How to Get a Stuck Adventure Bike Out: Tow Straps, Z-Drag Systems and the Rear-Wheel Rope Trick

Adventure motorcycles are impressive machines when they're moving. They'll

carry luggage and fuel, camping gear, tools, water, basically everything we want

to take on any kind of trip. And with their suspension, ground clearance, their

long distance capability, they can cross some really difficult terrain and get us

into some remote incredible places that we otherwise wouldn't be at. But when one

of those bikes stops moving, I mean really stops moving, all of that

advantage can disappear pretty quickly. In fact, all of that advantage suddenly

becomes your nemesis. A bike buried in the sand, framed out on the log, maybe

tipped over with the wheels uphill, stuck halfway up a climb or lying off the side

of a trail. It's no longer a motorcycle. It's now a heavy object in an awkward

place. And that's where a lot of riders make the situation even worse. They spin

the rear wheel to the bike sinks deeper. They slip the clutch until it overheats.

They rush because they're embarrassed. They try to lift too much weight from the

wrong angle, or maybe they let three or four people jump in and just start

yanking on the bike anywhere they can grab just to get it out. So in this

episode, we're talking about getting unstuck because there's an order in

sequence to it that matter. There's decisions that matter, ideas that can

change the outcome, tools that can give you options when muscle and momentum

aren't enough, and a little pre-trip planning that can make the whole thing

easier. You put all those things together and being stuck changes from a

nightmare into a challenge, an adventure to work through, and gives you a story

to tell afterwards. I'm Jim Martin. This is Adventure Rider Radio. Stay with us.

We get a good one for you.

Hi, this is Charlie Bourbon.

Norah Lee Schoolwacker.

Simon Mannicum.

Austin Vance.

Algarpair Dossler.

Grant Johnson.

Jocelyn Snow.

Ted Simon.

I'm Simon Paidi.

Jimmy Lewis.

Lyndon Pusket.

Tiffany Coates.

Chris Birch.

Simon Thomas.

Lisa Jalvis.

I'm Jalvis.

Clayton Smout and you're listening to Adventure Rider Radio.

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Almost without fail, when your Adventure Bike gets stuck, whether it's still on

wheels or it's lying on its side, it wasn't part of the plan. And because of

that, every situation is just a little bit different. Kind of like a lottery, if

you think about it. And the numbers are always inside the machine, but every

draw produces a different combination. That's kind of like the motorcycle. You

know, with a stuck motorcycle, you've got the same elements that show up again and

again. Weight, gravity, traction, mud, sand, rocks, fatigue, even embarrassment,

maybe a hill or a ditch. But the way those elements come together is almost

never exactly the same twice. So there isn't a perfect recovery method that

works for everything. But there's an order to it. There's a sequence that

applies to most stuck situations before you start pulling, pushing, digging,

lifting, dragging or using a recovery tool. And that's where I wanted to start

with Clinton Smout. You know, Clinton from our Rider Skills program. He's a

chief instructor at SmartPerformanceCenter.ca. When a rider realizes the bike

is stuck, dropped, buried, wedged, just not moving anymore. What's the first

thing that people get wrong?

Well, what I've seen is the worst approach many, many times where riders,

they panic a little gym. Like the bike is stuck. It's not coming out of that

sandy hole because they were on a hill and they slowed down too much or maybe

stopped. And then they panic. I don't know if it's temper. They just don't

take a minute to calmly assess what's going on. And they try pinning the

throttle. So we have a saying at work for bikes and snowmobiles. If you hear a

lot of noise from the engine, but there's no trees going by, you're stuck.

Stop giving it gas because the bike just gets deeper and deeper. And of course

we risk with our big heavy bikes frying the clutch because I talk about the

clutch, you know, every time I teach, but there's a point if the back wheel's

not turning and you're still adding throttle, you'll burn a clutch. It just

overheats. So I think the best attack is to, yeah, you're stuck for whatever

reason. Take a minute, maybe even take your helmet off, relax, look around and

take time to figure out the best course of action. You know, safety's got to be

part of that. Just a plan of can I go forward? Do I have to go backwards? How

do I get out of here?

You mean safety as in like you're sort of looking at the situation thinking, is

anything else going to happen here? Like is this, is this safe for me to get

into and friends or whoever's there to get into in approaching the scene?

Yeah, it could be another rider or vehicle coming behind you. Oh yeah. Is

the approach blind? You're on the other, the downside of a hill. It's happened

sadly at the Dakar in sand dunes where a motorcycle gets stuck on the other side

of the hill. And of course other vehicles coming, maybe those great big trucks,

you know, with 18 wheels type of thing, they need momentum to crest it. And

sadly, people have been killed trying to get their bike out of the sand dune by

other vehicles. So yeah, the safety part's important.

Yeah. So in that situation, the first thing you're going to do is figure out

what do we have to do to make it safe? That would be send a person to the top

of the dune to flag somebody, you know, whatever you have to do or if it's on

the road, et cetera. I do remember once, as I was riding behind other buddies, I

came across a helmet on the side of the road. I didn't know who's it was, but

wow, why would a helmet be on the side of the road? It was right on a corner. And

so I slowed right down, came around the corner and there's half of the bike

gone in a great big hole, kind of like a sinkhole. And the guy had the presence

of mind to walk back to the visible part of the corner and drop his helmet there,

just so the other people coming behind him didn't come around the corner and

smoke into him. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good tip. Okay. So now that we have the safety

aspect handled, what's next? Well, if you're by yourself and there isn't

anybody else coming, I think the best tool you have, even if you have a shovel

with you and ropes or block and tackle, the best tool we have is our brain.

Yeah. Take a minute and assess, you know, let's use the scenario. It's stuck in

the sand on a corner or on a hill. The likelihood of you getting it out and

continuing up the hill is pretty remote. I think most cases you're better and

you'll have better success at getting home in getting the thing out, turning

around and going back down and either choose a different route or hit the

hill with more momentum. So, but that takes a minute to figure out your options.

And sometimes there might be stuff lying around, you know, sticks, logs, rocks.

There might be other things that you can use other than your hands and your

boots to help you get that thing out. But that, you only get that if you

calmly don't panic, don't lose your temper and assess what's going on and

what, what's the best course action to get this thing out of here?

Yeah. We hear it on deep trouble where somebody gets into a problem and their

focus is just to get out. No matter what it's going to take, just because they

have it in their mind, they've got to get out. It's that, I don't know, maybe it's

I guess a fear that we fall into when something like this happens.

So what you're saying is best thing, do first thing, safety, then assess the

situation, carefully settle, you know, take some time, I guess, have a drink,

eat some food and look at your situation, maybe grab a photograph.

That'll be your time for your photos. You can remember what happened and then go.

So, okay, let's talk about some of the situations.

Let's talk about some of them in particular that you can find yourself in.

I mean, you've obviously dealt with this kind of thing before, you know,

my goodness, I've been stuck myself many, many times.

Right. And riding off the road or, or doing something like that.

Like that's a fairly, I think it's a fairly common one, isn't it?

Ending up off the trail.

Yes. One we ran into and it took some thinking of how to get the bike out.

One of the riders on those tours I do to Alaska and the Yukon, I guess

they were droning along and she fell asleep on the motorcycle at about.

Oh, wow.

I, her husband said she, they were doing about 70 kilometers an hour up the

gravel road of the Dempster Highway and fell asleep.

She just kept veering to the right and he didn't understand why.

And then he beeped his horn to no response and she went off the side of the highway.

Now that particular part of the road is built up.

There's, it's about 15 feet higher than the ground.

So they have a pretty steep slope down from the top of the road down to a flat

part that ends up in a river.

But luckily there was some thin aspen trees and it got stuck between these

aspens. It didn't even tip over.

They were grown tightly enough together that it just stopped the bikes forward

progress. And apparently the lady woke up with kind of the, the movement of going

down the hill and screamed because the river was about 10 feet past these trees.

