Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

how much can you control a bikes desire to wheelie under power?
was watching the 2003 motogp review dvd with a mate last night after also watching this.
http://www.sleepy-fish.com/sleepy/5thGe ... ati_lo.wmv
he asked me how come the motogp bikes dont seem to be as wheelie happy as the duke in that movie when they're obviously putting out more power.
I thought it was an interesting question and didn't really have an answer so i put it to you guys.

is it all about wheelbase or is there more you can do ?

I would think that there would be a number of variants that cause a bike to wheelie...

application of power - rolling on the throttle, rather than snapping it open, will cause accelleration (generally) rather than a view of the sky.

Rider position - lying flat on the tank VS sitting upright and raising the centre of gravity.

suspension setup... I spose the list could go on....

Me agree with Flakey. Weight ditribution and how you apply the throttle is really all it comes down to. Oh, and your bike, can't do power wheelies on a Zed Sled 250

looking back on it he was probably trying to wheelie the duke more than he let on... i'd kind of assumed that in both cases they would have been doing everything they could to keep it down.
but now the link is dead and i can't find the movie on my hdd to check

smek wrote:how much can you control a bikes desire to wheelie under power?
was watching the 2003 motogp review dvd with a mate last night after also watching this.
http://www.sleepy-fish.com/sleepy/5thGe ... ati_lo.wmv
he asked me how come the motogp bikes dont seem to be as wheelie happy as the duke in that movie when they're obviously putting out more power.
I thought it was an interesting question and didn't really have an answer so i put it to you guys.

is it all about wheelbase or is there more you can do ?

when the front wheel is in the air the bike doesnt accelerate as hard. recently we had ken wootton on the show live from valencia. he was to ride troys ducati desmosedici that afternoon, the one piece of advice troy gave him was to keep his foot near the back brake pedal so it didnt try and flip in 3-4-5 gear.

that proves the bike will do it, the riders have their own ways to keep it under control so as to maximise forward progress.

i personnally consider it a feature, not a bug

not to mention the longer swingarm a GP bike has for such reasons, and they
can ride pretty bloody good..id reckon most of em could lift the front wheel
in almost every gear..i reckon vale could wheelie a zzr250 in 6th if he
wanted to!!
also phil made a lot of valid points..he'd probably b more on the mark than
me...so re-read his post!!
Neka
2000 CBR 929RR
1988 KDX200 thrasher
1996 VS SERIES 2 UTE
"dont hate me cos im sexy, hate me cos ur mrs thinks im sexy"



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I recall reading somewhere (I think a story in AMCN by Alan Cathcart) about a fellow who test rode a MotoGP bike. He claimed that the bike would power wheelie quite easily at 240km/h!!!

I WANT ONE!

it probably can and will. i think its all about throttle control.