My Month of Doing 100 Wheelies a Day

April 16, 2021 3:29 AM

In her quest to master a quintessential cool-kid trick, Outside contributor Kim Cross found the sweet spot at the crossroads of work and play. A wheelie is the bicycling equivalent of hanging ten on a surfboard or spinning a basketball on your finger—a skill as profoundly cool as it is functionally irrelevant. [Outside Online]
posted by ellieBOA (21 comments total)

From the article: in January 2020, I hatch a plan: 100 wheelies per day for 30 days—3,000 attempts, all told—spread out over two or three months.
posted by ellieBOA at 3:33 AM on April 16, 2021

When I was a kid, I heard some other kids talking about their intent to "pop a wheelie," and for a long time I thought this move was called a "Papa Wheelie."

That's... That's all I have to say.
posted by synecdoche at 3:42 AM on April 16, 2021 [11 favorites]

As a teenager, I learned to do wheelies, and then ride a unicycle. And I can remember being so confident at no-hands riding that I could comfortably ride five miles that way, bends in the road and all. If I hit a rock, I could jump effortlessly over the handlebars and land on my feet.

At 50, the thought of coming off my bike fills me with a sick dread. It's not so much that my coordination and strength have deteriorated - it's that my reaction time is now too low to land in any kind of controlled way. And that makes all the difference.
posted by pipeski at 4:09 AM on April 16, 2021 [12 favorites]

There was some Cheerios as when I was a kid that featured, in one of its quick cuts, a silhouette of a kid popping a wheeling WAY off the ground and spinning 360*, which looked like the coolest thing ever, and my first attempt to do this in my driveway is how I lost my two front teeth.
posted by Navelgazer at 4:32 AM on April 16, 2021 [6 favorites]

At 50, the thought of coming off my bike fills me with a sick dread.

Same. It's been thirty years since I fell off a bike, and the fear of it keeps me from learning wheelies or doing any kind of single track. I'm content to be stuck on road & gravel.
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:46 AM on April 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

Oh I enjoyed reading this very much as a new mum.
posted by freethefeet at 4:55 AM on April 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

I never could pop a wheelie. I saw enough friends over-pop and fall back on their head, though. This was in the pre-helmet era of the 60s. Fun times.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:37 AM on April 16, 2021

Looks like someone already took Papa Wheelie for their band name.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 6:00 AM on April 16, 2021 [2 favorites]

first you get the wheelies
posted by thelonius at 6:36 AM on April 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

She'll need to visit Raleigh for the next stage- Rodney Hines, the No Hand King, a staple of the city.
posted by matrixclown at 6:54 AM on April 16, 2021 [3 favorites]

I can't find it anymore, but there used to be a google review that popped up as one of the top results when you searched for my fav local Thai place that complimented the food but warned that the neighborhood was sketchy - said reviewer had seen a kid doing wheelies down the street! Dirt bike culture and wheelies are a weird source of moral panic in Baltimore, so I understood the dog whistle, but it was still hilarious. Also, wheelies are cool and the neighborhood in question is fine.

This is a good article, thanks for posting!
posted by the primroses were over at 10:36 AM on April 16, 2021 [4 favorites]

At 50, the thought of coming off my bike fills me with a sick dread.

I felt that way even at 12, so needless to say I never learned a single cool bike trick.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:05 AM on April 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is tempting my 49-year-old self to start trying to do wheelies as I bike around the city and its parks. I finally learnt to ride no-hands a couple years ago and that's been nice.

And I dunno about calling a wheelie useless, I feel like the kinds of maneuvers involved in one are gonna have their uses in riding around a city with a constantly changing landscape of potholes and road repairs.

I tend to keep my computer bag in a milk crate on the rear of the bike, though, and I'd probably want to finally get that milk crate really secure first - right now it's held onto the rear rack by a bungee cord, and likes to fall off to one side if I have too much in it. I've got a cargo net that should do to keep the bag in the crate if I get that fixed.
posted by egypturnash at 11:38 AM on April 16, 2021

The father of the wheelie was a telegraph messenger named Daniel J. Canary, a “fancy riding” champion who figured out how to coax the penny-farthing’s rear wheel off the ground.

A quick youtube search is disappointingly void of results for penny-farthing wheelie...
posted by madajb at 11:52 AM on April 16, 2021 [3 favorites]

Good on Cross for challenging herself and willing to take her lumps! My son's learning to skateboard and I often think to myself that I should get a skateboard, helmet, and pads and learn with him but the prospect of injury always makes me think twice. He's the one with rubber bones not me.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:10 PM on April 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

madajb, so Mr. Canary is the true Papa Wheelie?

You know, I had never heard that phrase until today, but I am totally going to find a way to dad joke it into the next family bike ride.
posted by madajb at 8:10 PM on April 16, 2021 [1 favorite]

To make this happen on a motorcycle, you either rev the engine and dump the clutch, or simply rip open the throttle.

She makes it sound so easy. I have never mastered this and I doubt I ever will. I should have learned it back when I thought I was invincible.
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:14 AM on April 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

Okay, I've now read TFA to the end, and that was quite a good experience. I'm not the kind of person to practice anything for this long, which explains why I don't excel in anything. But I do admire the way she does, and then writes about it.
posted by Too-Ticky at 4:01 AM on April 17, 2021

floam: The throttle thing makes intuitive sense for a motorcycle.

Rub it in, why don't you.
posted by Too-Ticky at 6:56 AM on April 17, 2021

"Intuitive" isn't the same thing as "easy". Hitting a ball with a stick or club is fairly intuitive, but not everyone is good at it.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:15 PM on April 17, 2021

At 47, I can't ride with no hands anymore. I'm just too chicken. In my youth I could go just about any distance, at least as I remember it.
posted by Harald74 at 5:06 AM on April 20, 2021