Ride Sunday 13th March

[swanman]

Medium to fast paced ride on Sunday 13th, yes this Sunday. Meeting at Mission Bay car park, opposite burger king at 10 am. Heading towards Maeraetae maybe further depends. Looking at doing some wheelie practice along the way. Getting towards end of summer so let's do it.

Who's up??

[bugjuice]

y'up..
be there or be rectangular..

[dveus]

Will you be heading to maratai via whitford?, If so i will meet up with yahs there.

[crashe]

Sorry mate, not this time....
work to be done on the bike.....waiting for the guy to do it... have the parts.
(swing arm loose and rear wheel bearing)
Also health not up to par at the moment.
So you all have a safe ride out there....
and do be careful doing thoses wheelies.
:spudwave:

[swanman]

Will you be heading to maratai via whitford?, If so i will meet up with yahs there.

Don't know yet mate. Give me your number so we can txt tomorrow.

[scooterboynz]

hi ya , might be able to make it see what time i crawl out of bed

[750Y]

bugger i missed this post 8-(

[swanman]

Bugjuice and I met up at Mish Bay as planned, nobody else so we headed down to Mairaitai. Weather perfect. Nice ride down and then time to practice wheelies along the coastal straights. Spent about 1-2 hours doing that. Perfect place: little traffic, straight roads and no cops. Wheelies, wheelies and more wheelies. Bugjuice can now get it up over a foot and carry it a distance, well done while I ....(well all I'll say is that they are coming on) I'll let bugjuice give his opinion.

Now here is the problem, every time I see a quiet piece of road I have to wheelie, is this becoming an addiction??

I got one wheelie to 12 o clock, scared the crap out of me for a mo, but she still came down ok. Saw 150kmh in second gear on the back wheel as well.
Practice, practice, practice.................................

Deus/Mat what happened to you?? You missed a good ride budy!

[dveus]

I ended up getting roped into dismantling a glasshouse, would definately have rather been out on the bike.

[Lord Pac]

hmmm I see a new av coming soon! Nice one Swanman! Nice bike too :

[bugjuice]

bloody good day for it all, and a nice way to finish off a rear tyre too..!!

So, as Swanny said, a ton of wheelies.. Very little traffic, quite a few bikes around too. Plus the scenery is just unreal, not that you catch much of it with the front wheel blockin the view!

K, well me - I started with second gear and slipping the clutch with my arse really far back.. that's what I was told to give a try, and it kinda works, but not all that great at slow speed. So I decided to give first a go. Wound it up to about 45kph then start accelerating slightly, but then simutaniously, slip the clutch and give it some stick, and wayhay!! up it goes.. few goes of getting the front up a few inches, then really gave it a little more stick and up more! Swanny gave me some pointers, which helped a ton. I didn't realise I was leaning into the bike, before I had started (puts the ballence forward, makes it harder) so sit up more, need more stick, and roll it on a bit more before blippin the clutch. Tried it, and first go, up like a pro.. well, not a pro, but heaps better. Tried a few more times, getting there.

One thing I noticed was my head stopping my wrist from pulling the throttle open more. This obvisouly stops the power.. I moved my hand slightly forward on the throttle, so I still moved it the same amount (so my brain and hand thought), but the throttle was slightly open a bit more to start with.. ahhhhh.. that helps heaps and heaps.. Still the worry about too much gas n goin over, but Swanny reassured me you'd have to be a silly dick to over cook it that much. Tend to agree, but can see it could be easy to get heavy handed.. Anyhoo, more practice to be had. Tried it on my way home after a 4 hour break, only managed one - came up real quick and high, made me 'jump' so I dropped the gas off, bike came down, I came down on me nuts! ooowwwwwwweeeeeeeeeee.. didn't get to try any more after that..
Did also get a faster wheelie in too - second gear, around 85kph, same thing, and booooom baby! Front came down around 120 odd, so impressed with that too! I can do slowish ones, and fastish ones!! All that I couldn't really do a few weeks ago.. still a little lame, but for me, I'm pretty impressed..

Swanman - fuk mate, you're right on with those.. I think there's 2 ways of sustaining a decent wheelie - under ballance where you get to 11:30 and control it, or under power, and give it shit.. I think you're half way between them. You can power it away fukin quick and high, I think the next real challenege is get it up quicker - the quicker you can get to 11, the more on the throttle you can control it, but I guess this is where the danger of gettin it up to quick and over.. Like me, just practise practise practise, and oh yes, I think we are.. just make sure it's on yer own, or with other bikes, just not around cars..

You were better with your 'wobble' issue too. From the build up, you seemed to drift very slightly left, then you'd counter-steer this right, but by the time you started to correct it, you were already up, hence you coming down leaning right.. You got better tho, but I still noticed it once or twice. It came in handy on that long one you managed to pull off round a slight bend in the road, that was pretty impressive.

You're really not far off, you've got the hardest part over with, I think you just need some tips from the real pros, then you'll be with the crusty deamons in no time!

All in all, a good day spending a few hours with the wheel in the air, in an awesome location.. must do it again
Also managed my first rolling burn out too!!! But that was short lived after I crapped my pants again, but gonna give it a go again before I get that new tyre..

Nice one Swanny, must try to do some more soon

[/rant]

[Zed]

...Now here is the problem, every time I see a quiet piece of road I have to wheelie, is this becoming an addiction??

Sounds like it is already an addiction swanman, hehe. Just be safe man and make sure you keep it on 'straight' roads...when you start getting tempted to wheelie on almost 'any' road, straight or twisted, then you'd better recognise that your compulsion to be on one wheel is way out of control!