And that was very deep, fast flowing.

So it could have been really ugly, but now that bike is stuck down there.

How are we going to get it out?

And what's interesting in group dynamics is there's probably of the 20 people on

the tour, I guess, you know, I think there was 14 other people who all had an

opinion on how to do this.

And that might be a point that if it's a group trying to do something, you know,

you can make suggestions, but somebody's got a direct and maybe because I've been

stuck a lot myself, I said, how about we have somebody on their bike with the key

on, but it's not running.

They're watching for oncoming traffic because once we disentangled this bike

from the trees, we kind of manhandled it around.

Her husband tried to ride it up the bank, but as soon as he moved off, I

thought, no, he's not committed enough with the throttle and it gets stuck on

the bank.

So we got it back down to the bottom.

And I said, you know, if you don't mind me riding her bike, I think if I really

light it up, I might be able to get it up.

And I did.

But when I'm committed, you know, I can't stop if there's a car or truck coming.

So the kind of signal was long beeps of horn on and off.

If we were to abort the trip up the sand bank.

And that's how we got it out of there.

And there wasn't a scratch on the bike or her.

It was miraculous.

These trees had just stopped the bike.

It was remarkable.

So very, very lucky.

And I've lots more stories kind of like that.

How did we extricate a bike that's gone off the trail or the road?

And most of it, I think has to be that approach we've discussed.

You got to calmly look at it.

People that jump in, you know, it's not on fire.

You're not racing.

The thing is stuck.

It's not going to get more stuck with you taking a couple of minutes to try to

look and salvage what you can get out of this.

And one of the things that I've learned when it comes to getting unstuck is to

make your first attempt, your best attempt, because if, you know, for you

start to sink down in the mud, for instance, and you're not really going

anywhere, the more you spin it, the more stuck you get, or we try and drag

something out without digging some ramps.

Sometimes you'll find you break something or something goes wrong.

And I always think it's best to do, take your time and make your first attempt,

your best attempt at getting unstuck.

Yeah, the planning that you mentioned is very important.

And an added kind of, it's not definitely a benefit, but if from when I'm doing

that our adventure bikes aren't 125s, for the most part, they're big, heavy things.

The energy that you expel trying to get it out the wrong way or the first or the

second or the third time, you're exhausted.

You can barely hold the bike up walking beside it as you're trying to throttle

and clutch it out.

So I agree.

It's very important to take your first crack at it and make it your best

thoughtful approach on how to extricate it.

And the more fatigued you are, the more likelihood of you getting hurt.

Right. Yeah.

And back to the assessment process.

Part of the assessment process is one of the other things that we didn't talk

about was looking at your weight.

If you can reduce weight and bulk, it makes the extraction so much easier.

So you have to look at it and assess, is it worth taking the bags off and

carrying them over to a different spot, making the bike easier to handle and

lighter weight?

Yes. I think I related how I got stuck in the Yukon, out in the tundra.

I was just trying to get a nice picture of my bike.

And to get it unstuck, I laid it over on the ground to get the rear wheel out of

the hole, then dragged it and my plan was to pick it up, but I couldn't lift the

bike. So I took the saddle bags and my tank bag and my tool bag off and then I

was able to lift it up.

And one last thing I'll add to that is if you're going to take your bags off

anything off of your bike, and especially if somebody's helping you do it or some

people are helping you do it, pick a staging area and put it all in one spot.

All the bags in one spot.

That reduces the chance of you missing something in all the chaos.

Okay. So let's tackle some scenarios that we may encounter generalized, of

course, that we can work off of to just understand some different techniques and

ideas for extracting the bike.

Let's begin with a, what? Stuck on a uphill, let's say.

I think that's common, at least from what I've seen.

And so people are tentative.

They're not giving it enough throttle and speed.

And with that lack of momentum, the bike doesn't make it up the hill.

So when it stops, you'd be fine just to stop and do the hill recovery that we'd

use, shut the bike off with the rear brake so it stalls, then leave your clutch

out, you don't need any other brakes.

Do that full lock turn to the left, lean it over and you slip the clutch gradually

to turn the bike around.

But if you continue trying to get up the hill, it's usually soft terrain.

These big, heavy bikes just sink.

Very doubtful it's going to get up the hill.

But that's where we see people stuck on hills.

So now what's your option?

The back wheels buried.

And sometimes you can just get off without a side stand and just sits there.

So we could go through the procedure, what we use.

I described it earlier for that you come on.

That was flat ground, but often it's in gear, leave it in gear, shut your key off

so you don't drain your battery down.

You know, have a look around you, assess if there's other riders coming.

If it's a hot day, I take my jacket, helmet off and be very careful

where you put it down because I do remember having to walk back down a hill

to retrieve my helmet that I took off and it rolled.

Yeah, that wasn't a good move.

And then, you know, you're not going to overheat yourself if it is a hot day.

And then what I'll do is have a look around and think, OK, the best bet

is maybe lay it over on its side.

And I determine left or right by which is going to give me the best

turnaround option once I lay it on the ground.

And by tipping it over, the back wheel pops out of the hole you made.

And then all you have to do is leave it on the ground, grab something

sturdy at the back end of the bike.

And what I'll do is drag it out away from the hole.

And often rather than pick the bike up and have to turn it around,

I'll go to the front of the bike and stand the tire and the wheel up

by turning the bars.

And then I roll the front tire around until it's pointing downhill.

And then before I pick it up and, you know, get my gear back on,

I just take 30 seconds to use my boots to fill that hole in again.

I think that's a nice etiquette thing to do.

So some other schmuck doesn't go flying into the hole.

And then, you know, pick it up, fire it up and then go down the hill.

So using what you've got there, like as you've got gravity in this case,

helping you so use gravity to your advantage.

And, you know, we just had a deep trouble episode where the bike had fallen

over where the handlebars are downhill and the tires are uphill.

I know we're going to talk about that coming up, but that's where you want

to think about your situation and think, how can I do this so that I use

gravity to my advantage rather than fight it the whole time?

Is there another method?

And I know we're going to get to that in a minute.

Let's talk about being stuck.

Well, I guess we can put mud, sand and snow together.

Would that make sense?

Yes.

I mean, who's riding in snow anyway?

Well, some nuts.

I do.

I was stuck about a month ago.

You told me, you told everyone about it.

They all, everyone knows.

Yes, everyone knows you got stuck in your snow on your own trail.

From spinning the rear wheel too much, by the way.

Oh, yes, that was definitely it, because it was softer on the hill, I think.

Of course it was, Clint.

No, I yeah, that's why I got stuck.

But yeah, I think mud and sand is really prevalent if there is a lot of sand.

So where I've been stuck in sand and I've seen others was in Baja,

California on that.

I think we called it the trail from hell.

It took us like 10 hours to do 100 kilometers.

We'll put a link in the show notes for that episode.

That's funny.

But that was so many people got stuck that day.

And a lot of it was frustration and anger.

They just thought, you know what, if I just give it wide open throttle with

the traction control off, I'll get it out.

I know you won't.

It just buries it right to the swing arm, like the back wheel is half buried.

Forward momentum is impossible just from the engine at that point.

You need, luckily we had help.

There was other people already stuck.

So they would walk back and take two, sometimes three people to get a bike out.

So with, but mud, sand and snow, what is the same with all of these?

What methods would we use for all of these?

There's, I did a little YouTube video and I showed two options.

One we discussed was lay the bike over.

It's a bit of a drag because you got to pick it up again, but lay it over and

drag the back wheel away from the hole, fill the hole, pick it up and you're on

your merry way.

But another way, Simon Pavey did a video on this like 20 years ago that I watch.

So I've used it a couple of times, the back wheel stuck.

And if you continue giving it gas, because the hole is marginally bigger than

the tire circumference, it's wedged in there tight.

And that's why you'll fry your clutch.

It's like having a rear brake on really the ground around the tire or

material is holding it in place.

