How to Ride Hill Climbs on a Dirt Bike

Techniques & Skills

How to climb hills on enduro bike. Credit: Enduro Cross Training

As with many aspects of dirt riding, hill climbs can be very intimidating at first. But a few basic techniques will have you flying up them in no time. The key points to remember and practice are:

  • Body positioning and balance
  • Traction
  • Momentum
  • Looking ahead
  • Bike setup

1. Body Positioning and Balance

Stand on the footpegs as much as possible — you have far more control this way. If there is good traction, you can simply lean your body forward to ease the strain on your arms.


But as traction becomes an issue, you can actually use a trials technique:

  • Lean your body back to get weight over the rear wheel.
  • Squat down on the footpegs to keep your center of gravity low and prevent wheelies.
  • Bent legs also act as shock absorbers, providing extra suspension to cope with bumps and ruts.

On steep climbs, it’s a careful balancing act between traction of the rear and preventing wheelies.
Ideally you’ll get comfortable with the front wheel skipping along just enough to allow some steering.
You can still use your legs to keep balance while standing — just ensure that you keep the rear wheel weighted for the best traction possible.

2. Throttle and Clutch Control

One of the most common mistakes on hills is too much throttle, high revs, and lots of wheel spin.

Watch top extreme enduro riders climbing technical hills – they rarely break traction, except in loose terrain such as gravel, where wheelspin can’t be avoided.

Always have one finger on the clutch and try to ride in a higher gear, slipping the clutch as needed.
If you need to change down a gear despite clutch slipping, do the change as quickly as possible and resist the urge to apply heaps of throttle in the lower gear – it will just break traction.

Also, get to know your bike’s stall threshold. It’s surprising how low a two-stroke will go before it gives up.

3. Momentum

Momentum is your best friend on hill climbs. Try to get a good run-up and maintain a steady pace until loss of traction means you’ll need to apply less throttle. Whenever there’s a section of good traction or a flat bit of terrain, use this to build your speed again for those tough sections where you’ll need to back off.

4. Look Ahead and Pick Good Lines

Don’t fall into the trap of looking at the terrain right in front of your front wheel.
Look ahead and pick the best line for climbing. If you’re practicing on a particular hill, try walking it first — just like trials riders do — to look for the best line and areas of traction.

5. Bike Setup

A few setup changes can make hill climbs much easier:

  • Lower tire pressures will give you a bigger footprint — 10 psi is a good figure to start with if you’re not hitting hard edges at speed.
  • If you do a lot of cross-training, lower gearing gives you more choice of gears for climbing.
  • You can also tune your bike for extra grunt and a flatter power curve, which makes traction easier.

6. Really Steep Climbs

In extreme enduros, even top riders eventually sit down well to the rear of the bike to weight the rear wheel for traction, and then paddle with their legs as needed.

If you find yourself in this situation:

  • Keep your weight on the rear of the seat, even as you use your legs for balance.
  • The moment you take weight off the rear wheel, you’ll lose traction!
  • Stand on the pegs again as soon as you have enough speed.
Steep Climbs

7. Stuck on a Hill

If you’ve stopped and the rear wheel is just spinning against a ledge, rock, or tree root:

  • Use small blips of throttle and clutch, plus body movement, to get a rocking motion going.
  • Usually by the third rocking motion, you’ll have enough momentum to ease past the obstacle.

This conserves your energy for the rest of the climb.

8. Turning Around on Hills

If you know you’re not going to make it — don’t try to ride back down!

  • Turn to the right as you come to a stop.
  • If it’s very steep, dig the handlebars into the ground to stop sliding.
  • Apply the rear brake, then hop the front end around.
  • Alternatively, wiggle your front wheel until you’re facing downhill enough to ride off.

This is the safest way to turn around and saves a ton of energy. You can still use this technique even if the bike has turned left — you just won’t be able to use the rear brake.

9. Challenge Yourself

As you gain confidence with hill climbs, try steeper terrain and less grippy surfaces to test your skills.

  • Deliberately do a hill climb slowly so you can’t rely on momentum.
  • Stop halfway and see if you can get going again without digging a trench. This will really test your throttle and clutch control.

10. Keep Practicing

Hill climbs are one of the best ways to develop full control of throttle, clutch, and body position. Watch this video which gives a good demonstration of each aspect.