Hertfelder: Bulldogging

Here’s the situation.: you’re riding this dual sport event and they
put you on a trail along a narrow crest of a rather steep hill. For
whatever reason, at least two dozen that I know of, you’ve
dropped yourself AND your motorcycle off the trail.

You could climb back up the trail and stop the next ten riders
and implore them to knot their tow ropes together and pull your
motorcycle back up. Problem here is that all this takes time
which might easily result in ten helpers, and yourself arriving at
the usually fine lunch stop to share a loaf of stale bread and
some warm cream sodas. You and your suddenly grouchy
helpers, will almost certainly get conned into folding the lunch
tables, loading them in the truck, then asked to run your legs
loose catching wind blown paper plates smeared with mustard.

If every rider who rolls part way down a steep slope requires
help like this, there is a definite danger of someone starving to
death before the finish. You may have noticed that very few
dual sport rides go past a Burger King.

And if they do, the place has been closed for six months.

You’ve got yourself in this awkward situation and you can
probably get yourself out by a process called “bulldogging”.

To the best of my knowledge there has been very little written
about the fine art of bull dogging a motorcycle down a steep
slope. Unfortunately, the maneuver is required more often than
you think.

Especially in West Virginia.

Riding along admiring nature’s lovely scenery coming at you
down the trail is wonderful. When the scenery starts sliding
sideways it’s definitely unwonderful. With the laws of gravity
being what they are, it’s not often a motorcycle slides to the
UPHILL side of a slope. Usually they tend to slide off the trail
then down, down, down and it’s not a pretty sight.

Bulldogging, itself, is a rodeo competition featuring brave, or
intoxicated, men hurling themselves from speeding horses onto
terrified long horned cattle. The rider then grabs the beast by
the horns and proceeds to turn it into a diving slow roll right into
the ground. Their rodeo reward, along with possible prize
money, is often an engraved belt buckle slightly smaller than a
Buick hub cap that GUARANTEES they won’t walk past an
airport metal detector without setting off the “tilt” light and
buzzer.

When applied to motorcycles, the bulldogger usually is just
attempting to roll the machinery downhill to a level spot where
he, or she, can remount and ride off in their usual graceful, even
stately, manner.

Some of the more determined riders might use the level area to
gain a little momentum and use it to climb back up the hill just to
show the mountain who’s boss. With a fresh layer of slippery
clay stomped onto boot soles those bonsai artists often come
to grief rather quickly as one, or maybe both feet slide off the
pegs at inopportune times.

I have no idea what inopportune means, so we can look it up
together!

We have all seen, perhaps, experienced, a traffic policeman
ordering a driver out of his truck to attempt to rotate one hand
on his head and the other on his belly IN OPPOSITE
DIRECTIONS!

Well, bulldogging a motorcycle is a lot like this.

With the engine dead and the transmission in low gear, it’s
obvious that letting the clutch OUT, will brake the rear wheel.
Pulling the front brake lever IN, like always, will brake the front
wheel.
Remembering this combination, a rider can confidently walk
alongside his motorcycle and roll it merrily downhill aided by
gravity.

Right here I want to warn you that it pays to immobilize the
motorcycles ignition. Make sure the key is off, the kill switch
activated, and it couldn’t hurt to pull the plug cap off.

Here’s the reason: every use of the clutch to brake the rear
wheel will be an attempt at engine rotation. Indeed, as the
engine rolls over top dead center a seemingly completely
stopped rear wheel might lurch forward an inch as the engine
sighs down the exhaust stroke. The reason for immobilizing the
engines ignition is that even the hardest starting, fiendishly
recalcitrant son of a bitch engine has been known to START UP
with the tiniest rotation!

With the clutch already fully engaged and in low gear, aimed
downhill on the side of a mountain, the result might not be
totally desirable.

The possibility of ever having to bulldog the motorcycle is one
of the finest inducements for fitting a solid set of brush guards
over the handlebar levers.

Without brushguards, contacting a small tree trunk with the
clutch lever means an instant loss of rear wheel braking. This
might easily result in a lurching a few faster steps downhill.
Usually until another small tree trunk mashes the front brake
lever full on and the motorcycle tries to upend in a “stoppie”.

Right her the momentum of the rider gives him, or her, the
choice of sliding under the motorcycle or braking instantly by
hooking a tree in the crook of the elbow. Hooked to a tree and
stopped is a good time to review the situation and the rules.

There is a possibility, I think, that extensive motorcycle
bulldogging, and the practice of moving your hands in the
opposite direction, might actually help in avoiding a D.U.I.
somewhere down the road. Maybe this is the reason why there
are so few D.U.I. convictions in West Virginia.

Before I forget – when you get to where there is only fifty or
sixty yards of slope in front, it’s a good idea to hop on the bike,
snap the ignition on, shift up a few gears and let the clutch out
after it starts rolling downhill. Hopefully the engine will start.

If it don’t, you can call Hertfelder every bad name in the book
for suggesting you pull the plug wire off….