Advice: 10 off-road riding tips

I suppose you’ve noticed, but talent isn’t the only quality that makes some riders better than others. Being naturally gifted is a head start, for sure, and so is having a heart the size of Phar Lap, but there’s another characteristic that makes some guys faster than the rest of us – technique.

The best riders seem to be sharing some sort of common knowledge – they all know how to make a bike go fast. Much of their knowledge was instilled in them when they were young blokes; mere sprogs. Back then they showed more than a passing interest in technique. They were taught it, or learned it themselves, and there's no better example of that methodology than multi-time Australian Motocross Champion, Craig Anderson.

Between his own junior races, Anderson would hang over the old fence and study techniques of the senior brigade with such intensity until the correct movements were so ingrained that doing the right thing became second nature – innate, even.

When Anderson was about 12 years old, I remember him hanging over the pit fence of men like Eddie Warren, Lee Hogan and Dave Armstrong. Anderson was a wild kid with no fear, and not the scholastic type, but he put into practice much of what he’d learned through personal observation.

Through experience from an early age, and constant racing, pros like Ando know how fast they can go in any given situation, and what margin remains for error.

That’s another thing they have in common. The truly fast guys also know within millimetres where to position themselves on the bike to achieve the best balance in a turn or over a jump, or to find the best traction under hard acceleration or braking, and on any surface.

They ‘feel’ the bike where many riders feel nothing. That’s how good riders make difficult things look easy. The miracle is that they make it look easy at speeds that few ordinary men will experience.

If technique is important to guys like Ando, it’s doubly so to weekend warriors like us. Technique counts. Few of us have God-given genius, but by learning the basic techniques the pros learned when they were ankle biters, and practising as much as possible, most of us can become better riders and get more pleasure from the time we spend in the dirt.

There’s a lot more to riding well than just screwing the throttle, so we’ll run through what we believe are the 10 top tips that’ll help you get the most from your dirt bike. Stick with us and you’ll learn something.

The right bike for you is the one on which you feel most confident. This can be a subjective thing, but you will feel better on one bike than on most of the others you ride.

If you ride a dirt bike, you will fall off. Nothing is surer. You can land on your bonce, your hands, your elbows, your knees, or your back. Or you can roll down the track and engage every portion of your anatomy in the carnage. Whoever said “If you're not falling off, you’re not trying hard enough” was right. But you don’t have to die in the effort.

There’s no right or wrong way to set up your handlebar controls; that too is a personal thing. But using a set-up that most riders favour will give you somewhere to start. It will also make you more comfortable, whether you’re standing or sitting, and that will give you better control over the bike.

This is the language of dirt riders. Body English on a bike means putting your weight where it will do the most good. You don’t sit like a slug in the same spot; to make a dirt bike work properly you have to move around on it.

Beginners try to change direction on a motorcycle by turning the bars and, as we all know, that doesn't work. Experts figured out decades ago that to make a dirt bike turn well you have to ‘tip’ it into a turn, not steer it in.

Many weekend trail riders have no idea how to brake really hard. But if you learn this skill it will make you faster in the bush. Why? Because the harder you brake, the later you can brake, and that means you can get back on the gas sooner. It also means you can avoid dangerous obstacles more easily.

If you slow down or try to ride around every obstacle on the trail, your mates will laugh at you. Show caution with big logs and washouts, sure, or anything else that looks dangerous, but wheelie over small stuff to maintain your speed.

Jumping off drainage humps and drop-offs is good fun. It also helps you develop better bike control. The trick to jumping consistently has two parts: approach the jump at the speed you want to use; and don’t do anything stupid just before take-off, like suddenly change your position on the bike or open the throttle.

Absolutely nothing we could tell you will be as useful as the following advice: look ahead! Staring at the ground in front of the bike will slow you down quicker than anything else.

If you try to remember everything we’ve said, you’ll only confuse yourself. The best thing you can do now is to concentrate one or two of the techniques we’ve mentioned, then take ’em outside and practice.

This article was originally published on September 24, 2018.