Trotting On The Tiger

It’s fun to ride a motorcycle hard in the dirt. You stand on the foot pegs, look up ahead, concentrate on pointing the handlebar in the direction you want to go and twist the throttle, letting the rear tyre do whatever it wants to. That gives you an amazing adrenaline rush, which is the whole point of riding a motorcycle off the tarmac.

But then there are times when you want to simply wander off on a trail or a forgotten road and not go all bonkers about it. I call that trotting and the Tiger 800 XRx does it wonderfully.

You basically leave the motorcycle in first gear and don’t mess the accelerator at all. If the track is relatively flat, the motorcycle will move at exactly 12 kmph with the engine chugging peacefully. The beauty about that number is you can negotiate turns without braking and then accelerating. All you need to do is shift your body weight around to navigate the motorcycle.

I often do this on the old and narrow roads that weave through the fields in my village. Its a surreal experience. Utterly relaxing.

It feels like the motorcycle is taking me for a ride instead of the other way around. 🙂