So what Simon does is sitting on the bike with the clutch in, he rams all his

weight and pulls back on the handlebars and he pushes the bike forward and

backward as much as he can.

And what he gains is an inch of space in front of and behind the tire.

Then what you do is you fire up the bike, make sure your traction controls off.

The clutch is in, pull back with all your strength.

And that opens up that little space in front of the tire.

And then you just rocket it out.

So lots of gas, drop the clutch, and you hammer into that wall of sand, mud,

snow, and it might jump out.

It might power out.

And that's worked for me a couple of times.

And the beauty is you don't have to pick up your bike that you've pushed over

to get it out of the hole.

Now the setup for that, for rocking back and forth, is that without spinning

the rear wheel?

Yes, the clutch is in.

You don't even need the engine on.

So you just yank in the bike back and forth if it's going to move.

Exactly.

So another thing that you can do with like a modified version of that is to dig

the trench.

You've talked about that before.

Absolutely.

Yeah, you can use your gloves like your, just your hands.

There might be a stick there.

I doubt you're carrying a shovel.

I haven't met that rider that's, oh, hang on, I got a shovel here.

I haven't met that guy.

But there could be something, you know, a can, anything, a lid off

something that you have, or just your gloves.

Or like a stick, as you did mention, sticks have been used for

diggings by indigenous peoples for, you know, eons.

Sticks make very good digging tools.

Find a sturdy stick, 12, 15 inches long.

And you'll be amazed at how much dirt you can move or even little rocks and

things just with that stick.

A green stick is better.

Yeah.

And it's going to take some time, but you know, what else have you got to do?

Yeah.

You're stuck there unless you get out.

So again, that's that calm, thoughtful approach and dig a trench, not only in

front of the rear tire that stuck, but if it's really soft, snow, for instance,

I'll walk in front of the stuck bike and make sure I pack down or dig out a trail

because if I don't do that, I get the rear wheel stuck.

I move six feet and I'm stuck again.

So you kind of, where's my exit?

Is it, am I going to be able to keep going this direction?

If not, maybe once I get it unstuck, I'll turn it around and go back because I

know I've got that far.

But going further might be problematic, but yeah, digging a trench or tipping

it over or Simon Pavey's method of rocking it out may really help, especially

if you're by yourself, you don't have anybody to help you pull.

Digging it out, you mentioned they're digging out the front wheel as well.

And I think that's something that's really missed by a lot of people.

How important it is to dig it out front and back so that you have some forward

and back movement with it to dig out that lip that's in front of both wheels.

And the more ramp you can make for both wheels going up, the easier time you're

going to have getting unstuck or hopefully.

So you expend a little time and energy before you start the engine and try to get

out, yeah, it makes great sense.

When it is stuck, there's a lot of suction with moisture.

So mud, not, you can get it in sand as well, but that really locks the wheel in.

So it may be physically impossible for you yourself to lift the motorcycle up.

Like straight up out of the hole into the air, but you will be able to use gravity

and your own body weight to tip the motorcycle over.

That's usually you'll have much better success tipping it over and dragging

the back wheel out of the hole, because I doubt you'll be able to lift it up by yourself.

So there would be, I guess, where you're going to take your luggage off.

If you have luggage on, take it, make it as light as possible.

Yeah, the scary part is the bikes on that side.

Can you get good purchase with your boots?

Yeah.

So that's why I like an Enduro Soul, something with good, soft treads, because

I'm often standing in the creek or the mud trying to lift my bike or somebody

else's bike. And I've also found that as I'm lifting it, the front tire slides

because it's so slippery. So sometimes it takes another minute, but find some rocks

or sticks to kind of jam in and butt up against those tires so they don't slide as you're lifting.

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All right, let's talk about stuck on a log, rock, ledge, rocks and stumps, ledges. The rock portion

is often on a hill where they maybe it bounces off of a smaller rock and your front tire goes over a

bigger one. But then you frame out on the skid plate. And hopefully you've got a good skid plate,

because that's one way to cause a lot of engine damage. But now both wheels are in the air. How

do you get that thing off of there? If you can touch the ground, sometimes you can kind of rock back

and forth pushing on the handlebars with both boots on the ground. But maybe your legs won't

reach the ground, you're up in the air. Then I think your best bet is dismount, grab the back of

the bike and see if you can drag it off without like drag it towards yourself. So it doesn't,

you know, just crash down onto the other rocks. But that's been a way I've kind of extricated my

bike off of big rocks. And it was normally on a hill where I lost control and it bounced into

bigger rocks. I wasn't trying purposely to ride over them. So hung up on a log, what would you do

there? Yeah, so you same thing, you tried to go over, you got the front over, but then the skid

plate hits or just the back tire hits. And you didn't quite have enough momentum to oomph and

bounce it over. I think many of us have been there. So now you go to give it gas, let the clutch out.

It either just stalls or spins. So this is a good point where you could stand up,

put your boots on the log and you're helping it up and over by rocking it forwards. So you

could rock it back a bit so the tire is off the log and then light it up a little gently with

rattle and clutch to see if you can kind of bounce it over with your legs aiding you pushing forward

and pushing on the handle grips. That may get it off. But if it's really stuck,

shut the bike off, dismount, the bike's not going anywhere. It's stuck there. And you may have to

drag the rear of the bike over or maybe even go backwards, pull the front of the bike off the log.

You know, I guess another thing you've mentioned this before about building a ramp.

Yes. So you don't get stuck. If the tire is really tight against the log, the ramp is tough

at that point. What you might be able to do is jam some sticks underneath the rear wheel

to get it elevated a little. And that might be enough clearance to get the rear of the bike

over the log forwards. But the ramp is best if you look at it and you think I don't feel comfortable

trying to ride over that thing. So I'll stop and then find another couple of smaller logs

and build a little ramp up and either jump it over or I'll walk beside my bike and just clutch it

over. Right. We've done that many times with customers. And even if you're stuck there,

you could pull it backwards until the front tire hits and you could jam some stuff underneath

to make a bit of a ramp. You could do that. Absolutely. But you got to get the tire off the

log. You're right. They also get very slippery. If the bark's removed, the wood underneath it

with rubber spinning on it is really slippery. So it's very easy to have the rear wheel slide out

to the right or left when you're trying to get across it. So yeah, caution is definitely important

with big logs. Okay. So what's our next scenario? We talked about the river bank and ledges, rocks

and stumps. Other places people get stuck is just really loose gravel sometimes. It's either soft

in the spring and it's on hills. They get into an area where there's ruts in the gravel or just

regular dirt and they get stuck in the ruts. And it might be because the spring melt, water runs

down hill of course. So it washes the soft sand and little aggregate down to the bottom. And what

it can leave is all the things that the water wasn't strong enough to move rocks, ruts, roots.

And the roots are really slippery and a lot of people get stuck on them because it stops your

forward momentum going up the hill. So I'm not sure if we didn't really talk about ruts, but that's

where I've seen people get stuck a lot too. Yeah, let's talk about ruts. When you can get

stuck going down the hill as well. So you have to really take a look at the course that the water

has taken. It usually takes the fastest way down the hill. And often it's the middle of the downhill

trail. It just guts it. So if it's powerful enough rainstorm, the rut could be a couple of feet deep.

You're not going to ride through that. And if you try, you may end up going over the handlebars.

So you may have to ride on the cambered slope right on the left for as long as you can because it's

sloped. And then if it feels like you can't do that any longer, cross the rut on an angle.

Now you're on the other bank, the other side, ride down it for a while. And that might be the safest

way to get down. But when it's been really dangerous, very deep ruts, I'll get off my bike,

shut it off, leave it in first gear and just use the clutch to move it downhill with gravity.

As I pull the clutch in, the back wheel starts to move. And if it gets away on me, I let go of the

clutch. That may be a safe way to avoid getting stuck in the ruts. But if you do, you pretty

well have to dig the bank away around the rut to make it bigger so you can move the bike through it.

