How To Ride with Miles Davis

Adventure Rider Issue #4

• Checkout
• Reader’s Bike: Robert Holness’ KLR650 and Ural Tourist
• Ol’ Mate
• 10 Minutes With: Allan Roberts
• 20 Things You Should Know About: BMW’s 650 Singles
• No Comment
• How To Ride with Miles Davis
• Navigation Techniques with John Hudson
• Packing For Adventure with Robin Box
• Afraid Not with Karen Ramsay
• Wish You Were Here
• Reader’s Ride: Borneo
• BMW Airheads
• Yamaha 2014 Super Ténéré
• Triumph XC800 Tiger Across Australia
• The Adventure Challenge
• Set Up to Stand Up with Craig Hartley
• Reader’s Pic
• Adventure Travel Film Festival
• The Cold War
• Horizons Unlimited
• Safari ADVT
• Industry Players: Robin Box
• Ténéré Tragics
• Contributors
• It’s What We Do

Riding sand is probably one of the most mysterious things you can do on an adventure bike. I’m sure half the people who can do it probably can’t really explain how they do it.

They just do it. Hopefully some of the topics covered here give you an insight into dealing with this difficult surface.

Ease into it

I’ve helped a few people with their first sand experience, and one of the best ways is on the beach at low tide. This gives the riders a chance to first just get their head around riding on nice, hard, beach sand down near the waterline. That’s easy and fun. As confidence grows, they can venture into the softer, more challenging sand.

At any time the rider’s only a couple of metres from the hard packed sand and can steer towards it when they’re tired or scared. Bit by bit, confidence grows and they can start weaving around and playing with deeper or tracked-out sand and the pieces of the puzzle start falling into place.