It kind of was; btw, in my post I wrote "....doing figure-of-eight wheelies on the road and footpath". Not sure what happened to the 'figure-of-eight'
Of course it matters, because showing off is part of the whole point of doing a wheely, isn't it?
And that bike concerned was an iron pig, too. It was a BMX called a Wildcat, but not the Raleigh one that everybody knows. No, this seemed to be a Soviet style, heavily over-engineered (with the emphasis on heavy) type which my parents had bought (in total ignorance of the then new BMX trend) from the local Toymaster as my 'big' xmas present for 1980-earlysomething.
It's weight was it's notable feature and everybody who tried to lift it gave that funny look of worry.
I didn't need to be told as tears were shed on the xmas day that I got it: not because it wasn't, as I knew, a 'proper' BMX (I did my best to hide my dismay), but because when I took it in the backyard for it's baptismal ride, it fell on top of me as I tried to negotiate the steps and turn, unwieldy as it was.
Tears and tantrum followed
It's weight lended itself to maintaining steady wheelies, being less skittish once up, but it was seriously dangerous for doing jumps off ramps; it seemed to be heavier than me and would drop out of the air faster than I would. One mangled-shin occurrence, upon landing, deterred me from doing jumps with it.