Inadvertent Wheelie

Yep. Inadvertent wheelie.

The details of why I needed to pull into traffic so quickly are uninteresting and outside the scope of this post, but suffice it to say I needed to get into traffic QUICKLY.

I was practically lined up in the direction I needed to go from the merging street, and I'd launched it enough to feel comfortable that I wasn't going to stall it, etc, and cause myself to become a speed bump to the 60mph traffic.

As usually, I eased out the clutch, letting it slip as I reved up. Only this time I let the process happen more quickly than usual, and let the revs get up higher than usual (around 10k which happens to be my torque peak).

Now, I used to think that I had launched it pretty hard before, but no. I didn't. THIS was a hard launch. Almost instantly I felt the front end get light, and as I rolled on the throttle, the front end smoothly rose skyward (to about 10:30), and as I shifted into second and rolled on the throttle slower, it eased back down the ground.

I should have been scarred witless, but I wasn't. Mostly because I didn't have time to really think about the fact that my front tire was off the ground. Now though, the feeling is hard to describe. On the one hand, I wish I could have seen it from 3rd person. On the other, I realize that had my instincts acted differently and caused me to freak out rather than just go with the flow, I'd probably be in traction at the least, if not dead.

All in all, it was the coolest feeling every, now I'll never do that again.