How NOT To Wheelie | Norton Motorcycles Anti-Wheelie Technology [TECH NUGGET]

Anti-wheelie technology has been around for some time and has been a hot topic in the past few years for those who follow the MotoGP Circus and it was something that piqued our interest on some of the Norton motorcycles at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

MotoGP technology pre-Dorna’s unified software rollout aside, there are a few different ways you can monitor for wheelies both on motorcycles and cars (more specifically drag cars) and one common method is to use laser ride height sensors to relay data to the ECU.

Norton, however, does it a little differently by monitoring both front and rear wheel speeds and relaying this to the ECU. From there, when the front wheel slows the Nortons IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) will decide what action is to be taken depending on how fast and high the front wheel is lifting off the ground.

In extreme instances, the ECU will apply and ignition cut to bring the Nortons wheel back down at a great cost to performance, and in instances where things are a bit more under control the ECU will modulate the torque via closure of the electronic throttle bodies (aka DBW or FBW) in order to minimise the loss of performance.

It, of course, can be argued that some of this technology takes away from a riders, or drivers skill, however in the quest to go as fast as possible it makes sense to take advantage of such technology bearing in mind for anyone that personally doesn’t wish to use it, can disable it on their own motorbike one way or another, Norton or otherwise.

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