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Equipping the Bike - what's the best gear? Anything to do with the bikes equipment, saddlebags, etc. Questions on repairs and maintenance of the bike itself belong in the Brand Specific Tech Forums.
Photo by Marc Gibaud, Clouds on Tres Cerros and Mount Fitzroy, Argentinian Patagonia

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Photo by Marc Gibaud,
Clouds on Tres Cerros and
Mount Fitzroy, Argentinian Patagonia



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  #1  
Old 20 Aug 2017
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tremens View Post
there is better method out there simply lay down bike on one side, that will cause rear wheel to go up and hole in sand will bury itself. Stand up the bike back and you're good to go.
Tremens, I'll try that next time and see how I like it.
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  #2  
Old 19 Aug 2017
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Originally Posted by PatOnTrip View Post
The advantages / disadvantages of using a rack for holding luggages has been discussed before. But after offroading a lot in Africa, there is one advantage that I have not seen mentioned: using a luggage rack with a metal loop that goes behind the rear tire is really great for deep sand riding.

When you get stuck in the sand, you just need to go behind the bike, grab that metal loop, lift the rear end of the bike to remove the rear wheel from the sand hole. You are good to go in no time. It is so much faster than digging with your hands under the bike. Of course, this works better if you ride a 650cc or less bike and your are in ok shape. The legs are doing the work.
Yes, this can work .... or not. If your racks are really heavy duty, then should be OK. But some are not. A friends KLR got stuck in Mud. 3 of us tried to get it out, so we took hard bags OFF the bike, grabbed the rear cross bar ... and it broke! We got the bike out and used bailing wire to temp hold the rack.

It was dicey as with overloaded hard bag mounted back onto rack ... we were worried Jerry Rigged rack fix would not hold for long. It did. KLR guy got it welded the next day. All good. So, use caution when lifting bike. Mud is very tough as your slipping and falling on your ass every time you try to move.
Man, I hate mud.
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  #3  
Old 20 Aug 2017
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Join Date: Mar 2004
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mollydog View Post
Yes, this can work .... or not. If your racks are really heavy duty, then should be OK. But some are not. A friends KLR got stuck in Mud. 3 of us tried to get it out, so we took hard bags OFF the bike, grabbed the rear cross bar ... and it broke! We got the bike out and used bailing wire to temp hold the rack.

It was dicey as with overloaded hard bag mounted back onto rack ... we were worried Jerry Rigged rack fix would not hold for long. It did. KLR guy got it welded the next day. All good. So, use caution when lifting bike. Mud is very tough as your slipping and falling on your ass every time you try to move.
Man, I hate mud.

You have a good point Mollydog. I was using the Happy trail rack on the DR650. I really liked that rack. It was very solid. But I cannot say the same about the bottle holder from the same company. I broke them riding corrogations.
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