Learning to WHEELIE at 49 Years Old
Published June 17, 2024 · 11:43 · 86,429 views
About This Video
Learning to wheelie a motorcycle at 49 years old. The distinction Van draws between thinking young and feeling young is the conceptual payload. Thinking young is the delusion that your body still operates by its 25-year-old rules. Feeling young is the willingness to be a beginner again. To accept coaching. To fail repeatedly in front of a camera.
The structure follows a two-day learning arc: power wheelie versus balance-point wheelie, the call to the coach, the final exam, the return to the road. Van doesn't pretend the wheelie comes easily or that 49-year-old joints forgive the same way 25-year-old joints do. The video is an argument for physical ambition past its conventional expiration date. The falls and the breakthroughs, documented equally. That takes guts.
Transcript
this episode is about overcoming fear and channeling my sort of crazy compulsion in a positive direction and
thank you betterhelp for sponsoring this episode I got super bummed out about 2third of the way through making this
video and I credit the skills I learned in therapy with helping me stay calm and
persist to finish the job at hand finding a therapist can be tricky but better help is an online therapy
platform that eliminates the timec consuming pain in the neck search for a therapist with a signup process that simply asks you straightforward
questions that you answer online within 24 to 48 hours in most cases better help connects you to a licensed therapist
appropriate to your needs and a therapist is basically a professional listener with no agenda but to help you better help is very straightforward
comfortable and convenient place for therapy you can do your sessions through text Voice or video and change your
therapist if you want use this URL for 10% off your first month of therapy and the link is in the description thank you
better help that was it balance point that was balance point that was 11 that was balance point and that was too much
confidence I was born in 1975 and my body doesn't heal or learn
like it used to but on the inside I feel like these kids and I want to be like them well in one regard somebody
ride a wheelie there he goes balance point wheelie right there
I've been trying to ride wheelies since I got my 650 BMW back in
2007 but the most I can manage is what I call a torque wheelie it's also called a
power wheelie or chasing the wheelie it's when the engine is pulling the front wheel up and it doesn't last very long when the engine runs out of torque
the wheel just comes down let's say you were trying to pull a ladder up on off the ground your body is
the engine you'd only be able to hold it here for a short amount of time until your back gave
out a balance point wheelie can be ridden indefinitely because the front wheel of the bike is being balanced
Point wheel right [Music] there like when you pull the ladder into the balance point you can hold it there all day because the ladder is
balancing so I tried to learn this on my 650 which is like a 400 lb BMW that goes
100 Mil hour or whatever and um I fed up my bike I had to replace the whole tail of it and the tail lights and everything
and uh I was just like you are too old for this yeah I was doing it in a parking lot so now we're doing it 9 years later on an abandoned road with
you guys and I brought a butt pad oh CL good thing there's a butt P well I it's made out of um Kevlar Amazon bubble wrap
classic these are knee pads oh good thing to put them on your elbow yeah okay go a lot of whoops a lot
of kids do with it like this and then they go up yeah that feels more comfortable oh jeez oh it's just so scary it is so
scary that was about 8:00 like that one it's okay it's okay this is why it
sucks to be old and do it great I didn't know I was going back cuz my reflexes are so much slower than when I was when those than those 15year olds yeah when
they're doing it these threshold Crossings these athletic threshold Crossings yeah this
is how old men this is how guys themselves up that's what the statue is going to look like when you do this
I've noticed some things you you're like hunching forward when you're going up like you're going up but like keeping your weight forward so it's like you're
almost like trying to like keep the front wheel down you're like up and scared and putting it 100% but it's like your weight and like your gravity is
pushing it down you got to like ride the throttle and like go up and I know nothing keep saying it cu I can't see
what I'm doing you got to trust your balance more than the break I'd be worried more about my balance going up than I would be
break that was my longest one how was that noing fear I'm getting
it yeah that was it that was balance point that was balance point that was 11 that
was balance point day two okay Johnny let's do it still leading [Music] forward I had a little there and
[Music] comfort one two oh I'm okay I'm okay I'm okay I'm not injured I'm hurt I'm not injured I'm hurt this desire to ride a balance point wheelie
is not rational there's no reason for this but there's something delightful
about the lust for it every time that wheel pops up I get a little shot of Terror and every time I get a half
second of success it's like a fear antidote it's like panning for
gold like wheelie fever day three I'm solo on a dead end
Road day four as I get older I still kind of think young but increasingly it gets harder and harder to feel young I feel close I feel it day five
whenever a young person insists that I'm not old you're not old I just want to Smite them you don't know how it feels
to be me I'm on the edge of 50 there you are there you are yeah yeah this just might be the last bodily
dangerous skill I ever learn all right that's it for
today man what are you doing tomorrow I hope you're drinking milk I think I'm
ready for my final exam day six all right so you decide
where this is a good one right here yeah but I pick I
[Music] [Laughter] know get there it is there it is oh there's a car there's a car and he almost got it on his first try freaking try on the ninth
attempt of my sixth day I got it a balance point wheelie for nearly
100 yards I hope you just I hope you just got that but in the footage you just
couldn't see me do it take one take one and then on the seventh day six take six
take six 25 25 25 25 [Music] 25 can't feel it anymore can't feel the balance point anymore a this is driving me so crazy I'm so upset I'm so so so upset I'm so upset
about this I don't have it we got to start over tomorrow I just couldn't get it again then on
Sunday I try to wheelie out in the wild without wearing
pads take one this is our third [Music] week all right I'm going to turn on the Smashing Pumpkins car
[Music] who wants that hone that's it [ __ ] yeah yeah [Music] I wanted to learn how to do something new with my old
body and I am by no means a master of the balance point wheel
but I can do [Music] it on this week's patreon only video the idea for this video came from Braxton hgan who is not only a patreon patron of mine he basically runs the channel and
he said yesterday I should post the original spirited man prototype that I made in 2016 in its original form and
with director's commentary this is how it all started
Products & Tools Mentioned
- BetterHelp mentions — sponsor
- BMW 650 motorcycle uses — Van's motorcycle for wheelie practice
- Kevlar uses — protective gear material
- Amazon bubble wrap uses — improvised body armor
People Referenced
Braxton Haugen, Smashing Pumpkins
Films & Media Referenced
- music referenced