How To Ride Adventure Motorcycles In The Mud

Picture the scene: You’ve just woken up in the Moroccan hills after the previous day of epic power-sliding along dusty trails. Throw the curtains back and all you can see are gray skies and pouring rain, turning the hard-packed dirt into soup. A good rain shower can turn a fun, flowing dirt trail into a treacherous, slimy test of your adventure bike’s crashbars. Here’s how to spend more time roosting your buddies and less time hauling your bike up out of muddy puddles.

You’ve guessed it; look ahead. As soon as things get technical or your confidence begins to waiver, your vision is the first thing to drop. But rather than just stubbornly staring ahead, get into the habit of planning out your line on the trail. Look for the good bits of ground—often the edges of the trail can be firmer and less sloppy—and link them up. Then, rather than trying to tackle one long, muddy trail, you’re just joining the dots up, using the firm bits to regroup and tackle the next slippery section.

A positive throttle is key. We’re not talking a great big handful of gas here, rather a constant throttle driving the bike through the problem. As soon as you roll off the gas, the bike will go its own way, usually into the nearest bush. Reduce your speed before the muddy section, then steadily drive through it. As with all technical riding, cover the clutch with one or two fingers—if things do get out of shape, you can remove the drive and calm things down.

When you hit a muddy trail, your front tire has a hard enough job moving through the muck without your swinging on the bars and adding to its troubles. Stay light on the grips and steer the bike with your feet. Try to keep your weight separated from the bike—let it move around beneath you, stay balanced above it, and you’ll be able to steer it from the pegs. Clamping too tightly with your knees or legs means when the bike slides, you get thrown off balance with it.

Mud has an irritating habit of turning an otherwise decent trail tire into a slick. Adventure bike tires are always a compromise between mileage, road grip, and off-road performance, but to enjoy the mud, you’ll need something with widely spaced tread blocks. The discussion about what pressures to run could break the internet, but just remember that some adventure tires are designed to work best at standard road pressures. On the bike itself, raising the front mud guard half an inch or so will help prevent sticky mud from clogging up and locking the front wheel; just make sure there is clearance at full compression to the triple clamps and radiators. Finally, make sure you’ve got some decent footpegs and, if applicable, remove the little rubber pads. You need to feel and control the bike through the pegs, so smooth, rubber ones will make life harder, especially once your boots are coated in mud.

While it can seem daunting initially, mud can be a really good way to fine-tune your riding skills at a relatively low speed. Concentrate on developing that feel and control through the footpegs, maintaining drive and, above all, keeping that vision up and ahead.