Backroad riding is the essence of adventure motorcycling—exploring remote places and pushing limits. It’s not an everyday experience for most riders, making preparation and caution crucial. In this RIDER SKILLS episode, Clinton Smout shares expert tips for tackling backroads safely, handling challenges, and avoiding common mistakes — your ultimate guide to backroad adventures.
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This episode of Rider Skills with Clinton Smout focuses on a technique that doesn’t often get much attention. While experienced riders and instructors use it instinctively, it's rarely highlighted despite being essential for mastering great control. With just a bit of simple, low-risk practice, this skill can dramatically improve your riding and control without the risk of dropping your bike.
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In this episode of Rider Skills, we’ll explore the challenges of sand riding and introduce a new technique to help improve your confidence and skills on sandy terrain. Expert riding instructor, Clinton Smout, will share practical tips and advice to help you navigate sand more easily and become a better rider.
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Determining the best line for climbing a hill and figuring out how fast is fast enough can be difficult. Understanding when to ease off the throttle and knowing what to do if the climb cannot be completed is crucial. Riders of heavy adventure motorcycles may question whether it is worth attempting the hill at all. This week, our exclusive RIDER SKILLS program will feature pro rider Clinton Smout from SMART Adventures, providing professional instruction on how to climb hills on adventure motorcycles.
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This segment of Rider Skills could arguably be one of the most important riding skills you’ll ever learn, yet it’s fairly easy to master and comes with massive benefits. In about an hour, if done correctly, you’ll notice huge improvements in your ability to maneuver and control your motorcycle both on and off-road at slow speeds. Whether it's in a parking lot, turning around on a road, or navigating through trail conditions, it’s a fundamental skills set for both adventure riders and street riders. You’ll stop dropping your bike as much and feel more confident riding slowly on any type of terrain. It’ll allow you to use your adventure motorcycle in the way it’s designed for - to comfortably explore less-traveled areas - while also enhancing your overall riding abilities.
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Understanding the underlying reasons for why we perform certain actions is crucial in building a strong skill set. When you know the ‘why’, you won't need to rely on remembering the steps because they will become obvious. When riding a motorcycle, there's often no time to remember to think about each skill. In this episode of Rider Skills with Clinton Smout, we will explore the essential elements for building and maintaining riding skills and discuss how long it takes to notice a difference in our riding.
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Clinton Smout from SMART Adventures returns to ARR’s exclusive Rider Skills to talk about one of the most feared riding conditions we encounter on the street, especially for street riders - gravel. He talks about why gravel is feared, if it should be and what you can do about it to make riding gravel easy and even fun.
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Proactive off-road awareness is a crucial safety step which allows riders to anticipate and respond to hazards effectively. Being in tune with the environment enables riders to navigate unpredictable obstacles such as rocks, roots, or uneven terrain, reducing the risk of accidents or injuries. And to talk about that we have SMART instructor, Clinton Smout.
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Situational awareness while riding a motorcycle means being aware of your surroundings and predicting what might happen based on what you see. It's about paying attention to the road, other vehicles, weather, people and more. In this episode, Clinton Smout, Chief Riding Instructor at SMART Adventures, tells us how by staying alert, you can anticipate dangers and react quickly to avoid them.
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This episode of RIDER SKILLS is for all riders, regardless of the type of bike you ride or your riding style. Some simple drills that can be done on any surface, be it dirt or pavement. Do them before heading out on a ride, while waiting for a friend, or even when approaching a stop sign or traffic light. These are simple straightforward drills that require no pre-planning, no specific location, and each one will help develop multiple skills at once.
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When riding on slippery surfaces, the risk of the rear wheel sliding out from under the bike is ever-present. Whether due to excessive braking or spinning out from rapid acceleration, the rear wheel's speed can cease to match the speed over the ground, causing it to stray from following the front wheel. Without adequate preparation and practice, this situation could lead to a potentially dangerous high side. However, with a grasp of the fundamentals and some diligent practice, managing this occurrence can transform from a potential hazard to an exhilarating experience—one that you might intentionally seek out for the thrill.
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In this exclusive series, we’ll explore the captivating stories of riders who found themselves in DEEP TROUBLE. We'll be dissecting these situations, shedding light on the challenges they faced, the strategies they used and the valuable lessons they learned. Most critically, we’ll discuss how the situation could have turned out differently if some controllable aspects were changed. We’ll talk about the possibilities and potential outcomes, so that perhaps other riders can learn from their experiences and avoid making those mistakes that get them into DEEP TROUBLE.
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Riding a motorcycle through challenging terrain can be extremely satisfying, but even with experience, things can go wrong, and you may find yourself picking up your motorcycle from the ground. On today’s episode of Adventure Rider Radio’s exclusive RIDER SKILLS program, we have Clinton Smout from SMART Adventures sharing five techniques to help you pick up your motorcycle. You can choose the one or two that suit your style or learn all of them to use in different situations.
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Day trips with a group of riders are a great way to have full-on adventures. Whether starting from a hotel room or your own doorstep, having others along not only makes the ride safer but also more enjoyable in many ways. You get to share the experience with someone else and learn from other riders. Additionally, riding with others provides the benefit of working together to tackle tough situations. And if you don't ride with others, how can you follow Clinton Smout's advice to let your friend go first? Today on our exclusive RIDER SKILLS program, we have some tips for riding with others, as well as insights into what a motorcycle instructor and guide packs for their day trips.
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Every hill has its own characteristics that often change with the season and over time, which for an adventure rider means having a unique approach for every hill climb. But according to Clinton Smout from SMART Adventures, there is a magic formula. And once you learn it, you’ll be powering up those hills that will make your riding buddies wonder who this new rider is.
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Should you stand up on your motorcycle and if so, why would you stand and when would you do it? And if you are going to stand how do you do it and feel confident? Perhaps you're a rider who sometimes stands but automatically sits at the first sign of trouble. If so, then this episode is for you, too. Motorcycle riding instructor, Clinton Smout, covers everything from when and why to stand, to bike set-up and tips that with practice will help you become a more skilled rider.
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For motorcyclists, obstacles appear in many forms. On the street there may be road damage including missing asphalt on the road edges, potholes, construction, debris, dead animals and more. And off-road, anything from washouts that weren’t there yesterday, to rocks, boulders, roots, trees, and the list goes on. We have two choices when an obstacle presents itself, we can either avoid it or hit it. That may seem trite but it’s not just whether we hit or miss, it’s how we hit or miss. All with the goal of having the least negative result or, ideally, a positive one.
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Combine a heavy adventure motorcycle with a narrow trail or tight space and turning around becomes a foot wrestle at best, or a job fit for a team. Today on Adventure Rider Radio’s exclusive Rider Skills we are learning two great methods to make the turnaround a non-event and get you back in the saddle again.
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There is a lot to remember when riding an adventure motorcycle in the dirt and challenges often come up quickly leaving little time for contemplation. That’s when having the skills you need in muscle memory can make the difference between an exhilarating ride or a ‘pick up you bike’ exercise or worse. So, to get some things clear in your mind once again Clinton Smout is going to walk us through almost every challenge we find when riding adventure motorcycless in the dirt.
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Nothing beats heading out for a riding adventure with a group of friends, enjoying the ride and having someone watch your back while you watch theirs. But, there are some things that you should keep in mind when it comes to riding with a group including safety, preparation and buddy etiquette. Clinton Smout, who’s in Baja, Mexico riding sweep on a commercial group ride, talks about group riding but not before he tells us about the most difficult day on the ride so far, on what he calls The Trail from Hell.
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