I have only ever pulled one wheelie, and that was definitely not
intentional! I was on a light waiting for it to turn green and a car behind
me kept creeping closer to me. I had only a couple of months experience and
only a beginners permit in my pocket, so I was supposed to have a licensed
driver follow me, which I didn't have. I was getting more nervous as time
came close for the light to change and I feared this guy going over the top
of me. I started to rev it up and fool with the clutch as I tried to move
away from him. When the light turned green I dumped the clutch and took off.
I was on a little incline and was intending to go straight, but I felt it
lean a little left and realized I had the front wheel in the air and was
turning left. I dropped it down and continued with the unintentional left
turn and decided my ride for the day was over and headed very slowly home. I
thought about what happened all the way home and was very thankful there was
no traffic coming towards me on the opposite side. I never did another
wheelie, intentional or otherwise. I'm too cautious to try any more of them
too.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: "James J Schneider" <jjschneider@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <virago@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2004 3:27 PM
Subject: Re: 920/750 Swap
> "If I tried one with my wife as passenger it would also increase blood
> flow,
> not the good kind either,"
>
>
> Yeah, me too. One time, though, I had a buddy on the back of my
> Interceptor. He rode a CBR900RR, so he knew all about wheelies. I had
> never had much luck with them; still haven't, I think it's my conservative
> nature and self-preservation instinct. I just can't bring myself to stay
> in the throttle as I dump the clutch. Anyway, he says to me, "rip one
up",
> which was his speak for a wheelie. So I did, and it was noticably more
> wheelie-friendly with him on the back.
>
> As a follow-on story, I can tell you that the little Interceptor would
> indeed do just as much wheelie as you wanted it to. Some time after that,
> I took it to the dragstrip and did about 5 runs. Never been on a
dragstrip
> before, so my starts were not very good but improved in each run. I was
> running in the low 14's; the magazines had the 500 Interceptor doing the
> quarter in the mid 12's, so I was about 1.5 seconds over those times. It
> seemed like the guys on faster street bikes were all running around a
> second or so over the mag times. Anyway, I really wanted to see the first
> two digits of my time be ''13", and on my last run I was ready to rock.
At
> the green, I dumped the clutch at about 11,000 rpm and up came the front
> wheel - woo hoo! I don't really know how high, but it was enough to make
> me pull in the clutch and let it out again, bringing the front end down
> some and then back up again. The second time it felt managable to me and
I
> rode it through, to a time of 14.02 - or 14.002 (can't remember how many
> digits)...aarrrhhhggg, so close. I suspect that the first wheelie wasn't
> as massive as I thought and I probably could have ridden it through to a
> time in the 13's, but hey, at least I didn't end up on my back with a bike
> on me. I was there with the CBR900RR rider and some GSXR750 riders, who
> were much more accustomed to wheelies and congratulated me on my air time
> afterward.
>
> Jeremy the wheelie maniac - hehehe
>
___________________________________________________________________________
> (un)subscribe info, archive: http://archives.itg.uiuc.edu/virago/
___________________________________________________________________________
(un)subscribe info, archive: http://archives.itg.uiuc.edu/virago/
