The greatest frustration with learning stunts is finding someone to teach you how to do them. How many times have you heard someone say, “Well I can’t explain it, you just have to feel it.”? We all want to learn how to accomplish these feats of stupidity/manliness. With the right instruction, you can practice them safely and progressively. This is not advice from professional riders/stunters, but merely riders who have gone through a lot of it, and ultimately, are humble enough to share their experiences with others.

Stunting, knee dragging, and other types of “hard riding” are inherently more dangerous than simply riding your motorcycle. However, by practicing slowly and correctly, you can reduce the risk of wrecking your bike and more importantly, yourself. Remember, always wear full gear and practice, practice, practice.

Helpful Terms:

Balance Point: There are really two balance points – the first, in which you can keep your front wheel in the air by accelerating (you will eventually run out of revs), and the much harder in which you can keep your front wheel up while maintaining a constant speed. (this BP is VERY, VERY high)

Covering the Rear Brake: By keeping your foot over the rear brake during a wheelie, you are able to quickly ‘tap’ it to keep the bike from flipping over backwards. By tapping the rear brake, the rear wheel slows, allowing the bike to rotate or pivot forwards around it, therefore bringing it back to the ground. When all seems lost, this can save your butt!

Slip the Clutch: To pull the clutch in (enough so that is doesn’t grab) and release it after the RPMs have climbed significantly, in order to raise the front wheel without wasting RPMs. (i.e. if cruising around 5k RPMs, slip the clutch, which brings RPMs to 9k-10k and a sudden burst of power to rear wheel – when the clutch is released, RPMs are back to 5k-6k.

Bounce it up: This term refers to one of two things. 1) To roll the throttle on/off/on quickly, to use the bike’s suspension to help bring the front wheel into the air. 2) To bounce on the bars/pegs before a stand-up wheelie to help the suspension bring the front wheel into the air.

Tank-Slapper: This is an uncontrollable oscillation of the front tire, either caused by setting a wheelie down with the front tire crooked, or by accelerating hard and barely lifting the front, causing it to wobble. An extreme one will violently shake your handlebars from lock to lock (extreme left to extreme right) repeatedly. I say uncontrollable because you have no control over it at the start, however once fully into it, if you have quick reactions, you can reduce the risk of ending up in a nasty crash. Best thing to do – NAIL THE THROTTLE! This will take pressure off the front of the bike and hopefully pull you out of it.

Power Band: The range of RPM’s in which the bike achieves maximum power. Usually between 5k and 9k.