I took my bike (2019 1050S) out for a run today and experienced what I think was some kind of anti-wheelie intervention. I grabbed a handful of throttle in 2nd gear and lifted the front wheel slightly under power. Can't be sure whether I instinctively shut the throttle a bit or it was the bike but the front wheel came down again pretty sharpish. It got me thinking about anti-wheelie as it is listed as a feature on a lot of modern bikes but there is no mention I can find regarding this for the speed. Having trawled the owners manual it states that the traction control system works by comparing rear and front wheel speed and cuts power accordingly if the rear spins faster than the front. I'm guessing this would also kick in during a Wheelie as the front would slow down once lifted causing the TC to kick in and cut the power?? Actually having typed all that it sounds obvious but thought it was worth a mention as it seems strange that most bike manufacturers are claiming anti-wheelie features whilst Triumph are not.
One sure way to find out is to turn off traction control and try the same thing again, just don't go flipping it!
Some of the more complicated TC systems have programmable wheelie height, and slide control ... or cheating as I prefer to call it!
It crossed my mind but sadly neither my riding skills or cojones are up to performing that particular experiment
There is something going on for sure, as I’ve ridden without TC several times and the front wheel will keep rising if you don’t roll off the throttle. I suspect it’s the detection of the difference between the front and rear wheel speed. I also think the IMU is involved here as well, as one of the axis that is measures is pitch. Pitch is movement measured from the centre of the motorcycle on an axis that measures rotational movement, front wheel up or rear wheel up. So in a wheelie the more the front end rises the more TC should be applied, which may result in the bike controlling wheelies to a certain extent. I haven’t found anything official on how Triumph TC works, but Triumph does confirm the IMU measures Pitch, roll and yaw.
The rear brake is your friend if you are trying to wheelie, it'll stop you looping it over backwards but you may end up with the front coming down hard and that's not good for the fork seals.
I find the front end likes to raise while exiting a corner at full throttle while riding in sport mode very aggressively. It’s usually in 3rd and sometimes in 4th gear. In 4th gear all it would take is a small bump in the road and the front is 6-8 inches in the air. I’ve had a few mild tank slappers from that, as I’m still leaned over some. So I decided I would adjust rider mode so throttle mapping is in sport and traction control is in road. This resolved the issue. Now full throttle pulls don’t result in leaned over high speed wheelies, as my abilities obviously aren’t good enough to handle that . It will still wheelie in this setup when the bike is upright, which I like.
