The 12 O’clock wheelie
Jamie takes a try at a 12 O’clock wheelie. It doesn’t quite go as planned, take a look and see how it turned out!
This was probably the coolest thing I’d seen since I watched the General Lee and it’s number 01 flying through the air to escape from the cops, I was 6 years old at the time and glued to the box watching the Dukes of Hazard.
At an age now where I should know a lot better, I was once again transfixed as my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. This time I was staring at a 600cc Streebike which I’d only ever seen race, now being wheelied past the point of no return and back again.
Now there is a kinds of different wheelie’s. Some are small and laughable, some are done by accident, others get it up a bit and grab some air but seriously, this wheelie was so high the exhaust was scraping on the floor! But somehow, with total control, it landed back on two wheels, and as all the pro’s do, it was made to look easy. I was in awe. I wanted to be able to do it. I suddenly imagined if I could, I’d be a hero, get all the chicks – this was cooler than Bo Duke and possibly even more rousing than Daisy too.
What I was staring at is apparently called the 12 o’clock wheelie; a total vertical wheelie that causes you to scrape anything hanging beneath the exhaust pipe. Stunt bikes have nothing, sometimes a stunt bar. In my case it would be my number plate and brake light as I was riding my own personal road bike, a very standard and slightly knocked about 2007 Honda CBR600RR.
I’ve been interested in stunt riding for a while now; I got my first taste of seeing it while racing in Spain at the Catalunya circuit in Barcelona. I was just a scrawny, spotty teenager at the time and remember a young guy performing tricks in the car park, stuff you could only ever dream about doing. His name turned about to be AC Farias, one hell of a dude when it comes to motorcycle trickery.
My stunt taste buds were given another serious tune up when I landed in the US, even more so when one of my ex work colleges at 2WT Nick ‘Cuervo’ Hill just happened to be an ex pro stunter and encouraged me at every opportunity. Trust me I needed no encouragement so in a matter of days I was on my way to practice and hopefully perform the 12 O’clock wheelie and destroy my number plate and brake light in the process.
I can wheelie, just not an extraordinarily enormous bad-ass wheelie that would even impress Stevie Wonder. That was the type of wheelie I wanted to do. I knew the risks – it could end in broken stuff. Some stuff I might be able to replace, other stuff may take time to heal.
To be able to perform the Midnight wheelie you need to gain total control of your machine. You need to perform the art of balance, be able to take it past the point of no return and bring it back again. This is all done with the correct input of throttle and rear brake to maintain the balance and the wheelie. The rear brake is the key, that’s your safety switch, that’s the one thing that going to stop you from carnage, it’s your May-Day button.
The wheelie would be performed like this. Come to a near stop, use a combination of rear brake, throttle and clutch, rev the engine, dump the clutch fast and get it up to near balance point as fast and smoothly as possible. The faster you get the front wheel up, the slower you are going and the more control you have.
My initial attempts at getting the front wheel in the air were good but I was always chasing the front wheel and gaining speed. This is no good.
At times the front wheel was so high I couldn’t see where I was going, Tony Carbajal my instructor from the stunt Team No Limit told me this was OK. “Just look down the fork leg to see where you’re going…” what I was hearing didn’t seem right somehow but I just nodded with a glazed look on my face.
The art is to get it to the balance point and even beyond. Then you can start to slow the wheelie down and even decelerate. I was riding next to Tony when he did this and it was totally amazing.
Trying to wheelie and not being able to see where I was going felt abnormal, dangerous yet very addictive. Slowly but surely the front wheel got higher, my speed was coming down, and the number plate closer to the ground.
After practicing and playing around all day, getting close but no cigar, I finally grew balls and even a few hairs too and decided enough was enough; I was going to do it as ‘nearly’ wasn’t good enough.
Nick knotted two pieces of yellow rope to my mirrors as good luck from the wheelie master himself and I rode down to my wheelie start position. I told myself to keep the throttle on this time, then I rev’d it and dumped the clutch. This time I meant business from the get go. The front wheel was high but it had to be higher, so I kept the throttle constant. It went higher, and now I was well past my comfort zone and even though it felt totally wrong I kept telling myself it was right.
In my fantasy I’d smash the light, land it perfectly and then Daisy Duke would come running out of the bushes and give me an explosive kiss. Instead it ended in me shi**ing myself, totally forgetting about the rear brake when I heard the exhaust scraping on the floor, letting go of the left handlebar and then falling off the back like a sack of potatoes while watching my beloved CBR bounce into the air.
I failed miserably and to make matters even worse my bike landed heavily on the engine and unloaded the entire contents of engine oil onto the parking lot as it smashed the crankcases into a million bits.
To add further humiliation to the whole thing my parents were watching and my Dad was still stuffing his face with a massive Chipotle Burrito as he ran over to, like he’s done on many occasions, to pick up my bike. My Mum said she wasn’t looking but heard the noise and knew I’d blown it; she wouldn’t look at me she was so humiliated.
Bugger….
The plus side was I was wearing the new Knox back protector and never felt a thing and the brilliant photographer got it all so you can enjoy me making a complete ass of myself frame by frame.
Big massive respect to all stunt guys, you’ve bigger ones than me.
I’m now just going to curl up in the corner of my garage and weep next to my crashed machine… Now I know how my dog felt when he had his balls removed. A piece of me is missing, my poor CBR600…..
Jamie
