About three summers ago, I started trying to wheelie my F2. I clutched up a few >1 footers off the ground and that was it. I knew in the back of my head I could rip it and it'd wheelie, but I was just too scared. I would only clutch it at around 5k RPMs which was just enough to get my front off the ground. Recently, I got on my friends little XR 80 and started fooling around. I began getting comfortable clutching it to 12 oclock and jumping off the back to catch it. I got a few decent balanced wheelies going and a few long second gear wheelies.

When I hopped back on my F2 today, I gave it a quick shot. Rolling in 1st around 3k rpms and clutching it up was about 1000Xs easier than when I tried 3 years ago. I got so used to manhandling the XR 80 and fighting for it's position that when I got back on my F2, it was almost effortless to get up. It does all the work for you. At 9-10k RPMs just slip the clutch and it floats up so easily. I really just needed a little more confidence to try some real wheelies. I'm sure i'm far away from my balance point but you can really feel how much more stable doing a wheelie on a 450 lb bike is as opposed to a 150lb bike... And the ability to ride it out easier because of the extra power. It felt so great to be able to do real wheelies on a motorcycle. There's no way i'll be trying to find my balance point any time soon, but I got it up and that's the first step.

So if you jumped right to motorcycles without trying to wheelie other stuff- don't in my opinion. It helped so much getting comfortable with my front up on something way smaller. If you have any friends with a clutched offroad machine, take advantage of it . I also don't look at my RPMs anymore, which I did when I first started because I was so afraid of raising it too much. That's not something you should have to think about.