A friend of mine I work with just got a 2000 Triumph TT600 3 weeks ago. We have only been out riding a couple times together. Well I have been practicing how to wheelie for the past week. I told him how to do it but he didn't seem interested. Anyways. We go out riding to one of my favorite spots (open, empty rural road). I have doing wheelies for about 10-15 minutes and then he starts trying it. Yep you guessed it, he looped it clutchin in first gear!!! :( Scared the **** out of me! I never knew a 600 or any bike for that matter could stand up so fast. He didn't get hurt thankfully. The bike though..... cracked the case (spilled all the oil out), broke the left peg off, damaged the shifter, tailight is gone, rear farings gone, broke off both sliders on left side, and scraped the end of the slip on. He added up all the parts and it's gonna cost $1100 just for the parts. :( We both learned our lesson that's for sure. I won't be pulling my front end up for a long while now.

Anyone can twist a throttle.

but I have on accident when under heavy acceleration in 2nd. I just rolled off a bit and all was good.

you have to use your head. dont attempt on busy roads. and especially dont "learn" on public roads. Me and alot of my friends have a few fairly deserted roads we go out to and stunt. Alot of us have purpose built stunt bikes as well. Caged, 12 bar, sprocketed, streetfighter style. Wheelie'ing these are ALOT of fun because if you drop it, who cares? Its caged. Not to mention they are sprocketed so you can rock a wheelie all day long and never break 40mph. These are great bikes to learn on, so that when you attempt it on your nice brand new bike, you know what your doing and you can feel it out. As long as your geared up, your not putting other cars or bikes in danger, and you have a general idea of what to do and what not to do, and you assume all risk if **** does hit the fan, wheelies can be a good time :)

My friend and I used to rock 1st gear clutch wheelies especially when we were going too slow to do 2nd or 3rd, but we both had hundreds of wheelies under our belts.

1st is VERY powerful, VERY twitchy and sensitive, and VERY unpredictable sometimes .. 2nd is more than adequate to learn on. You have considerably less of a margin to accidentally give it too much throttle and go 12 oclock.