Any tips for riding in sand?

[kwings00]

Stay loose and go with the flow.

Depends on the sand. Heavy or loose. Lots of sand at Boyne, held a straight line and stayed light on the wheels, floated threw it each time.

[jwhitey]

Keep pedaling, that's the best advise I've read. Lately I've been riding sand on slow turny trails and what I think works is to keep the bike upright and lean with your body. Kind of like cornering on ice or snow. This works when I have to link several turns through the trees in sand.

[TooFast46]

Keep pedaling, that's the best advise I've read. Lately I've been riding sand on slow turny trails and what I think works is to keep the bike upright and lean with your body. Kind of like cornering on ice or snow. This works when I have to link several turns through the trees in sand.

I find the opposite works for me. I don't lean the bike as much as I would normally, but leaning the bike with limited steering input keeps me going smoother. Not only does keeping my body upright keep me more stable, excessive steering input can get real squirelly in the sand.

[jwhitey]

I think you're right as long as you have room to lean the bike and you have a little speed. I've been thinking about this very issue lately. There is a trail that I've been riding a ton this year and there is a lot of what could be described as a sandy slalom between trees. Slow and tight and I've found that the tires won't wash out if I keep the straightest line possible and shift my weight back and forth while keeping the bike perpendicular to the ground. I have also hit sandy corners at speed and I think angling the bike and expecting some drift is a good way to avoid losing speed, and of course cranking like he11 through the whole turn.

[gmtmin5]

Mostly I've been getting into trouble on deep sand, uphill turning or not. Turns in climbs always have me lose the front and straight climbing it's a rear traction issue. From the comments it seems like I might be using too big of a gear so I'll have to try to downshift a couple and spin more.

[kayakpete]

One more thing -

Eyes forward down the trail. Don't look down at the sand. Let your peripheral vision and feel guide you.

* Keep Pedaling
* Select a straight line through the sand, follow the well worn line
* Weight off handlebars
* Eyes forward