Here are my 4 steps to learn how to master wheelies:
Step 1: Weight Shifting
Wheelies at their core are just a balancing act. You're trying to learn how to balance on the rear wheel. To master your balance, you have to master your weight, your awareness of it's position relative to the wheels and cranks, and controlling it. The first step there is learning how to move your weight around while on a bike. Weight sifts are one of the most core skills to learn on a bike. Once you master simply riding, you have to learn how to separate your bike and body. The most you're able to do this, the more agile you can be and the faster you can go in just about any situation.
The best way to practice weight shifting is to practice leaning the bike side to side while standing up and leaning forwards and backwards as far as you can while keeping both wheels on the ground. A key thing to remember is to keep you weight going through the pedals as much as possible. Control the bike with you pedals as much or more than you do with the handle bars.
But knowing how to shift your weight is only half the battle. Stiff riding is a habit and a bad one. Bad habits need to be broken and the best way to break this one is to practice riding on easy trails and exaggerate you weight shifts. leaning the bike more than needed, focusing on keeping your bike and body independent. Obviously this over exaggerated leaning and shifting isn't the optimal way to ride, but teaching yourself to keep the bike moving under you by over doing it, will help break the habit of of locking everything up when the going gets rough.
Step 2: Wheel Lifts
Wheel lifts is another skill that fall under basics when is comes to racing bikes. It is less true on the road, but even there knowing how to get the wheels off the ground on occasion is helpful, but in mountain biking is critical. Once you've mastered the weight shifting with the wheels on the ground, the next step is to lift the wheels.
Start with learning to lift the front wheel. To lift your front wheel, lean back, and thrust the bike forward, and finally lift the up on the handle bars. these three motions combined with get the front wheel off the ground, and increasing the intensity of any or all will get the wheel higher off the ground. But be careful, start slow and easy, get comfortable with how much leaning or pulling gets the wheel to move and slow keep pushing the limits, higher and higher.
Once you're comfortable with the front wheel, move on the rear as well. If won't help you with your wheelie, but it can help with bunny hops. The process is much the same. Lean forward and thrust the bike back, lifting up with your feet (angle your feet toe down and push back and up if you don't have clip in pedals) to get the rear wheel up. Start slowly and once you get comfortable push the limit farther and farther until you're lifting like a pro.
Step 3: Wheelies!
Once you know how to get the front wheel up, its time to learn how to hold it there. To lift the wheel, you lean back and thrust the bike up while pulling the bars, but that will only get the wheel up, and often if you rely on the thrusting too much you're not going to be able to hold it. To wheelie, lean more, thrust less. The goal is to get your weight directly over the rear wheel so that you can balance over it. You can use the pedal to help you balance if needed. If you start from a slow speed, and pedal in an easy gear while lifting, you can pedal on and off the help keep the wheel up. Much like the wheel lifts, start slow, just try to hold the wheel a little bit, and then try to hold it longer and longer until you start develop a comfort with where the balance is. Try starting on a hill and using the pedals more. It also helps to practice without your clip in pedals so you can catch yourself if you fall. Trust me, it will save you tail bone.
Step 4: Master the balance
When you start getting comfortable with the balance point and using the pedals to help balance you, start trying to rely more on the balance and less on pedaling. Pedaling can easily become a crutch to help you balance, but the key is to only use your balance to hold the wheelie.Again, it helps to practice without clip in pedals, because you can catch yourself easier and save a fall.
So when should you practice this? When you're schedule is tight it might seem hard to justify spending time doing wheelies, but quiet the opposite is true, you gotta practice them. Recovery days, post ride cool downs, bike checks. These are all good times to practice. Even if its only 2 or 3 minutes, if you practice often you'll notice improvement.
