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Ok,yesterday it was 94 degrees and had nothin' to do so I hop on the bike and take a ride to the lake. In S.E. Okla. we have a serious ongoing drought,so the lakes are drastically shrinking leaving a lot of dry lake beds to ride on(mostly ATV's) I wanted to drive about 200 ft. to where there was some trees to park under,but when I got into the loose sand the back tire began fishtailing wildly and I nearly dumped the bike and I was going only 15mph.

So, what is the proper method for riding in sand? My bike is an 06 Blvd S50. Not a proper bike to take off road and I never rode in sand before.

FreeRide wrote:So, what is the proper method for riding in sand?

I think there are 2 options.

1 - Turn around and head back for the pavement.

2 - Buy a dual-sport.

i think the make tires for dune buggys were the back tire has paddle looking tread and the front has a big circular "ice skate" piece of rubber to steer with. you'd probably do better on pavement.

BTW its illegal here to ride on the shores of the lakes when the water is down as it furthers erosion. you might wanna look into the legality of riding htere on any motorized vehicle. (not like a go-to-prison thing but you can be ticketed for it)

This is actually good practice, but you really don't have a good bike for riding in sand. The best way (I've found) is to stand up, or rise off the seat a little and let the bike do the work. Which is of course, much easier on a standard or dual sport. Depending on where your controls are, you may not even be able to stand up at all.

Keep the front end light and your speed up a little. Kinda like riding in mud.

It is all about being smooth with the throttle and "wiggle" the handlebars a little to get a slight side to side motion happening with the front wheel. This prevents the wheel from digging in and/or heading of on any direction it choses, not you.

get on a mountain bike or a road bike (pedal style) and thrash around in the sand for a while, fall a bunch. This will help. yes I know that the riding position is very different, and that the bikes are vastly different weights, but you will get a feel for how two wheeled vehicles at slower speeds act in sand.

Thanks guys for your response and yes I knew it was the wrong type of bike, but I thought what the heck since it was such a short distance to the trees, but even then I was fooled.........Learned my lesson

dont ever stop in the sand.keep going no matter how much it fishtails.if you stop you will be picking it up and carrying it out.

best way to ride in sand, get a dual sport or a dirtbike.

If you actually want to get into duning get a 250cc+ motocross bike and add sand tires, oklahoma is supposed to have a lot of good sand dunes to ride on.