RIDING SKILLS
…IF YOU’RE PLANNING TO GO OFF-ROAD FOR THE FIRST TIME
We visit KTM’s off-road school to find out how to ride a middleweight all-round adventure bike on the loose
ADVENTURE BIKES ARE getting more and more popular – and the promotional paraphernalia that accompanies every launch seems to get more and more extreme. Every video, every advert has some crusty demon of dirt smashing through desert whoops or jumping and sliding a bike that – at 200kg-plus – really seems better suited for touring. For many of us, it’s almost enough to put you off – it’s all so inaccessible and so far away from what most adventure bikes are used for.
The truth is that adventure bikes willgo off-road – and your enjoyment of this rises exponentially if you do get their wheels muddy. But if you’ve never done it before, or a bad experience has put you off, the prospect of taking a quarter of a ton of adventure bike down a muddy lane can be very intimidating.
Full disclosure – I was one of those people. So, with the help of off-road legend Mark Molineux, I decided to go back to school. A day at the Sweet Lamb KTM Adventure Bike Experience in mid-Wales gave me skills and confidence that absolutely astounded me.
Let’s take a look at what they taught me.
1 ‘Preparation is everything’
You can’t just ride along on your road-prepared adventure bike, turn left on to your nearest byway and expect everything to be fine. It may well be, but strong preparation will give you a big advantage.
Mark Molyneux (‘Moly’) and fellow instructor and son Tom suggest dropping tyre pressures to about 25psi and to remove footpeg rubbers for better grip on boots when standing up. For serious use, they also remove pillion footpeg hangers because, if a rider’s foot gets caught up and pulled back, that can result in serious injury. They always carry a small toolkit with them when out and about or training and suggest that, if you do the same, make sure you know how to use it.
Moly and Tom wash their bikes after every day of use and, while doing so, take the opportunity to give them a good check. This is precisely when you may chance upon a slack chain, a loose mirror or a bit of cracked bodywork.
The stock KTM toolkit is pretty good and it takes me no more than 10 minutes to remove the 790 Adventure’s footpeg inserts, drop the tyre pressures and remove a couple of notches of preload on the rear suspension. A rechargeable inflator takes care of getting tyres back up to the recommended pressures at the end of the day.
