How to Ride Weightless

Weightless ADV Rider

Riding Weightless on Your Loaded ADV Bike

The truth is, riding an adventure bike off-pavement uses similar techniques as riding a dirt bike on a technical trail.

The biggest difference is that adventure bikes don’t crash like dirt bikes, and the risk of injury and damage from crashing on an adventure bike is far greater due to reduced personal protective gear and the presence of hard luggage, extra weight, windshields and other things not designed to be crashed on a regular basis.

There are many elements needed to ride well off pavement, so for the first part of this traction management series we’ll focus on the concept of “becoming weightless” when riding on rough surfaces, dirt or gravel.

Becoming weightless improves traction, decreases falls, and reduces the risk of injury by reducing or eliminating the number of times you would otherwise fall. We’ve all seen riders standing on their foot pegs, and may emulate this style of riding—often not fully understanding how or why we should stand in the first place. Even worse than standing without purpose is failing to stand at those times when it is most critical— such as in deep sand, mud, ruts, water crossings, etc.; times when untrained riders normally sit. Anyone can stand on a smooth gravel road.

The primary reason for standing on the foot pegs while riding off pavement is to become weightless by removing your mass (weight) as the rider from the suspension equation. The concept is fairly simple: By standing on the foot pegs, the combined center of mass of rider/motorcycle moves closer to the ground, making the bike less top-heavy and quicker to respond to surface change and directional input.

You may ask, “If I stand up aren’t I raising my center of mass, making the bike more top-heavy?” Without getting too carried away, let’s just say “no”… if done properly you are lowering your combined center of mass even though you have raised your personal mass farther from the ground. If riding technique was just about the rider, you would be correct, but since you and the motorcycle are a unit this line of logic is incomplete.

When you stand up, you move the point at which you, as the rider, support your mass, moving it from the seat to the foot pegs. The motorcycle’s center of mass is normally near the carburetor/EFI, so by shifting the rider’s weight (supported mass) onto the foot pegs the combined rider/motorcycle mass lowers to a point somewhere between the rider’s feet and the motorcycle’s center of mass.

In contrast, when riding in a seated position, the rider’s mass is anchored at the seat where the rider’s weight is supported. Therefore, the combined mass is between the seat and the motorcycle’s center of mass, which effectively raises it.

Nevertheless, just standing does not make you weightless. The second element of standing is allowing the knees to bend and flex with changes in the earth’s surface, like a set of shocks. This can be observed when skilled riders go over large bumps, small hills, or over obstacles. Note that a skilled/trained rider holds his head on a level plane and does not appear to move up or down with the ground surface.

Another way to visualize this concept is to imagine that the helmet is an airplane flying over a mountain range, whereas the motorcycle is traveling over the roads. The plane may have some subtle elevation changes whereas the motorcycle moves up and down rapidly with the terrain. When this happens, the rider is effectively using his legs as shock absorbers, isolating body mass from the movement of the motorcycle—becoming, effectively, weightless.

Once your weight is “suspended” above the bike, allowing the bike to move up and down without moving the placement of your head, your weight is no longer calculated into the total mass equation. One more side benefit, if this is done correctly, is that you also use less energy to ride. Not only is your bike able to self-correct due to changes in terrain and traction, but as a rider you use less muscle energy.

The secret to conserving energy is to use as little muscle as possible. When your motorcycle hits a bump or obstacle, allow your legs to relax and collapse towards you. In reverse, if your bike drops into a hole or drops off an obstacle, allow your legs to extend (from a pre-bent position) and follow the bike down… no energy is used to compress or extend your legs, instead you relax to let the bike come toward you, or relax them to let them extend. This leads me into a whole new topic of effective use of body positioning… let’s save that for a later rant.

Sand & Gravel Tips

Scenario

“Suddenly, my rear wheel began a slight fishtail in the loose gravel road and I calmly increased the throttle in response.  Past experiences had always quickly straightened out, but today the oscillations rapidly moved to the handlebars.

Committed to the acceleration strategy, the handlebars violently shook back and forth and I continued to roll on the throttle…”

Many “experienced” riders offer one tip for riding in loose surface conditions: “Add more throttle”.

I can assure you that you were victim to the ‘helpful’ tips of partial myths and half-truths perpetuated by the riding community.

The half-truth is… adding throttle can be true within two specific elements:

1.  Adding throttle can lighten the front end of the motorcycle, allowing the front wheel to climb out of the soft stuff and get on top.

2.  Adding throttle increases speed and gyroscopic progression that, in turn, increases self-corrective forces along with rake and trail.

The issue with adding throttle as a single response doesn’t take into considerations the specifics of your situation.  For the sake of simplicity, I will identify three of the most significant considerations:

The ‘add throttle’ mantra comes from the dirt bike world, where bikes are much lighter and have a greater self-correcting nature.

While traveling, you are likely on a heavy bike, which may have loading issues (weight distribution) and cannot climb out of deep sand or gravel as easily.

DOT knobbies and ADV tires have far less traction off-road than true dirt bike tires do. Many dual sport tires are not much more than glorified street tires with little deep tread.

The element of momentum and getting the front tire on top of the surface is correct; what was lacking was the knowledge of how to do this without adding speed.

The following are some tips when you find yourself in deep gravel or sand:

1. Ride in a standing position.  While standing, you can shift a greater amount of weight to the rear of the motorcycle.  This helps lighten the front end and also adds traction to the rear for greater drive.

2. Lighten your grip.  If you are using a proper standing technique, you will barely be touching the handlebars.  This allows the rake and trail work properly to self-correct more quickly.

3. Maintain throttle.  Closing or ‘chopping’ the throttle may cause an instant encounter of the dirt kind!

4. Trim the overall speed by massaging the clutch.  You must keep tension in the drive train, so keep the clutch in the gray zone, or friction zone. 

5. Lightly drag the rear brake.  You can further reduce speed and encourage front wheel lift with a very light drag of the rear brake.  A hard jab to the rear brake will cause a rapid transfer of weight to the front tire and will make things worse.

6. Avoid wheel spin.  This can cause the rear wheel to dig deeper into the sand or gravel, reducing forward thrust and the front tire will plow in.

7. Let the front wheel move like a rudder.  Know that steering responses in loose surfaces is delayed, and the rider must be patient and let the bike catch up to any directional inputs.  Riders often expect the bike to respond more quickly and add more steering input.

Although there may be many situations where adding throttle will work, not understanding the full dynamics of the situation may cause things to go badly very quickly.