ADV Myth Busting: To Sit or Stand When Riding a Motorcycle Off Road?

Today we're going to bust one of the biggest myths in all of ADV and off-road motorcycle riding. I'm the Dork of the Road and today I want to talk about a semi-controversial topic in the world of ADV dual sport adventure off-road motorcycling and that is when to sit and when to stand or more accurately when is it okay to sit and when do you have to stand. There's a pretty common myth out there that you have to stand the entire time you're riding off-road. Anytime you leave the pavement you stand up on the motorcycle. There are even training classes out there teaching this myth. I'm here to tell you that is not true and there are a ton of situations where you should be sitting on your motorcycle even riding off-road. But Dork, I'm supposed to stand up so I have better control of the motorcycle off-road. Totally true. I'm not saying that's not true and in any time it's a tricky or difficult situation you should absolutely stand up but this idea that you have to stand up the whole time is wrong. There are situations when you should be sitting down when you should be taking advantage of resting. There are situations when it is actually better to sit down and you will have more control of the motorcycle from a seated position. We as ADV riders spend a lot of time on the motorcycle. We ride long days from point A to point B. We go on multi-day camping adventures and when you are fatigued at the end of the day is when accidents happen, when mishaps are most likely to occur, when your skills are going to slip up, when you're going to lose focus, and that's a bad thing. And so in order to avoid that on a long long day of riding we need to take advantage of opportunities that arise to rest along the way. So on a well-maintained flat gravel road there is no reason to be standing up unless you need to stand up to be comfortable. Now the big caveat here is it depends on your skill level. So something that's challenging to you you should stand up and if you're a newer rider just getting started off-road those big flat gravel sections are a great place to practice. Just kind of feeling the bike move underneath you and all of that. But once you get a little bit of skill underneath your belt it's okay to sit down in those sections that aren't very challenging to you so long as you remain focused and active on the motorcycle. It's not an opportunity to like go to sleep but conserving your energy throughout the course of a day is a very smart thing to do particularly on a long ADV ride. So when should you absolutely stand up? The second you get nervous on your motorcycle anything that makes you anxious you should stand up. Now our tendency particularly as newer riders is to sit down when this happens. You have to retrain your brain on this one because sitting down when it's sketchy is a bad thing in a lot of ways. It gives you less control over the motorcycle, you're more connected to the bike so you feel every bump and jostle and slide more intensely, you lose the ability to use your legs as suspension, you lose the ability to see farther down the trail. These are all bad things and our instinct is to get sit down when it gets sketchy because we want our legs closer to the ground but your instinct needs to be calm. You have to retrain yourself to stand up. You can always dab get your foot down but try to get right back up on the peg. So anytime it's sketchy uneven difficult terrain or you need to see far ahead you're going up or down a super steep hill you should be standing. But whenever it's a long stretch of gravel easy gravel or just long flat ground take advantage of the opportunity to get some rest. Now just because I said it's okay to sit doesn't mean that sitting is an entirely passive activity. The idea is to conserve energy not stop actively riding the motorcycle. So there is actually in the words of my friend Todd from Ride Adventures a proper off-road riding position which I'm going to attempt to show you now. First of all we really have a tendency especially as newer riders to sit far back on the bike when we are riding off-road on-road whatever. The tendency is just to get as comfortable as possible and riding off-road on a motorcycle is an athletic activity. You have to be actively engaged. So step one is you have to get as far forward as you can get and the way to tell is I also learned this from Todd is bounce your suspension. Okay if only the rear is compressing you are not far enough forward on the motorcycle. Your goal is to get your weight evenly balanced between the front and rear suspension. That also means your weight is evenly balanced over the front and rear contact patches. That's a good thing that maximizes your traction. You want traction on the front wheel because I don't know if you've heard but that's the one you use to turn. Crazy right? So if you have a tank bag you're going to get intimately and yes I mean intimately acquainted with that tank bag. Get as far up as you can. You also want elbows up eyes up. This gives you the freedom to change to move the bike and lean on it from side to side because you bend one elbow and stretch out the other. You want to be able to slide back and forth still even in a seated position and you're gonna have to lift up your butt. I know especially if you're trying to go fast off-roader in a seated position. You're turning you lift up your butt and you put your butt crack. This is not exactly PC but this is the easiest way I know to explain it. Put your butt crack on the edge of your seat. So if I'm turning this way I'm gonna get out over the bike like this. It's hard to do from uh while I'm on the kickstands now when I'm not moving. I'm gonna lean my bike and get my butt crack on the seam of the seat. Going the other way the opposite. I'm gonna shift over staying as far forward as possible leaning looking up and maintaining my traction and control. So I'm still resting because I'm sitting but I'm not asleep. I'm not autopiloting this motorcycle. That's important to remember all those things when you're sitting. So situations where sitting is actually better. Sometimes in a tight trail where you're shifting side to side a lot it can be really beneficial to be able to sit because you can get your leg out as a counterbalance kind of thing. I find in tight single track type trails it's sometimes much easier depending on the trail to sit instead of standing. If the overhead branches are too tall obviously you want to sit or at least get bent down on the motorcycle. There are advantages to both positions and my point is this idea that there's a hard and fast rule that you only do one of the two is incorrect and you should not get that into your head. It's okay to rest. It's okay to sit. There are other ways to rest without sitting down while you're riding. So a big one is I'm gonna see if you can see this. So when we're riding aggressively I've got the balls of my feet on the pegs. So I can use my calves and my ankles to move up and down. It's shock absorbers. I can bend my knees and all that. But if I'm standing up and I want to rest the tendency is to lean forward and put your weight on the handlebars. Don't do that. You have to keep your legs bent and keep the weight off of the bars because that maximizes your ability to react and it also keeps you from taking a digger if you hit a rut or something. But you can relax here by moving your foot forward to the arch of your foot. So while you're riding, and you can shift back and forth as the situation sort of dictates, but now I don't have to engage my ankle. Now I don't have to engage my calf muscles as much and this is a resting foot position. So here is as aggressive, athletic as possible. Move up to the arch and you've got a more relaxed, more comfortable position even to remain standing in. So you can rest this way. So just a quick video because I keep hearing the same misconception and I wanted to at least present an alternative viewpoint and basically the thesis is this. It's okay to rest. I want to thank my friends at Ride Adventures. I did that training with them last summer and this is something I've always had in my head and they really reinforced it to me. That's one of the things they really teach is that it is okay to sit when you need to rest on a long, long day's ride. We do eight, ten hours a day on the motorcycle. You got to rest when you can. I feel like some of you are going to disagree. That's fine. Let's talk about it in the comments but tell me what do you think. Do you absolutely need to stand 100% of the time when you're riding off-road? Leave me your opinion in the comments. If you got something out of this video, if you enjoyed it, if you want to see more dual sport and adventure riding, hints, tips, and tricks, motocamping stuff, other content, please consider subscribing to the channel because I want to be your internet riding buddy and I'm better than your regular riding buddies because I come with a mute button. Thank you for watching. Please feel free to like the video if you liked it and do not forget to be excellent to each other. I thank you.