RUTS - Techniques for Adventure Motorcycle Riders / Harley Davidson Pan America

When you're out riding your adventure motorcycle, you are going to encounter ruts. Ruts come in all different shapes and sizes. Some ruts are really deep, some are not so bad. There are a lot of really good techniques for navigating ruts. In this video, we're going to show you how to ride through different types of ruts, including how to get out of them if you need to. Welcome to Mototrek. I'm Rob Day, adventure touring instructor. We have found a piece of trail that has an amazing variety of deep and shallow ruts, and we're going to use this piece of road here to show you how to navigate ruts successfully. You may have seen rut videos on Mototrek before. These ain't those ruts. These are the real deal. So no matter what type of rut you find yourself in, whether it's deep or shallow, whether you're going uphill or downhill, there are some techniques that'll help you navigate these ruts successfully. First and most importantly is if you accidentally slip into a rut, don't panic. Don't try and immediately climb out of the rut. It's oftentimes a lot safer to just ride it out. Pay attention to the width of the rut. As you can see, it's easier to put your feet down when you're riding in a rut for sure, but if a rut gets too narrow, it can start to pinch against the foot pegs. Foot pegs are designed to fold upwards, and that can also pinch your feet. What we're looking at right here is a relatively small rut. This is pretty mild. At first glance, it might look kind of deep, but it's really not. It's less than seven or eight inches deep. It's sloped on the sides. There's no debris in the bottom of it. There's nothing that should cause you to panic about this rut. So this one is a good example of one that I might ride out until it peters out somewhere. Or if we can't do that, we could find a spot where it makes a little jog and just use our boots to kick loose some of the material and sort of make a little ramp to get out of it. Smaller ruts like this one are really nothing to worry about. They're not difficult to ride in. This isn't going to cause you a whole lot of problems. You could stay in this rut or you could get out of it. It's up to you. If you find yourself in a mild rut like this one, it's important that you at least maintain your momentum, but ride at a speed that you're comfortable with. You don't have to go fast, but you don't want to go too slow either. You need maintain balance and to do that you have to maintain momentum. You're going to look ahead and see if there's a point at which this rut just sort of runs out and I can get out of it. Or if not, look for opportunities where the rut zigzags and you might be able to find a natural little ramp to get up and out of it. This would be a good time to introduce my good friend Barty. He's on my bike today because he's a highly skilled rider and he's far better at riding ruts than I am. As you can see, just ahead of where Barty's parked, the rut does get a little bit deeper, but you can probably also see that it disappears to almost nothing up here. So if I was coaching a novice rider about how to ride this rut, I would suggest that they stay in it until they get to this point here and then it's an easy out. So now we're at a spot that's closer to where Barty's parked and you can see that the rut is deeper here. If there was no easy out in sight and we had to make the decision to get out of this rut, this spot right here kind of represents an opportunity. You can see that there's a little bit of chewed up spot right here on the one edge of the rut and it's pretty sloped on that side. So if I were coaching an intermediate rider, I would say this is a good opportunity to get out of this rut if you had to. If you're riding in this rut or essentially any other rut, relax. Let the bike move around. It's allow the bike to do what it's trying to do. Don't death grip the bars. Just keep a nice loose grip, maintain your momentum, and keep going. In a moderately deep rut like this one, you can see that the sides are steeper, the bottom is narrower, and we're starting to get closer and closer to the tires. This is going to limit your mobility a little bit. We're also getting closer to the foot pegs and the skid plate. In a rut like this one, where the sides are really steep, I wouldn't recommend simply trying to ride out one side or the other. It's too dangerous. You're just probably going to slip down into the rut anyway. So you can keep going and find an easy out, but there may not be one. So if I absolutely had to get out of this rut instead of continuing on, I would use my boot and I would kick down a ramp on the easiest side of this thing and use that to help me get out of the rut. When you're riding in ruts like these, it's important to stay loose and relaxed. You've got to be able to move around quite a bit. It's also helpful if you start to scrape one side or the other, lift that foot up and dab on the high side of that rut so that you're not endangering your foot. If you find yourself in a moderate rut like this one and you want an easy way to get out of it, simply put your butt on the seat, stick your feet out like outriggers, and dog paddle up this thing. It's nice and safe. You're not taking any chances here. If you're a more intermediate or advanced rider, immediately get up on the foot pegs, get into a neutral relaxed position, let the bike bounce around. If you get too close to one side or the other and a foot peg starts to scrape, simply pick your foot up and take a dab on the side of the rut and keep going. Maintain your momentum. Now what we're looking at is a really deep rut. This is what we call a bike swallower. These are to be avoided. So the bike is down really, really deep. The sides of this rut are near vertical. Both foot pegs are digging into the sides. There's not a lot of options here. My advice is to avoid this kind of rut at all costs, but be careful. You might have to ride close to it to stay out of it. You don't want to look at the rut. If you're riding close to the edge of this and you look down at this rut, odds are you're going to end up down in there. So keep your eyes up. Look at your direction of travel where you do want to go. Don't look at this rut. Ride past it carefully. But if you have to ride in a rut like this, just take it easy. We have to be very careful because at any time we could have one of these foot pegs dig into the side and lift our foot or pinch it. So be careful, stay loose, and keep your eyes up. Things don't always go as planned, especially when you're riding in a big deep rut like this. You may have to rock this bike back and forth. And as this bike sits, it's about 600 plus pounds. You might find that your exit point looked good at first, and then you end up with the back wheel in the air. Now you've got no power to help you get out of this rut. If you're by yourself, that's going to expend a lot of energy. So another good reason to ride with buddies. So typically when you're riding an adventure bike, you've got a bunch of stuff on the back. Panniers, maybe even a top box. I carry a jug of water. If you find yourself in a situation where you do have to muscle this bike out of the rut, give yourself every possible advantage. Take everything off the bike. Everything that has any significant weight, get rid of it. The panniers, that water jug. If it was full, I would take it off of there. Anything you can do to lighten the bike and get this thing maybe under 600 pounds. Don't work yourself to death trying to lift this bike with all that stuff. Just get it off the bike. Set it aside, then get the bike out of the rut, then put everything back together. Always try and get a helping hand when you've got to muscle a big bike like this out of a rut. Riding ruts on a big adventure bike might seem intimidating at first, but with a little bit of practice, you'll find that the smaller ruts are nothing to worry about. The medium-sized ruts might take you a little bit more practice, and the big monster ruts, you just kind of want to stay out of them. Maintain a nice, loose body position. Balance, clutch and throttle. Maintain your momentum and always, always keep your eyes up looking where you want to go. Barty and I want to thank you for watching this video. Hopefully it was informative, you got some good information from it. If you did, please consider supporting MotoTrick on Patreon. It'll help us make more of these videos. And if you're in the southwest part of the country, come ride with us. We'd also like to give a special shout out to Dusty Wessels for showing us how to navigate these small ruts.