If you're going to use your adventure bike for what it was designed for, you are going to come across many situations you're not familiar with. There are two ways of dealing with them: trial and error (expensive) or going in forearmed with some knowledge.

How To Ride Up Steep Dirt Hills on Your Adventure Bike

Adventure bikes are absolutely brilliant on the blacktop: you can cover hundreds of miles in a day in total comfort. The thing is, they were built to go off-road and that is where their real ability lies.

Riding on flat, smooth tar is one thing but change the surface to sand, dirt or grass and the terrain to hilly and rocky and a whole new set of skills are needed. Your bike can handle them but your bike is only as good as the rider.

So, what's the answer? Well, you can take off into the wild and learn the hard way: by trial and error. That can be fun but it can also be expensive.

Or, you can take part in an off-road riding course. That can be expensive and, also, might not be anywhere near where you live.

The third option is to delve deep into the world of Youtube and watch as many instructional videos as you can. While these can never be a substitute for seat-time, at least they can give you some invaluable hints and tips so that you don't face your first obstacle with your mind as blank as a piece of paper.

This chap, Bret Tkacs, has a whole bunch of videos on his Youtube channel all about riding off-road. All of them are very well put together, with simple explanations and good camera work. Watching - and absorbing - them will give you an advantage when you head out for the first - or second, or third - time. In fact, there's never a bad time in your riding career to watch these: maybe you've been doing something wrong but, as it's just about worked, you've never thought to change it.

Adventure bikes these days are getting too big to pick up easily on your own so the best thing is to not drop it in the first place. These videos could help you achieve that!