BEST Adventure motorcycle riding TIP

BEST Adventure motorcycle riding TIP

Want to know my best adventure motorcycle riding tip? That one is easy, but for you to fully understand the answer, we need to ask another question.

And no, the question is not what is the best adventure motorcycle for beginners, neither is if you should get a big or small adventure or dual sport motorcycle, not even what are the best adventure motorcycle riding techniques. 

Before all those questions, there is one that is much more important.

Are you taking full advantage of all you already know and have learned when it comes to motorcycle riding?

Are you fully applying all the techniques you already learned, googled or youtubed?

From my experience, you are not. And that is nothing wrong with that, it is quite common!

And why is it common? Easy answer.

New adventure motorcycles, even the smaller ones usually boost themselves up to around 200kg. That is a lot of weight when you are taking your first steps off road. It's still a lot of weight when you are already experienced off road!

Then let's say you are a tall, athletic rider that can power its way around such a heavy bike. We still have to take into account the money issue. 

Pretty much any and every single part of the new bread of adv bikes costs a small fortune. From the simple blinker to an OEM lever, you are always looking at a 3 figure price tag. 

That leaves two common options on the table.

Start equipping your motorcycle with protections, which will work, but add even more weight. Or, be extremely careful when riding not to break anything.

Well, I'm all up for the third option. Don't start learning technique on a big adventure motorcycle.

On full disclaimer, I have to say that there are incredible adv and dual sport schools out there. Very skilled teachers with years of experience will shape anyone into a full-on adventure rider, but experience states that either you broke something on the bike during the classes and you don't want to go through that again, or you did the class on the schools bike and you don't want to put yours over any kind of beating once you get home.

So, regardless of how well you learned what the school had to teach you, you end up not practicing, and like anything one doesn't practice, skills lower, and that day you actually decide to go out and put your investment on a good adventure bike and in some classes in play, things seem a bit more difficult than when you where at the school with the teachers.

The amount of students that actually leave an adventure riding school and actually take their big ad bikes regularly off road is small, and the reasons pointed are usually weight and parts price. 

So who to mitigate that?

Should we just stop using our adventure bikes off road?

No, you shouldn't. You should, however, complement your teaching with small bikes. Small, light, cheap part replacement able enduro motorcycles.

I will be the first one to state out loud that enduro techniques and dual sport/adventure riding techniques are not one and the same. Although the share a lot of similarities, they are not the same. 

Knowing that you will not be able to use enduro techniques directly on your big bike is important to have in mind. Nevertheless, being able to try new things, improve technical movements and crash often without a big price tag attached is priceless and will allow you to take more advantage of your adventure motorcycle in a safer and more controlled way. 

What is difficult on a bike is going slow and controlled. Going slow requires technique. Learning technique requires crashing.

Crash little bikes so you can take the most out of your big adventure motorcycle.

 

Original article by the author @Tea2Wine

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