How To Wheelie A Mountain Bike (3 Easy Steps)
Learning to wheelie on a mountain bike is a useful fundamental skill, and it’s also great for impressing your friends. The wheelie is a useful skill while out on the trails, great for lifting the front wheel over obstacles, and perfect for technical climbs.
How To Wheelie A Mountain Bike
When you break down the wheelie into its pure fundamentals, it’s simply learning to keep the front wheel up at the balance point while pedaling and using the back brake to ensure you don’t go flying off the back of the bike.
Bearing this in mind, we have divided this tutorial into 3 simple parts:
1. Safe Dismount & Back Brake Control
2. Getting The Wheel Up And Finding The Balance Point
Before you start, make sure the saddle on your bike is set low (not fully dropped), and not fully extended. Also, select a mid-range gear that is not too hard to pedal, but you don’t want to be spinning out. Remember, always wear a helmet
1. Safe Dismount & Back Brake Control
– Learn to Dismount Off the Back of The Bike
Learning a safe rear dismount is probably one of the most important things when learning a wheelie, otherwise, you’re likely to go flying off the back of the bike and hurt yourself. So learning a safe dismount will help you not to feel scared of falling off, and will help you find the balance point.
1) Find some soft grass, this will help cushion your landing if you fall.
2) Put the saddle right down, out of the way.
3) Stand on the pedals, and lean backward pulling up the front wheel off the ground
4) Prepare yourself to jump your feet off the pedals, and land on the ground
5) Keep on leaning backward and pull up until you go past the balance point.
6) Now land with your feet on the ground, while catching the bike.
7) practice this until you feel comfortable stepping off the back of the bike.
– Learn Back Brake Control
Learning back control will help prevent you from going flying off the back of the bike. Doing a long-controlled wheelie is all about getting the balance between pedaling and back brake control.
1) First stand with your feet on the ground while holding the handlebars.
2) Now pull the front wheel up off the ground, while holding a finger over the back brake.
3) Once the bike is 2-3 feet off the ground, pull the back brake. Feel how it controls the bike, and sends the front wheel down.
4) Now stand on the pedals, lean back and pull up, bring the front wheel off the ground. once the wheel is 2-3 feet off the ground pull the brake. You will notice how it sends the wheel quickly back down. keep on practicing this until you feel comfortable.
2. Getting The Wheel Up And Finding The Balance Point
How To Get The Front Wheel Up?
1) Start on a slight uphill. Starting on an uphill will help you control the bike’s speed, otherwise, the bike will try and run away without you!
2) Select a low gear. Select a gear that is easy to pedal in, not quite the lowest gear (you don’t want to spin out).
3) Stay seated. It’s important to stay seated when doing a wheelie. put the saddle so it’s not fully down, but low enough so you can easily get off the bike if you need.
4) Keep looking forward. Remember when doing a wheelie it is important to keep looking forward, this will help keep the bike straight and stable.
5) Lean back and pedal. Now try to lean back while slowly pedaling, you should see the front wheel start to lift. Practice getting the front wheel a small amount off the ground. Just getting the front wheel off the ground can be a useful skill while riding.
How To Find The Balance Point?
1) Now pedal and lean back until you have to jump off the back of the bike. Practice this a few times. it’s important you are comfortable with stepping off the back of the bike.
2) Now do a wheelie until you are almost about to go off the back of the bike and now pull the back brake, sending the front wheel to the ground.
3) The balance point is just before you are about to go off the bike. so aim to do a wheelie at this point, slowly pedaling and pulling the back brake if the front wheel goes too high.
3. Combine And Practice
Lastly, it’s about practicing to pedal enough to keep the front wheel up at the balance point, and dabbing the back brake softly enough so the front wheel does not go straight back to the ground. So you are using your pedaling to hold at the balance point and the brake to stop you from going off the back. If you practice this enough, you should be able to wheelie for as long as you want.
Now you have learned to wheelie, you might want to learn to manual. check out our tutorial here:
How to Wheelie a Mountain Bike Questions and Answers
How Do You Do a Wheelie on A Mountain Bike for Beginners?
When learning to wheelie you should start by learning to lift, or ‘pop’ up the front wheel, next is learning back brake control, and then bringing all the skills together. Follow all the information in the tutorial to learn how to wheelie effortlessly.
How Hard Is It to Wheelie on A Mountain Bike?
Doing a wheelie on a mountain bike is probably one of the easiest bikes to wheelie because they have a good selection of gears, and you can normally select a good saddle height. BMX’s are very small and cramped to wheelie, and road bikes have skinny tires making wheelies unstable.
What Gear Is Best for Wheelies?
Select a good mid-range gear. You don’t want to be spinning out in a super easy gear, and you also don’t want to be struggling to pedal.
How Do I Make My Wheelie Longer?
Learning to wheelie longer is all about finding the balance between pedaling to keep the front wheel up and dabbing the back brake to stop yourself from falling off the back of the bike. Once you have got the confidence between these two elements you should be able to keep on wheeling for as long as you want.
Once you have learned how to wheelie a mountain bike, you can progress onto a manual, which is really useful on the trail and looks super cool, check out our tutorial here: How To Manual A Mountain Bike | MTB Skills
Final Thoughts
Learning a new skill takes practice and persistence, but it’s always worth it. Remember, it’s normal to feel scared at first, so you might want to check out our post on:
How To Overcome Fear When Mountain Biking (5 Tips)
- How To Manual A Mountain Bike | MTB Skills
- How To Bunny Hop On A Mountain Bike | MTB Skills
- How To Do The Attack Position | MTB Skills
Here’s a cool post on the longest ever wheelie