And so that one might take a lot of time. Okay, well, let me give you a scenario and you tell

me how we get out of it. We've got a big loaded adventure bike. We're going up a hill that turns

out the rut develops as you go up the hill. So we're on the steep part of the hill, a good portion

of the way up the hill, and you get stuck in that rut. How do we handle that? Well, see if you can

walk out of there, leave the bike, say it was stolen and just buy another bike. I didn't expect

that. That's really good. I'm just making notes here now. Okay.

No, seriously. Now, as we said earlier, if you can get it out of there, the likelihood of you

being able to continue up the hill from zero momentum to movement, I don't think you can.

That's a pretty rare phenomenally adept rider, certainly better than me that can get up the

hill from halfway up. And even trying is probably just going to end up in you getting

stuck and it's not going to work out. Yeah, heating up the clutch and you're exhausted,

trying to walk and push. They're too heavy. So I think if it is stuck, that's probably the rear

wheel jammed in a rut or something or the front wheel. You can try that system of pull the clutch

in with the engine off, see if you can back it up out of the rut to a point that isn't as rutted

on the trail, then do the turnaround, either lay it over on its side and drag it around 180 degrees

so the front tires downhill, pick it up and continue. Or maybe if you can back it out of the

rut just by sitting on it and your boots are on the ground, clutches in and the engines off,

pull backwards with the handlebars as you're pushing your boots downhill. And that may help

extricate you. And if it's fairly flat, no more rut, maybe you could do that turnaround

without dropping the bike on the ground. Because when I'm fresh and I'm full of energy,

the thought of dropping my nice bike on the ground is abhorrent. I wouldn't want to do that.

But when you're exhausted, stuck on the hill, it's raining, the rain's going down your neck,

I'll throw it on the ground, no problem. It doesn't take much for you to change that.

What's a couple of scratches? Yeah, you gotta expect it's going to get scratched

when you're riding this stuff. Something you mentioned several times now is fatigue.

You know, how fast we get worn out because we're on our bikes, everything's great,

but it's when you get off the bike and you start having to handle that weight of that bike,

you get tired fast. And when you get tired and you already mentioned it, you make mistakes.

Big time. You tend to get hurt more often. It's just a bad situation to be in.

Yeah. And we've heard it on deep trouble before where in 2020 hindsight that they're smart people

and they look at it and think, you know what, I shouldn't have kept going.

I knew what it was like behind me and I made it this far. So stands to reason, logic says,

okay, turn around and go back. This is too crazy. But you get frustrated, you get fatigued and your

brain doesn't compute the correct decisions and fatigue's the biggest part of that. And as you

say that you can really get hurt or stuck out there. Yeah. Okay. So that's off of a hill. So

if you're going downhill and you drop the bike in a rut, for instance, that's not as difficult to

deal with. Yeah. The best part of being stuck downhill is you've got gravity that is an extra

pusher for you if you're by yourself. So I'd boot much rather be stuck going downhill than up.

And you've already described that you could get off the bike if you needed to and with the bike

off and use the clutch as your brake. Yes. That's the safest because neutral or using the front

to rear brake to slow you down when it's in neutral, you can lose traction really easily.

And with the clutch, I could go down the hill, first gear engine off with both feet on the ground.

If it's, I don't feel comfortable riding it at that point. And that way, as I release the clutch,

the rear wheel drags and that's where I want deceleration coming from the rear wheel

on this ugly downhill where I was getting stuck. Okay. So now this one, I think this is the last

we're going to talk about. I have some personal experience with this. Yes. Bike off the trail,

you end up in the ditch or below the road. These I think are some of the more difficult ones

because the bike often ends up in a precarious position where you have to get it back up onto

a trail. So let's talk about that. Where do we start with that? Well, the time I think I've

related to you, I was the voice in my headset, yeah, yeah, you can keep up to that guy. And the

next thing I knew I'm sliding down the trail. I was doing 80 kilometers an hour. It's the fastest

crash I've ever experienced off road. Wow. I'm sliding along and I could feel heat from the

friction on the gravel on my side. So I kind of rolled over and post crash, there was a big hole

in my BMW pants, but not a scratch on me because there was an armored pad on my hip in the pants.

Well, and you rolled over when you felt the heat. Exactly. Yeah. And I don't think that was a

conscious thought. It was like, ouch, roll over. I dug my heels in so I didn't follow the bike I

was riding off the trail. And it went down about 15 feet and tree stopped it going further because

it was a very steep downhill. So what I related, I should have done because my friend Rick kept

going. He didn't realize I'd crashed. Take your helmet off, put it on the side of the trail.

That's very important to take it off first. Then I went down the hill with my helmet on and I

struggled, you know, I'm not strong enough to pick it up and go 15 feet. I couldn't go straight back

up the same skid mark that it went in. Yeah. So I angled my way back up, you know, a few inches at

time, standing beside the bike clutch and throttle, first gear, revving, slipping,

crawling back up, often having to go around little trees until I heard his bike go by.

Because he's finally realized that's when I went up and put my helmet down. So when he returned,

he came to my aid. I'd almost got it out, but I was exhausted. I couldn't get the front wheel on.

So he took a picture first, then he came and helped me. But the worst one that I experienced

was on a BMW event in British Columbia, it was the World Trophy. It was a rail trail. So they've

taken the railway tracks away. What had happened is this American guy, I think his name was Bobby,

he owns a BMW Husqvarna dealership in Atlanta, Georgia. Great guy. He's riding along and his

front tire hit a big rock and it went off the cliff. And it was about a 500 foot drop to

the Fraser River below. And you know, it would have killed him, but he fell off just as the bike

left. And about 15 feet down, trees were growing on the side of the hill and it stopped the bike

from going all the way down. So my team, eight riders, we were a little bit behind. So there's

like 20 people stopped because, you know, there's a guy lying on the side of the trail.

And he was hurt a little bit. I think he had rib damage. Anyway, how are we going to get this

bike back up? Because there's no truck up there. It's just us. Now BMW gave us these white straps,

which were about seven feet long. They used them to strap the motorcycles into the shipment crates

when they're shipping them around the world. They gave each of us one or two of these straps

to secure things on our bike if we needed to. So somebody had the idea, everybody go get your

straps and we made a great big rope out of them. A really long one because we had about 20 of them.

Then we positioned two R 1200s and we hooked up the straps to these two bikes and with about

15 people pulling with their arms and we all put our helmets on because these bikes were

lit up in first. They were spitting gravel at us. We pulled the bike back up the hill. It worked.

We got the thing back up, but it was smoked. Wind shield was gone. Instruments were gone,

like the speedometer and everything. But that's how we got a bike 15 feet down a mountain. That's

how we got it up. Now if you'd been by yourself or even two or three guys, there's no way that

thing was coming out without blocking tackle and a tow truck. A vehicle with a winch or something

like that. The lesson that I get from that as well is ingenuity. Using your imagination to try and

figure out any way to make something work. Think of what you've got. I mean, it's that Boy Scout

thing. We've talked about this before. You sort of look at what you've got and say, okay, what can

I use this or how can I use this stuff to help me in this situation? Yeah, that's what's great

about your show is it's people from all over the world who have already been there. They've done

that and they can give advice and suggestions and that's what it was like on that day. These were

some of the best adventure bike off-road riders in the world because you didn't get on team Germany

or team South Africa unless you were an incredible rider. And that meant you had a vast amount of

off-road riding experience. You've run into stuff like this before. You know, guys knew that when

we ran out of tubes, stuff the tire with grass and sticks just to keep the rim off the ground

and it got it back to base camp. Stuff like that ingenuity, as you say, is the best tool you have

as your brain, but it only works if you take a calm, thoughtful approach and don't rush it.

Do you have any other tips for things to consider, things that we can think about when our bike is

off the trail, particularly if it's, let's say upside down. So in other words, when I say upside

down, I mean handlebars downhill and tires uphill, tips for working those things out.

