Bayliss shows off front wheel burn out

Anyone who has ever locked the front wheel of their bike will tell you of the buttock-clenching sense of fear and the reality of it often causing a bike to crash.

Now imagine doing it on purpose, accelerating up to over 100mph for more than 200 metres and not crashing. And then doing it again the next lap.

Multiple World Superbike champion Troy Bayliss was caught on camera showing off this very trick he first learnt on a dirt bike and that allows him to do just that; lock the front tyre on a Ducati 1199 Panigale superbike at over 100mph and which he describes as ‘easy really’.

Bayliss showed the trick last week at a Ducati Riding Experience day at Mugello in Italy where he was instructing pupils. At the end of the day he showed off the trick.

He told MCN: “It’s a pretty funny trick. It’s actually easy really. You need to get the bike in about second or third and around 6000rpm before opening the throttle. Not like a maniac, as if you were going to do a wheelie but without lifting it. You need to keep the front wheel light and then squeeze on the front brake until it starts to slow down the rotation of the front wheel a little bit.

“You need to be able to modulate the brake to keep the wheel spinning a little bit but once you are moving faster you can go from lock-to-lock and it does nothing to the bike. The only issue is it destroys the front tyre by causing massive flat-spots! Two or three runs and the tyre is in the bin.”