake at speed until fully engaged.
Don't pull it on hard and fully engage front brake at speed- :sweatdrop

Am i right guys? thats how I have done it- or have I just been lucky!

p.s not on gravely or painted surfaces!

[Motoracer]

slowly, evenly pulling on front brake at speed until fully engaged.
Don't pull it on hard and fully engage front brake at speed- :sweatdrop

Am i right guys? thats how I have done it- or have I just been lucky!

p.s not on gravely or painted surfaces!


Ummmmm, not that I am an expert or anything but I think what you really mean is to pull on the brake progresively (smoothly increase brakeing power by squeezing on it harder and harder) until you reach a comfortable height. All brakes are different so try not to think of it as fully engaged or otherwise, just go with the feel of the height you are at. If you think you have gone too far just ease off the brakes straight away. Before you start lifting your back wheel up, you might find that you are constantly skidding the front wheel. This means that you are not gentle enough with the whole thing. Ones a skid happens, let go of the brakes imidietly otherwise you'll be on the ground before you know it.

At first you might want to try riding at about 30-40kmph and come up to a halt with your back wheel in the air. Keep thoes legs of yours handy just incase if the bike positioning is wrong and you need to land the bike on the ground asap with your legs out to keep the bike from falling over. This will be a stoppie (not a rolling stoppie). This is a good first step and later on as your confidence grows, you can try it at higher speeds (60-80) and try to roll on your front wheel as you are doing a stoppie (hence the name rolling stoppie). For a rolling stoppie, for obvious reasons, do not take your legs out of the pegs until you have fully stopped.

Note: Words in bold are the key for doing stoppies.

[Motoracer]

P.S. I was just talking about braking there. Body positioning is quite important as well. Most people get off their bike and lean forwards to help a stoppie occur. On most bikes, you do not need to do this.

Wrap your legs around the fuel tank and hold on tight. just lean your torso forwards and back wards to help the stoppie height go up and down.

[KATWYN]

[QUOTE=Motoracer]Ummmmm, not that I am an expert or anything but I think what you really mean is to pull on the brake progresively (smoothly increase brakeing power by squeezing on it harder and harder) until you reach a comfortable height.


Ummmmm, yea that must be what I really mean. Slowly,evenly,progressively
smoothly. Mincing with words - whatever, descriptive explanation is not my strongest point. Thats how I do them :blah: .

[MD]

My better efforts seem to occur when I put it in neutral first. Don't ask me for a geometry-psycho-physics explanation for that. For me its; check the quality of seal; into neutral (sometimes), lean forward and grab a fast handful of brake; then ease off once its up to keep the rear floating as long as possible and let it down just before coming to a halt to avoid a harsh landing.

[FROSTY]

any way ya look at it its a scarey bizzo --especially if its ya only means of transport :ar15:

[Motoracer]

Ummmmm, yea that must be what I really mean. Slowly,evenly,progressively
smoothly. Mincing with words - whatever, descriptive explanation is not my strongest point. Thats how I do them :blah: .

Didn't want to sound like a dick and further explain what you might have ment but I just wanted to clear things up for the fella. Just incase he might have gotten into trouble. :)

[White trash]

Ol' Craig Jones has gone 278m on the front wheel of his Buell XB9R fairly recently. Lifetd the rear wheel at 140MPH.

Perhaps give him a bell and ask. ;)

[KATWYN]

Didn't want to sound like a dick and further explain what you might have ment but I just wanted to clear things up for the fella. Just incase he might have gotten into trouble. :)


Cheers. I did think you were giving me stick, sorry about sarcasm.

Good on you MR for being able to explain it step by step, I suppose the right
wording can mean the difference between getting it right and stuffing it up.

[FROSTY]

Sorry to sound like a grandaddy but just keep in mind what might be a perfect stoppie on one road surface can have ya in a screaming heap on another. hit one of those tar oozes in the middle of the road and ya stoppie might get real messy real fast :doh:

[Motoracer]

Cheers. I did think you were giving me stick, sorry about sarcasm.

Good on you MR for being able to explain it step by step, I suppose the right
wording can mean the difference between getting it right and stuffing it up.

Thats cool :cool:

Do you and your partner go on rides a lot? You should come to one of these KB rides. They are a fun bunch. It'll be good to see your stoppies as well.

[KATWYN]

Thats cool :cool:

Do you and your partner go on rides a lot? You should come to one of these KB rides. They are a fun bunch. It'll be good to see your stoppies as well.

Yep we go riding quite a bit. Like to ride in smaller groups. used to do the
bigger rides with Talamarkos club (nice bunch of people)

The stoppies - its one thing to be taught & practice in front of my husband
its another to do it in front of an audience

and also like I have said before, I have only got the back wheel off the ground a bit on the R6 (hubby says I have had it up about 6 inches, half a foot) I thought it was closer to a foot (felt like it), nothing spectacular like what you guys talk about. You could say its a "girly" stoppie I spose :o
but at least I am game enuff to try as I'm a bit of a pussy when it comes to
rider safety

[Motoracer]

(hubby says I have had it up about 6 inches, half a foot) I thought it was closer to a foot (felt like it) You could say its a "girly" stoppie I spose :o

I was doing thoes "girly" stoppies for quiet sometime. It is harder to build up the confiedence than 1 might think so if you keep on practicing, you'll get there one day.


but at least I am game enuff to try as I'm a bit of a pussy when it comes to
rider safety

Yep, you've got the right attitude. At the end of the day, its better to be safe than sorry.

[Cajun]

Yep we go riding quite a bit. Like to ride in smaller groups. used to do the
bigger rides with Talamarkos club (nice bunch of people)

The stoppies - its one thing to be taught & practice in front of my husband
its another to do it in front of an audience

and also like I have said before, I have only got the back wheel off the ground a bit on the R6 (hubby says I have had it up about 6 inches, half a foot) I thought it was closer to a foot (felt like it), nothing spectacular like what you guys talk about. You could say its a "girly" stoppie I spose :o
but at least I am game enuff to try as I'm a bit of a pussy when it comes to
rider safety

My wife wants to learn to do stoppies as well, problem is she wants to do them on my gsxr600 and not her own vtr1000f, she not interested in toing wheel stands just thinks stoppies look cool

my old gsxr1100 pulled great wheel stands, but the brakes were a bit stuffed, ( as in they needed new disc really, so stoppies it did not do)

[Coldkiwi]

best bit of advice I read about preventing stoppies going pear shaped is
'Unfortunately, the best places to do stoppies so that you can impress people are generally the worst places to attempt them. School crossings (kids love stoppies but will crucify you if you get it wrong), intersections; anywhere cars would normally stop, the road will always have more slippery crap on it than elsewhere. So if you're going to practice them, do it well away from these areas or you'll end up giving spectators something to laugh about instead.'

wise words methinks. The ol front end skid leading up to an intersection is absolutely no fun at all!!