It can be lots of fun to own an off-road bike. You can hit the trails and jump obstacles that normal motorcycles cannot handle. However, you do need to get a few extra accessories that will allow you to enjoy this remarkable piece of engineering. These accessories will help protect you, protect the bike, and also help transport it. Here's what you need to get.
Body Armor
When you're driving a regular motorcycle, you will wear a helmet. Most riders also wear a heavy leather jacket and tough pants. However, that's not enough for a off-road bike. When you're riding on backwoods trails that are not paved, you are going to run into spots where you can get thrown from your bike. It's par for the course. So in addition to a helmet, you will also need to get body armor. You should start with knee pads and elbow pads, but you should also get chest armor. This is a lightweight padded vest that you place over your jacket. It will help protect your rib-cage and sternum in the event that you go flying off the bike during a rough spot.
Cargo Straps
You will most likely be transporting your bike in the back of your pick-up truck. You can't ride these bikes on the highways, so in order to get to the parks and wooded areas where the hills are, you have to transport the bikes in your truck. The cargo straps will help lock down the bike so that it doesn't fall down and slide around the bed of the truck. This will protect your bike and make it safe.
Automatic Motorcycle Ramp
Finally, you will need a motorcycle ramp. These are used to help get the bike up into the bed of the truck. You never want to attempt to ride the bike up on improvised ramps of wooden plywood or two by fours, or some other makeshift convenience. To make it even easier on yourself, you can get automatic motorcycle ramps that will retract when you are finished using them. These take up much less space than solid steel ramps. The benefit to these ramps is that, unlike many smaller ramps that are used for transport, you don't have to push the motorcycle up. They have a design feature that will "pull" the bike up the ramp and into the truck bed. You can ask any rider how cool this sounds. Old fashioned ramps used to require brute strength to push the bike up the incline. That has all been eliminated with the automatic feature.
For more information and options, talk with sports stores that supply motorcycle accessories and ramps, like Cruiser Caddie.
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