Motorbikes India Online magazine about motorbikes in India
Since the basic elements have been put forth in the previous articles which had specifically listed down the attributes of Sportbike Freestyle Riding, today adding a new page in the book should help the Sherlock Holmes in you to understand the units of this performing sport.
It had been clarified that the units of this sport are called tricks and not stunts as if otherwise, then a guy hitting a ball which is coming at him with a speed of 140-150 kmph with a wooden bat should also be listed as a stunt and not as a shot. Practicing the shot overtime helps the batsman perfect a skill to judge the ball and his swing in order to touch the ball at the right moment and convert the same into a Yuvraj Singh’s six or Rahul Dravid’s four.
Similarly, the tricks are practiced on daily basis to be achieved in the perfect form and poise that they have to be.
There are five clubman-edition categories of the tricks in Sportbike Freestyle Riding. Today we shall begin our ride by learning in brief about them:
Wheelies: The most basic and simplest of all tricks in Sportbike Freestyle Riding. Almost everyone here, petrol head or not will most probably be aware of this trick. The wheelie can be straightaway physiologically defined as the trick where the front wheel is popped in the air and the whole mass of the bike and rider itself is on the rear tyre being balanced throughout the execution.
What the commoners and the spectacle bearers would not really know that a wheelie is performed in two formats: Straight line wheelie and Circle wheelie. Straight line wheelies are the first thing which a rider learns to understand the technique to balance the weight of the bike and play with the mechanisms to achieve a stance. Maximum wheelies are conducted with the rider in the saddle of the bike while popping the wheel.
Stoppies: After wheelies the most common feats which are easily evident are stoppies. A layman can characterise it by noticing that it is the exact opposite of a wheelie. The bike and the rider have their mass focused on the front wheel. The front wheel since is not powered by the drive train and has a horizontal suspension does have its own challenges.
Technically it is a bit more difficult compared to the wheelie and also cannot be balanced for a time as long as a wheelie can be. Stoppies are performed in straight lines most of the times but there are a few types of stoppies which take a straight run up and then are elaborated during the last few moments in a different direction, just before the rear touches the ground.
Burnout: This too is pretty basic for beginners and many riders easily catch onto the technique of how to synchronise or fiddle with the clutch, throttle and the front brake to generate a rear tyre smoke. Looks jaw dropping but can be dangerous if the concentration of holding the front brake is amok. The bike can then run in a state of wobble and might throw one of the riding saddle.
Also if the momentum turns out to be greater (especially heavier cc motorbikes), then it might just rush into someone causing life threatening injuries. YouTubing might help some people get hold of those compilations of failures!
Acrobatic Tricks: The acrobatic tricks are one significant difference between a runaway rider and a professional Sportbike Freestyle Rider. These tricks actually don’t have a defined format, infact, a hint of these iterations can be thought as an advanced wheelie or stoppie even.
A good amount of tricks are freestyle, not constrained to the sitting mean riding position but in any other position like standing on the saddle which is a tougher stance to balance the whole bike. These take way more of concentration, practice and skill to perfect the same and also demand a good control over the throttle, braking judgment, clutching and an exclusive balancing license.
Drifting: Foot brake and handbrake integrations in the counter steering directions to the momentum of a turning vehicle is what drifting roughly means. What seems poetry when one sits through the Fast and The Furious Tokyo Drift action sequence in cars is way more difficult on bikes where the degree of freedom is one more in comparison to a car.
That would roughly mean that a car can balance itself throughout at any time but the bike has only two wheels which means it first needs to attain static balance before going in a dynamic state. Which is why it needs a specific skill set and a decade of practice altogether.
The aftermath of the whole write up is that any guy trying to pull a wheelie cannot be classified as a stunter as they claim. Even before that the term ‘stunter’ doesn’t really agree to any diction in the world but is often pronounced out loud by a few wannabes. What everyone has to understand is that motorbike as a commodity is a very affordable one. Anyone today can walk into a showroom to get hold of a set of two wheels for even less than 50,000/- INR today and a part of the engineering incorporated into the bikes itself makes it potentially easy to pull some tricks such as the basic wheelie.
Mass centralisation and better vehicle dynamics coupled with raw torque, which is ever increasing for the latest models, are technical aids which are advocating those people who illegally practice this activity on public roads.
Road safety is a matter of concern for everyone and we heavily condemn any single entity, group or organisation which endorses this as an activity on public roads. Such hooliganism is a danger to one’s as well as adjacent road users.
Think you know all now? Did you know that there are almost 13-14 different types of wheelies itself?
Watch this space for more interesting details as we have just started. Till then always wear helmet when riding on road and may the horsepower be with you!
Disclaimer: This article was prepared or accomplished by it's author in their personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not reflect the view of Motorbikes India or it's owners.