The wheels are up and the handlebars are down. Yeah, so you get back down to the bike. The best

thing you can do, if possible, is spin the bike around facing the direction that's best to get

even out of there. So usually it's front wheel pointing out. Slide it on the ground and not

usually your best way to turn it because often when it's gone off a trail down into a hill,

it's not an easy, you know, turn left and face the other direction. It's stuck. So you've got to

drag it around and that's best with turn your key off. Too many people aren't thinking properly

because they're panicking a little and they spend 10 minutes trying to move trees and rocks, whatever,

and then the bike won't start. So I always shut my key off. The first thing I do when I get to it

and then do your best to work it up the hill. Okay, yeah. And there's also a gravity component

here, isn't there? If the bike is sitting with the wheels pointing uphill, it's in a difficult spot

to lift. If you lift it that way, you have to fight gravity to stand the bike up. And on top of that,

you're on the downside of the hill, which is the wrong side of the bike to be on. If anything goes

wrong, if you spin it around, then the wheels are on the downhill side. When you stand the bike

up, you have much more leverage and you have gravity assisting you to stand the bike up

and you're on the correct side of the bike, standing on the uphill side of the motorcycle.

And every situation is different, but I think the key is the tires got to be on the ground

before you can do anything. So push it over, grab the front wheel and spin it towards the uphill.

And get the tires down. And another advantage of spinning around, if you can,

usually when you go off the trail, you angle off the trail, you'll find the front wheels lower in

the back, just like a vehicle's crashed off the trail. And if that's the case, when you spin it

around, at least you're pointing in the right direction to go out if you can't continue along

the trail. So it could be an advantage for that as well. Yes. And you might reach the decision that

you can't do it by yourself. Hopefully, depending on where you're riding, you've got a way to

communicate to get some help. So at our work, we've got radios, there's great cell phone coverage,

so we think you should really have a way to communicate to get help.

I want to talk about help because quite often we ride in groups, we have other people help us,

but that can come with like the help is great, but it can also create problems.

So let's talk about like sort of best practices, I guess, for getting help from other people.

Yeah. Often it's offered by someone coming along, the Good Samaritan Helper,

but they might not be a motorcyclist. When, I think I told you the story, Jim, when I crashed

a guy's Africa twin, it was one of those DCT ones without a hand clutch. And when you turn the key

off, it was exactly as we were talking about. The wheels were straight up in the air in a

big ditch after I crashed it. Because when I went to jump this ditch to help this fellow named James,

the traction control was on. Oh, because you turn the ignition off and it resets.

Yeah. And I forgot to reboot the traction control off. So when I gave it a big shot

of throttle to jump the ditch, crash broke the mirror and James and I, James had some knee troubles.

So he's a big strong guy, but that didn't help me try to get the bike out of that big ditch.

And we heard an engine in a truck coming up the same hill. I couldn't believe she got there,

but she and her son, I had to ask the son to get out of the truck and help us. But four of us then

could get the bike out of the ditch. But what I did was, people are well meaning they want to help,

but they're not motorcycle riders. They see this nice pipe thing coming out of the engine.

Hey, that might be a great thing to grab onto with my bare hand. It's the exhaust pipe.

Right. Yeah. So I think, as you say, you need a little direction. Say, thanks so much for stopping.

Can I trouble you to be at the frontier? I took the belt off my pants and I've wrapped it around

the top of the shock absorber, the front fork. Can you pull on this belt? And the other person,

thanks again for stopping. Can you be on the other side pulling so a little direction may really

help not only for getting your bike out, but for their safety too. I think you owe it to that good

Samaritan to take care of them. And you want to project further on too. As you're going to get

this bike out, you want to see what's going to happen. You don't want to put somebody in a situation

where they're going to fall off of the edge of something because they're still holding on or

still trying to push the bike as you're getting it. And like you're saying, that's all part of the

safety thing. The other thing I was thinking is often when people want to help with the bike,

you did mention the exhaust, but also other things. They can grab things like mirrors and

turn signals. So you want to be careful to explain that sort of stuff. Yeah, you got your bike out,

but it broke a turn signal because that's what they pulled on. Yeah, very good point. But where

I've seen people error is maybe it's because your dad was stuck in the driveway in the car and he

says, get out and push me. Well, you're not going to lift the suspension of a car up from pushing

from the rear. But if you think about it, many people go to the back of our bike to try and

help us. And as they're pushing, they're really lifting, they're reducing the traction by pushing

up. So what we recommend is if there's engine crash guards, grab rails at the front of the bike,

that's a far smarter place to pull from. So you're on the side of the bike, not in front of it.

You want to do it safely. But I carry a couple of straps. These straps have many, many uses.

Sometimes they stay rolled up in my saddle bag the entire trip. But often I'll use them,

I'll put it around the front fork, high up, and that's a pulling strap if somebody's stuck.

And that can really help. So now I'm a meter away from the front wheel. I'm not in a dangerous

position and I'm pulling from the front of the vehicle. That's a nicer way to help somebody get

unstuck than if you're at the back, you're going to get a face full of whatever material it's stuck

in. And that's dangerous standing behind a bike that's spinning and sand or mud or just regular

dirt, face full, eye full. And it's counterproductive if you're lifting up because it's not getting

any traction. When you're talking about having someone lift from the back and reducing traction

because they're lifting weight off the rear wheel, it reminds me of those times when you're stuck

on a log because we talk about being stuck on a log. The common thing to do is to stand on the log,

like on the bike, and then you're trying to get the bike to go over it, powering the rear wheel,

and it just spins. But if you sit down on the seat, you're actually adding traction to the rear

tire to try and get it up and over. It's a bit of a maneuver, but it certainly can make the

difference of getting over or just sitting there and spinning. Yeah, exactly. Let's talk about

preparing the bike. Now, because this goes right along with what we're talking about when you're

telling people where to hold on to. If you do some work to begin with before you go, before you get

in any sort of situation, you'll always be prepared and you can tell people, you know,

this is where I want you to grab. So let's talk about that. Yeah, a lot of Enduro racing bikes

would come with a seat strap at the back. So it's right at the back of the seat,

attached to the seat mounting bolts. And it was just a strap that looped up. So if you were stuck

or had to move the bike around, you could grab the strap and it gave you bitter, better leverage

and purchase than just putting your hand underneath the fender or something. So there are things we

can do to prepare our bikes. But I thought those tie down hook things that the guy had installed,

you could put a strap on that would be a great place to pull on. I know that ADVX that you've

been on, Jim from Ryan's group has some straps that are designed for that purpose. Somebody

stuck, you loop it around the fork and the strap is maybe a meter long,

really a great thing to pull. So I thought that'd be fantastic. I have some smaller ones that I

carry with me now, but I don't have them on the bike because they're going to flap in the wind.

And if anything, when you put straps near steering, they could get caught when you're riding.

Also mar up the plastic as well as you ride. Yeah. So I don't have them on the bike,

but I have them with me in case somebody needs them. Yeah. And if you're carrying them with you,

you can literally put them anywhere on the bike. And I think that does a couple of things. One,

it gives you the purchase where you want it, which is often hard to get at. And the other thing is

it makes it so the person that's helping you can stand up more rather than leaning down,

you know, that awkward lean over. So you're standing up more when you're heaving on it.

