Abstract A long flexible cylinder exposed to ocean currents is known to undergo vortex-induced vibration (VIV). In a spatially sheared flow the response of a riser to VIV can vary from single mode lock-in to multimodal. A new experimental facility was designed and built to investigate the above-mentioned areas. The facility consisted of a long flexible cylinder in either a uniform or a simplified vertically sheared flow. The instrumentation consisted of direct local fluid force measurement at two locations on the cylinder as well as accelerometers spaced along the cylinder axis. The simplified shear flow was a 2-slab flow, with each slab having uniform velocity. Test conditions included forcing the cylinder simultaneously at resonance in both regions to investigate modal competition issues and multimodal response patterns. Resonant VIV excitation of two different modes simultaneously, was conducted which revealed single mode lock-in of the higher frequency through an unexpected mechanism. The higher frequency mode's damping region underwent in-line excitation at four times the predicted shedding frequency that provided a power-in effect to support the dominant mode's cross-flow response.