How to Ride a Motorcycle on Gravel Roads: Five Gravel Riding Tips for Beginners

When you're new to off road motorcycle riding, riding a motorcycle on gravel roads can be an intimidating experience. Gravel road motorcycle riding is sketchy, wobbly, and very different from riding your bike on the street. Eventually it becomes easier and you'll have a lot of fun once you get a sense of how to ride a motorcycle on gravel roads, but for those of you who are just starting out riding your bike off pavement, I have five tips that will hopefully help you feel more secure and planted on the sketchy gravel and other loose surfaces. Here are a few motorcycle gravel road riding techniques to keep in mind: 1. Understand that when riding a motorcycle on gravel, it's going to feel sketchy and wobbly. Your front end will wander and that's perfectly normal and okay. The trick is not to fight it. 2. At first, try to do much of your motorcycle gravel road acceleration and deceleration in straight lines. 3. Trust your dual sport or adventure bike tires. Most have great traction and are very sturdy, so when riding motorcycle on gravel roads, you don't really need to worry about puncturing or otherwise damaging your off road motorcycle tires in most normal situations, and the extra traction of the knobbies will make your riding on gravel roads much easier if you just trust it. 4. Stand up! This is one of the most important off road motorcycling skills and it will help you in almost every situation. That gravel road riding sketchiness is always there, but when you stand up on your motorcycle you feel it less and are better equipped to deal with any surprises that might come your way. 5. Lean your motorcycle underneath you when riding motorcycle gravel. Unlike when we ride on the street, off road the important thing is to keep your weight over the contact patch on the ground to maximize traction.