How To

Destry Abbott EnduroCross Riding Tip—Getting Unstuck

How to to get going again with minimal effort

October 29, 2018

Big boulder sections would be a lot easier to ride through if it wasn’t for all the tire-sucking voids around them! Most of the time, you can’t avoid falling into them because someone might be stuck in your preferred line or your bike bounces off your chosen line. What do you do when you get stuck besides wait for someone to help?Mark Kariya

AMA EnduroCross tracks are gnarly and everyone—even the best—will find themselves stuck at some point during the day (or night).

In a race situation, it’s easy for a stuck rider to let instinct take over and pin it, hoping that’ll get him (or her) going again, but that’s usually counterproductive and simply results in a spectacular, noisy burnout while competitors motor past.

Whether out on the trail or on an EnduroCross track, when you get stuck in between boulders or against a log, take a moment to remember the tips off-road legend Destry Abbott offers here.

“You want to keep weight on [one of the pegs] so you have weight on the motorcycle,” Destry advises. “If there’s no weight on the motorcycle, there’s no traction so the bike’s not going to go anywhere. So I always put one foot on a peg and one foot on the log or rock or whatever it may be so that way you’re always weighting the bike. I don’t care if you’re dabbing, [like the top trials guys] they’re keeping weight on the peg; they’re not sitting down. Ideally, there’s weight on that footpeg, [which is] weighting the bike so there’s more weight on [it], which is going to help the bike track.” Also note that most of his weight is back on the bike, again helping that all-important rear tire grab traction.Mark Kariya

“When I see people get off the bike, I’m like, ‘No, don’t get off the bike!’ Unless you’re super, super stuck, as soon as you get off the bike, there’s no weight on it, so now it’s going to spin [the rear tire] easier. The more weight you have on the motorcycle, the more it’s going to get traction.”Mark Kariya

The same theory applies to logs. Again, the first thing to remember is settle down and avoid the panic rev. If you just gas it, the rear tire’s most likely going to spin uselessly and only result in a burnout, not forward progress.Mark Kariya

As Destry shows here, he’s almost lugging the engine so the rear tire has a chance to grab traction to pull it up and over this log in the Matrix. He puts a foot down but he’s also got a foot on the peg (on the opposite side in this shot) in order to weight the bike as much as he can. “You want to put weight to that rear wheel and basically lug it out of there—that’s what’s going to get you traction.”Mark Kariya