Great idea. Get more strength out of it. More of a pull. So those type of things are really handy

to do. And if nothing else, don't you think it's probably a good idea to go over your own bike and

say, if I need somebody to pull on this, what are they going to pull on? So yeah, this is the best

place. Yeah, figured out in advance so that you don't find yourself with a broken luggage rack or

something like that because it wouldn't take the stress. Exactly. We're going to take a quick

break. When we come back, I'm going to be talking with Adam Owens from Greenchill Adventure Gear

and Chris Birch about some tools that could make while your neck stuck a whole lot easier. Stay with

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tell them you heard them here on Adventure Rider Radio. IMSproducts.com. Sometimes technique,

muscle, and patience is still not enough to get you going, and that's when the gear that you

carry can make all the difference. So I decided to give Adam Owens a call. He's from Green Chile

Adventure Gear, and they make recovery gear for exactly that kind of problem. Adam, welcome back

to Adventure Rider Radio. Hey, thanks for having me. So you make all kinds of products as many

people know. I want to talk to you about a few of them today. The first thing I want to ask about

is the Z-Drag system. What is the Z-Drag system for those who have no idea what it is? Well,

how do you describe it? It's a compact way to get mechanical advantage when you're trying to get

unstuck. So you can hook it up to a stationary anchor. If you're on the east coast where you

always got trees, you could use a tree. If you're on out west where there aren't trees,

then you can take the bag it's made in and throw dirt and rocks in it. Put the blue

end of the Z-Drag as the anchor. So you can wrap that around the bag. You can wedge it in between

rocks or dig a hole and make a dead man anchor. But that gives you your fixed point. And then we

have modified roller cams that act as pulleys in the system to reduce friction. So you get

a five to one mechanical advantage if you're pulling in the direction of the blue end.

Yeah, I guess another description would be a block and tackle setup. Now, the great thing

about the system that you have is it's all in a bag ready to go. Now, you can make a Z-Drag system

in a rope system, for instance. But what I really like about yours is when I pull the bag out,

even though I haven't used it for months, it's all completely assembled, ready to go.

Yeah, exactly. And when we were making that, I was actually looking to put together like a

rope and pulley system for me, but I don't do rope work all the time. So you know when it happens,

it's going to be five o'clock in the afternoon, the sun's going down, you're already tired,

and now you've got to start playing with ropes and pulleys, right? Yeah. So I wanted something

that I could just pull out and hook up and get out and put it back in the bag. So that's kind

of why we did that. Because the rigging a rope and pulley system in a Z-Drag, if you don't do it

all the time, it's kind of complicated. And if you don't do it right, like if you're

knots didn't hold or something like that, you know, if your bike comes back down a hill at you,

you could end up even in a even worse situation. Now you have a broken ankle and you can't walk out.

Exactly. But it's very refreshing because you just mentioned that. That's what that's

got to be the one of the most important parts of it. Aside from, let's say the mechanical

advantage is number one, but the other most important part about it is the brake. Talk about

that. Yeah. So there's one of the cams in there captures your progress. So I'm sure when you've

pulled a motorcycle before and you get like almost over that hump, but you can't hold it and it rolls

back another foot and a half. You got to do it again. So there's one cam in that system that as

you pull through the little locking tab goes back down. So if you get an inch, you hang on to that

inch and that that can make all the difference in the world. And I know like sometimes you got

to work with angles too. So like just imagine your bike coming up some hill. Maybe like the

the Z drag is low to the crest of that hill goes to a tree across the road. And as you're pulling,

there'll come a point where that front wheel is really just pulling into the earth as opposed to

going up, right? Because of the angle. But what you can do, you can kind of pull it till it's tight

and just lift on the front. And I don't know what the what the physics behind that is, but if you

have a long strap connected to that bike and you just lift in the middle on the front, it's an

amazing amount of lift on the front tire. Yeah, you actually get the average from it. Yeah. So when

you when you lift it, that it'll kind of take the pressure off that tire and you can pull it another

five or six inches and take the pressure off and you can work up that steep hill that way.

Right. So that's another mechanical advantage thing because what it is is you've got your

anchor as one spot, your bike is the other spot and you're pulling in the middle. So you've got

the mechanical advantage of pulling at half the speed and twice the power. So that's an interesting

use of it. Yeah. And sometimes when you're working with steep hills, you kind of got to do that just

because of the angle of pull. But it can also be, you know, Tom might stuck. It doesn't necessarily

have to be catastrophic either. So a story that I've got me and my buddy, Jeff, were riding

the first two legs of the MABDR and he hit like the one mud puddle we saw the whole time. And it

just kind of shot him out funny, you know, and he was on a B-Strom 650 and where it stopped,

if we just stood the bike up, his tires would be off grade. And if it started sliding, we would

not have been able to stop it. And this is Friday of a long weekend ride, right? So we just hooked

the Z-Drag up as a safety line. And we stood his bike up and it was a non-event. But with that

Z-Drag hooked up, we knew it wasn't going to be an event. And it, you know, it took a couple minutes,

you know. Where do you connect this on the bike? Usually fork tubes or a crash guard

is a good choice. I've seen people wrap it around the handlebar. That kind of depends on

like what your setup is in the front. Like obviously, if you had a big windscreen,

handlebars might not be a really good choice. But if your bike was laid over, you know,

you might need to stand it up first. You might go over the top and connect to a crash guard

and stand it up if you need to help with that. Like being handlebars down or something. And I

would definitely say like, you don't want to get it out every time you drop your bike. But

there's definitely situations where, I mean, any bike handlebars down, even a small bike is heavy.

So that's definitely like those options as well. What is the Z-Drag way?

It's about three pounds. About three pounds. And it's like, if you look at pictures, it looks,

it looks like it's kind of fat and round, but there's, it's very pliable. So I find when I'm

packing it in a bag, it packs in a much smaller space than you would think, because you can sort of

like mold it into whatever empty space might be in that bag. It doesn't have to be packed big and

round. You know, like a sleeping bag, for example, when you pack it down, it's like a ball. Yeah.

The Z-Drag in pictures looks like it's round, but when you pack it, it's you can flat net or do

whatever you want to make it fit. So another example of the Z-Drag was used. Andy Janek,

he rides with Heavy Enduro. So he's doing a modified Tenere 700, but he did Red Bull Romaniacs.

And that's obviously pretty gnarly terrain and he's riding a big motorcycle. So he wanted a Z-Drag

so he could get his bike back up, but he didn't have the room to carry a full size one. The full

size one has a 75 feet of mainline. We made him a 25 foot version and he rolled it up and kept it

under his seat. But he was telling me like that's status, but a bunch of times in that race.

Now you have another thing that I wanted to ask about and that we've talked about it a lot. Actually,

Clinton Smout talks about it a lot. He absolutely loves it. It's the Green Chili Adventure Gear

Dynatode Dynamic Motorcycle Toast Drap. Long name, simple device that probably everybody

should have. Talk about this Toast Drap. What is it? How do you describe it?

It's basically a Toast Drap that lowers the required skill level on both ends. Because,

you know, when you, when you tow, most people without a Dynatode would just use a piece of rope

or a piece of webbing. And it's really snatchy, especially off-road because if the towing bike

goes over a bump, the bike being towed gets yanked for it, you know. And since we're all trying to

balance and pick a line, it's, it's challenging. So what we do, we add in stretch and that, that

snatch becomes a nudge. It's a lot easier to keep your balance. It's long enough where you can

choose different lines. You know, if you're being, having to be towed off-road,

it's more of a big deal. The, the slack in it too, like if the towing bike goes to slow down,

you can see that, that stretch in that tow strap starting to gather up. So one, it keeps it tall,

keeps it out of your wheels. But then if you, if you see that happening and you're being towed,

you can apply brake and pull that, you know, gently pull that stretch back out. So it's,

it just, it just makes the whole thing easier. And much like the Z-Drag, if you're having to get

that out, probably not in the best of moods. So anything to reduce that anger is helpful.

That's right. It's a stressful time, particularly for the bike that's behind. It's even more

stressful for it. Do you have tips for how to use your dynamic tow strap?

