Stunt School: Learn to Wheelie
Stunt School! It sounds like a crazy idea to most of us who learned the hard way (through broken bikes and sometimes broken bodies) but we get emails from all over the world from people asking "where they can learn stunts."
So to answer everyone who has written in with this question we hit up Bleuk, a stunter who runs a " Pro Bike Stuntteam Bleuk" a stunt school in Belgium.
Bleuk started the school in 2004 at the request of friends who wanted to learn slow and technical stunts. It took him a while to find a decent practice location, but now he teaches in an old factory, giving his students a safe place to learn.
Most of his clients are racers who want to step up their powerwheelie game to a more controlled style of wheelie.
In 2009 Bleuk started working with Kawasaki to set up a fleet of bikes for the school. A normal day at stunt school involves getting acquainted with your Kawasaki ER6N, learning good wheelie posture, then you get some time on one wheel doing a little tandem with Bleuk. Bleuk works the controls at first and slowly the student takes over, learning each component of the wheelie at a time.
As stunting becomes more mainstream it seems like wheelie school could become popular for newbs to get a feel for the sport and see if it's really what they want to get into. To learn more about the school or book a session check out: http://www.bleuk.be/
I've had the privelege to try this myself for an article and it really is the shit. Bleuk takes as much time for every student as they need and you'll definitely be satisfied at the end of the day. No promise on progress though, but who has ever learned to wheelie in just one day? Options are endless, just ask the man. Hands on approach really works as an eye opener, letting people feel what the bike does before they do it themselves. Takes away a lot of apprehension, making the learning curve that much steeper. And he's a nice guy too. Almost forgot.
Nice Vincent, did you do tandem at first? It's funny cause I am always a bit scared to ride tandem - I would rather do it myself. But I saw Bleuk doing tandem in Germany and he is pretty impressively in control.
Video looks really nice!
Last weekend, I drove with Bleuk at his show in Germany at Fighterama.
In the beginning it was a little scary, but after practice a few times it was super cool!
First I did some stunts with Bleuk and then with my friend ánd Bleuk, a balance circle with the 3 of us, it went very well and I think it was really great!
After that I also drove along with Tom, that was also great!
So, you want to learn how you become a stunt addict as well?
Then come to Bleuk to learn it!
I did it all, just like all the novices who come there for the first time.
Tandem was actually pretty nice. I get the 'in control' thing, but the thing is, he'll put it up to balance right away, instead of you having to find out for yourself and your ScaryButton denying you that. So once you try it for yourself, you just know you can actually go way further than any of your senses tell you is still safe. That alone will win you a lot of time mucking about.
There's also a stunt school on the track of "La Ferté Gaucher" (77 - 30km in the East of Paris).
One of the "teachers" is Dietmar, an ooold parisian stunter ! Here it is : http://www.facebook.com/FreestyleXperience
Cool - I have never heard of him!