30 Days of Wheelies

The best way to master a new cycling skill—no matter how silly—is to practice it every day. So we decided to take our own advice.

For 30 days here at BICYCLING, looking both ways before you exited your office was vital to occupational safety. The hallway carpet acquired a new scuff mark or two every night, and the dull thud of coworkers shoulder-checking walls became the steady background rhythm of our workday. Suddenly our lives were ruled by the black and purple Liv Lust 1 that normally slept in the break room. The “30 Days of Wheelies Challenge” was officially underway, and no one was allowed to rest until he or she could glide triumphantly down the hall with a raised front tire.

It started with an ominous whiteboard chart and a rumor that mid-year performance evaluation scores were riding on our wheelie progress. Wait, back it up—it actually started with associate editor Gloria Liu and her fixation on 30-day challenges. “If you really want to incorporate a habit into your life, you need to do it every single day,” she says. “Only then does it stop being a question of whether you’re going to do it—it just becomes a part of your daily routine.”

So Gloria and editor in chief Bill Strickland determined that if we all knuckled down and followed the steps in our own guide to wheelies, by the end of a calendar month we’d all be sailing smoothly down the hallway, front wheels pointed ever skyward.


Practicing wheelies in the hallway during work hours was a conscious mandate in order to keep us all accountable due to guilt. Sure, it added a certain degree of confined treachery and peril to the mission, but that was all part of the fun. The aforementioned whiteboard was intended to keep us honest and create a sense of progress.

So after 30 days of blood, tears, crashes, and skid marks, how did we do? Well, let’s just say some of us had what it takes and others of us… didn’t.

     Related: Master 7 Road and Mountain Bike Tricks

Here are the lessons and takeaways from a few of our greatest successes (transcribed by me, one of our greatest failures):

“It sounds silly, but the biggest thing I learned is that you can really make measurable improvements at almost anything if you just dedicate some time to it. As for a wheelie-specific tip, finding the balance point is what differentiates getting-your-front-wheel-off-the-ground from a true wheelie. And it's really cool when you find that spot because you're like, ‘OMG I'M WEIGHTLESS.’ Also, smooth-soled, pointy-toed flats are probably the worst footwear for wheelies.”—Taylor Rojek, associate online editor

“Peter Sagan makes it look like NBD, but this particular bike trick is a lot harder than it looks. Don't try in a building unless you're prepared to bounce off walls. Persistence pays off—if you quit trying, you'll never be able to wheelie.”—Greg Kaplan, online producer

“Trying once or twice on a ride is not frequent enough—you need consistent repetition to build the muscle memory and body positioning to develop or refine a new skill. Initiating the wheelie correctly is key—it is more about explosive power in the right gear than it is about pulling up on the bar.”—Brad Ford, site director

“Keep your shoulders square and your hand on the back brake if you feel like you’re about to flip backwards.”—Jimmy Cavalieri, designer

“GAME CHANGING TIP: Keep your arms straight when pulling up the front tire up. Bending the arms immediately actually pulls you forward instead of backwards.”—Jesse Southerland, design director

At the end of the month, Gloria Liu reflected on our endeavors: “The challenge was kind of an amazing thing in the sense that it started off as a total joke, but people really got into it. A wheelie is a pretty frivolous skill to learn. I mean, there are applications in mountain biking (for getting over obstacles), but to be able to ride and hold a wheelie for multiple pedal strokes serves no purpose besides being able to show off when you’re waiting in a parking lot for the group ride to start. But, that was part of the beauty: It was something purely for fun, and just another way to express ourselves on a bike. And I love that people got so excited about it."

During our 30-Day Wheelie Challenge, Jimmy Cavalieri shows Jesse Southerland how it’s done.
Gloria Liu

“The other thing that was really cool to watch was that literally everyone who practiced really got better over time. We had people from Brad Ford, who just absolutely crushed everyone (I blame the death of the wheelie challenge on him actually, because he was so dominant), to one editor who couldn’t even pick up her front wheel in the beginning. Within a few days, she was getting that wheel up. Within a week, Brad was wheelie-ing the entire length of the hall. Everyone improved. All you had to do was practice.”

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