So there's different schools of thought on this. So I usually just tell people, like,

go take a class and let the instructor show you how I do it. The, the towing bike would be,

the loop would go around the foot peg on the shifter side. And then I wrap, if I'm being towed,

I would put two or three wraps on the brake side of the foot peg. And I, you put your boot on it

and your boot kind of holds that strap. And if you need to bail out, you can lift your foot and

unravel. But the reason, the reason I personally like the strap on the brake side for the bike

being towed is there's no chance of accidentally dropping it into first. So you think like if

you had a bike that was hydro rock or something and that strap accidentally dropped it into first,

like that's going to make a situation for you. That's smart. Yeah. Yeah. And what is a tow strap

way? Probably like 13 ounces or something like that. Very, very lightweight. Do you always,

which do you always carry with you or both? It depends on where I'm riding.

If I don't necessarily take a Z drag, if I'm going to be mostly on roads, you know,

I do, I do tend to keep a tow strap with me at all times because they're, they're really small.

The Z drag, if we're going anywhere gnarly, like I definitely take it. One of us in the group

will have one. Everybody doesn't necessarily need one, but if you're riding, especially if you got

like a bunch of my riding buddies, if we're riding dirt bikes, a lot of us are on KTMs.

So like one person, you carry the tool roll, somebody carry the Z drag and the tow strap and

you know, you kind of spread out that load for other things as well. I mean, it is a piece,

a length of strap that can be used for other things. Yeah. I've seen people use them for like

clotheslines while they're camping, you know, if you're trying to dry clothes out or run it as a

tarp ridgeline. I mean, obviously you need to get it really tall because it's got that stretch in it,

but yeah, you can use like a ridgeline for something like that if you wanted to.

Double use. I love seeing what people come up with because

people think of stuff that I haven't thought of and I love seeing how people use it.

It's interesting. I've definitely gotten ideas from our customers.

The last thing that I wanted to talk about was, well, I want to call them grab handles.

You call them lift straps. I guess that's the industry name for it.

Well, like I kind of call them grab handles, but you know, when you're making a website

searching just to find it, you kind of got to name things for what people are searching for.

Right.

So when I made it, people were googling lift strap more than grab handles,

so that's why I named them. But they're both names are accurate, really.

And it comes from like in Enduro races. If somebody gets stuck, the audience can help.

Like say you're coming up a big hill and you can't quite make it. Somebody in the audience

can grab your bike and help get you over if they have somewhere to grab, right?

So that's kind of where the idea of lift straps came from.

But we found in just riding, trail riding, adventure riding stuff,

a lot of times your buddy's trying to pull you over something. And if you give him a place to

grab, then he can help. And if the handle is comfortable, he'll pull hard.

Get more, get more for your friend. I like that item. I didn't think of that. That's good.

You got to use your friends wisely.

So where can you mount the handle? Can you mount it anywhere on the bike?

So on the website, we have the front handle and that one is designed to go around your fork tubes.

And it's preference whether you go above or below the bottom triple.

On the back, we do make a rear lift strap, but I don't have it on the website because

it just depends a lot on how you would mount it on the back, because motorcycles are very

different on the back between brands and models. But the reason I don't just have it on the website

to order is because I kind of want to talk to somebody before they get it and make sure that

they're getting a product that will work well for them. It doesn't do anybody any good to send

a product and then they try it and it doesn't work. And you have to pay return shipping and do

refunds. It's just as a hassle for everybody, right? So I just try to make sure that we set

expectations and we have a good idea of what may or may not work on what they're trying to do

and then take care of them that way. Right. Okay. So if they're interested in a rear one,

they just contact you and you sort it out then. Yep. Well, that is great. Is there anything else

that you have that's for getting unstuck that I need to know about? It's not necessarily a product

for it, but I've used it this way. So like our like our Mondo straps and our bag snakes and stuff

where they have the, just the runner where it's a flat piece of webbing with a loop in it. I have

had situations where I was handlebars down, you know, I can't lift it, but I got a riding buddy

and I can take the strap off my Mondo and girth hitch it to the handlebars and like had him stand

on the opposite side on the tires and pull that strap because you can get more leverage pulling

from the bottom and help stand up that way. So it's not necessarily a recovery product, but it's

it's a way to use what you have to get recovered. That makes sense. A strong piece of strapping

will offer you a lot of opportunities. I mean, that's one thing that goes along with this,

is that your imagination is probably your best tool. Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. In Enduro races

and stuff too. A lot of times people will keep a length of webbing and you might have like three

or four people pulling on the strap to help somebody through. I've seen people use our toe

straps that way as well. Like they may not have a Z-Drag, but they got the toe strap they can

attach and they get two or three guys pulling on it. I mean, that's that can be helpful too

to be on situation. Definitely. Adam, that's great. GreenChileadventuregear.com is a website.

Adam, thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Yeah, thanks a lot. It's good talking to you.

Some years back, Warren, Warren Winch, sent us a small motorcycle winch they were making at the

time. Unfortunately, they don't make them anymore. It was called the XT-17. It was quite a nice little

device. I wired up the harness on my bike. I carried it around a bunch, but like a lot of

recovery gear, there's a trade-off. Added weight, it took up space, and it was something I had to

worry about, you know, getting wet and getting loaded up with sand, et cetera. Well, Chris Birch

came at that same problem from a different direction. Instead of carrying a winch, he started

looking at what was already on his bike and how a simple piece of rope could be used to help move

a motorcycle when it was properly stuck. Chris, welcome back to Adventure Rider Radio.

Hey, thanks. Good to be back again. Now, where in the world are you? And I mean that literally.

I'm currently in a little town called Richfield in Utah, and we've just started our, we just had a

first day of our Say No To Slow Schools in America for this year, so day one of 12 days of coaching.

Right. And you've got perfect students, I'm assuming.

Always.

Well, we're going to talk about your rope rear wheel recovery system. What do you call this,

anyway, to begin with? I would probably call it the rear wheel recovery trick, and the system is

probably talking it up. I was trying to come up with a system or something clever idea. Like,

what we just need is like something that would just spin and just like winch the bike up and

like just spool it up and like, ah, you mean like the back wheel, your dork? Yeah, I was doing the

old classic overthink and then, yeah, I came up with this idea. What do we talk about here? Describe

this. So I wanted the way that if I get bogged or stuck, which is quite, you know, it's not impossible

in a wet slippery country like New Zealand to be able to get myself out. And I was also going to go

and race a hard endure competition on my adventure by Keating and wanting me to go and do that.

And so I was trying to think of a way to kind of get myself through that.

And then just came up with this idea. I was actually out for a run in the Blue Mountains in

Sydney that the idea hit me like, oh, yes, this is so much simpler. And basically all we do is

we're running a really strong piece of rope. So it's rope that I've tried all different options

and come up with what I think is the best option. And we basically tie it off to a couple of the

spokes really loosely, just any sort of knot, just to hold it in place or loop it through

through the eyelets in the rope. And all that does is kind of hold it in place.

You tie the other end off to a tree, boulder, anchor point or whatever it is. And now that

you can use another bike and a pinch if it's not too bad. Have a little bit of slack in the rope

and then just slowly, very gently slip the clutch to spin the wheel. And by the time the

tyre has done two or three rotations, the knot's not doing anything at all again.

Like there's no tension on that whatsoever. It's just bound up on the hub.

Just friction.

Yeah. And on the KTM's, all the KTM adventure bikes all run the same back wheel. And there's

sufficient space between the disc and the spokes for it to kind of form like a winch hub.

And it just basically winches itself up the rope. It's arguably quite hard on the clutch.

Like you're putting a lot of stress through the clutch. You've got to be really careful with it.

You can't just go big handful of clutch, power. Otherwise it'll

probably be too much power and it'll snap the rope really quickly or launch the bike forwards

uncontrollably. So you're using a lot of clutch slip. So that's something to be considerate of.

But you know, if you had to choose between slipping your clutch a whole bit or walking

out of the mountains, I know which I'd go for. So it's just a very slow rotation of the back wheel?

Yeah. Yeah. So you're trying to spin the back wheel as slow as you possibly can.

Otherwise it's going to winch quite quickly.

How are you routing the rope up through the front of the bike?

I normally run it between the fork and the front hub on the KTM. So you can actually run it

through the brake caliper. There's a hole there where the brake caliper hanger is.

And you don't have to do that. But I find that makes it pull the bike straighter.

It stops the back end from trying to pull around the front and pull the bike sideways.

I think it helps to hold the whole thing forwards. Right.

We came up with that idea actually in Canada.

A maiden mine couldn't get up this big rock face that was on a trail that we should not

have been on adventure bikes. It was kind of sketchy. It was actually the hardest part of the

event that used to call itself the hardest enduro in Canada. And we thought it'd be a good idea to

go and see if we could ride it on adventure bikes. The Kordaroi? The Kordaroi. That's the one. So

it was Greens Mountain in Kordaroi. Oh, geez. I've went up Greens Mountain before. Now,

I haven't for many, many years. Of course, like 30 years, but yeah.

So there's one big rock. There's several big rock faces, but one real big rock face you have to go

up and don't talk it up. I got up at first time. But my mate was he had several goes at it and he

was getting a bit spooked by it. Like, because it's a pretty ballsy move. Yeah. And every time he kind

of went to go, but then pulled the pedal the last second, it was kind of breaking down the run up.

And it got to the point where like, actually, you're not going to get up this now. Like,

you've had so many chicken runs at it. It's not going to work anymore. You've kind of

You lost it. Yeah. Yeah. It's not happening now. So we ended up having to winch with this rope,

which I happened to have winches 1290 up this big rock face. And that was where we came up with

the idea of running it through the brake hanger to make sure that the front end didn't slide around

as we went up this up this rock face. It wasn't vertical, but it was freaking steep. And we were

both like smiling and laughing at Leigh and go, Hey, if this rope snaps, we're done because we

were both hanging off the bike trying to stabilize it. And yeah, it was hair raising.

I think that might be on YouTube somewhere. The biggest thing for us back home is just getting

stuck in a swamp or, you know, you can't quite get out of a creek crossing or something like that.

Basically, when the bikes bogged is when we were using it the most. I have used it

to when we've had bikes go off the trail and we need to get them back back up onto the trail,

kind of winch it back up by that. Basically, anytime you need to get the bike a short distance

and it won't work any other way. Do you have any other tricks that you've developed for using the rope?

The other trick we use quite often is if you slid off the side of the trail and you need to get

back up onto the trail. So like a bench side hill trail, right? You can tie the back wheel or the

so like the carrier, the rear carrier rack to a tree. Make that nice and tight normally with

a truck is hitch or something like that. And then you can get around the front of the bike,

pull the front end round so the front wheels higher than the back wheel. Yeah. Then you disconnect

the rope, tie the rope to the front wheel, do the same thing with the back and you can slowly

winch like like step ladder your way back up onto the trail. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yeah.

That works quite well. And now this thing is so reliable you carry it with you all the time.

Yeah. If I'm going out exploring by myself and I know I'm going to that sort of terrain,

obviously, if I'm just going to go in for a ride down a dirt road, I'm not going to bother,

but it's, it lives in my, in my pack. It's on my list of things that I would take with me when

I'm going exploring by myself particularly. It's one of those situations where you think, hey,

if I had like four or five guys here, we could probably push this out of here pretty easily.

The rope represents the four to five guys that aren't there. So there's nothing special to this.

It's just a piece of rope. Nope. Nothing special about it whatsoever. I tried it with just the,

when I had the initial idea, I just went down to like,

like our equivalent of Harbor Freight and just bought some rope and gave it a go. Oh my gosh,

this is actually going to work. And then played around with finding a whole bunch of different

types of rope. So I basically wanted to try and find something that was strong enough,

but wasn't so bulky that it took up a whole bunch of room in my bag. And then I wasn't going to

take it because it's no use to you if it's sitting at home. Right. Yeah. So it's basically the same

stuff they use for ATV winch cable, not big four wheel drive, you know, winch cable, the

lighter ATV stuff. It's, it's Dyneema. It's a Dyneema rope, which is very lightweight,

doesn't catch your hands like a cable, wood or anything like that. And you could literally

stuff this rope in your pocket. Like what's the length you take with you?

We sell them in quite a long length. And then I say to guys like, cut up as much as you think you

need. I normally, I'll be guessing if I know how long it is off the top of my head to be honest.

I kind of just played around with it. I mean, that's about as far as I ever see myself needing to

winch a bike. It helps that I live in a country with lots of trees, of course.

Well, there's other, there's other things you can do. You can tie it on a rock.

You could tie it to another bike. If you had another bike, you could bury something

like a big stick and bury it if you had to. Absolutely. It does pull quite a bit of force.

So you need, need something pretty solid to, to lock it into. We have successfully done

off another bike before where we had a couple of guys and we couldn't actually push it ourselves.

It was still, it was too stuck. It was my big 1290 and it was too stuck to get it out.

And so we winched it off of another bike and had another guy kind of holding the bike in

position. One guy pushing and me slipping a clutch with a rope and that was enough to get it out.

And you mentioned you have them, you sell them on your website. You've got a kit that you made up

with this. Yeah. So I, I've never really intended to do this to sell ropes or anything, but we

had lots of guys asking for what rope should they use? Where can you get it? So we'll just

make it easy and I'll buy a whole bunch and stick them on our website. Fantastic. Well, Chris,

thank you very much. I appreciate you taking a break from your, your training

and good luck tomorrow and the rest of the days. Thank you very much. Hopefully we don't need too

many ropes. As Chris mentioned, he's tried a bunch of different ropes. He's got one that

he knows works well. If you want to get that one, you can get it from Chris's website at

SayNoToSlow.NZ. Well, I think we've covered a lot in here, Clint. Is there a takeaway that you,

you want to leave us with? Yeah, I think what I've seen where people get frustrated, part of it is

embarrassment. You're stuck and your buddies or the other people aren't. And when we're embarrassed,

we want to get out of that situation as fast as we can, don't we? Yeah. Because you don't want

anybody else come along and seeing you. They try to get their bike out with their eagle and it's

not as strong as you're the rest of your brain. So, you know, everybody gets stuck. Relax, take

your helmet off and then assess. You need some time, a couple of minutes, adrenaline from the crash

subsides. You can make sure you're not hurt. Check for any hazards around. It takes time

and calm thought process to think about the best course of action to get out of that situation.

And I'm always surprised when people try to rush. What is the panic? It's not going to get stuck

more than no other damage can happen to that bike. Whatever happened has happened. It's not going to

get worse, but it could get worse if you rush.

Now, if you go to the show notes on our website, you'll also find that we've got the links for

all the things that we've talked about today, as well as a little list of maybe some recommended

things that you could carry with you just in case you get stuck.

This episode was brought to you in part by Green Chili Adventure Gear at GreenChiliADV.com,

Best Rest Products at CyclePump.com. Anytime you're dealing with these companies or anything

you hear on Adventure Rider Radio, let them know you heard them here. And this show is built on a

model of advertising and Lister Support. The combination of the two, we'd really appreciate

if you go to AdventureRiderRadio.com and click on Support.

Well, that wraps up another episode of Adventure Rider Radio, and we sure hope you enjoyed listening

to it as much as we did making it. Special thanks to our producer, Elizabeth Martin. And of course,

you thank you very much for being a part of the show by listening to it. Hey, if you haven't

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So if you could do that, it would be very much appreciated. Now it's time to get out there and

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My name is Jim Martin. Now get out there and ride your bike. I'll talk to you next week.

I'm Ted Simon, and here I am on AdventureRiderRadio again, and extremely happy to be here with Jim Martin.

How to Get a Stuck Adventure Bike Out: Tow Straps, Z-Drag Systems and the Rear-Wheel Rope Trick

About this episode

momentum to crest it

drain your battery

BMW R 1200s

Africa Twin

Yamaha Tenere 700

Dynatode Dynamic Motorcycle Toast Drap

brake side of the foot peg

hydro rock

tool roll

bag snakes

front hub

brake hanger

truck is hitch

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